I guess I was right, the master head is broken, darn.  Good thing we have two heads!

Gary had to go down the front hatch which is closest to the vacufush pumps so see what the problem is.

Down in the belly of the boat

He figures out that a set screw has come loose in the pump.  He just read an article about how you should check screws and bolts occasionally to make sure they haven’t come loose. Point taken.  But really, who’d a thought you had to check your set screws on your pumps?So he found the problem but he can’t quite get the set screw to go back in place.  And the hatches just don’t quite line up to make it an easy fix.

Other hatch by main toilet

He has to take the whole pump out just to fix a crumby set screw.   That means cutting wires, taking off hoses, putting in hose plugs so nothing leaks.  Sounds like a fun job and all just because of a little set screw.

If you are going to all this trouble, you might as well replace the hoses (they can deteriorate after a while and then, P U!), the hose clamps and the duckbill valves (these can also wear out, especially if there is a lot of pooping going on 😉 ).  The duckbill vales are located in the pump itself

Motor

So off to Lowes to get 4 make shift plugs

Home made hose plugs

Then back to the marina to pick up new hose and hose clamps.  The Touch of Class is some what prepared and we have extra duckbill values on board.

So Gary start off this project by heating up the hoses to get them to expand some so he can get the hoses off the the connections

Vacupump hose

Be sure to have a bucket ready to catch the stuff in the hoses.  Man oh Man!  That was one stinky bucket!  We had to spray a few bottles of Fabreeze around to get rid of that smell! But finally, Gary got the pump and the attached hoses out.

All out

You can see he even had to cut some power wires to get it out

Had to cut the power

There it is, the cause of this whole mess, a lousy set screw

Loose screw

So Gary cleaned everything off, changed the hoses, replaced the duckbills and tightened the set screw .  Unfortunately, I don’t have any pictures of that process.  See, I was pretending to be busy so I didn’t have to learn how do to that, cause if it happens when he is not around you can bet your bottom dollar that I am going to be letting my fingers do the walking and I’ll be hire someone to change those bad boys :).

Then Gary gathered all his tools that he would be needing to put this thing back together

Getting the tools out

Tools for the task at hand

Then he went back down the hold and re-attached everything

Back down

Peek-a-Boo, I see Gary!

One of the problems with all these tight spaces and taking an aspirin a day, is that Gary bleeds like a stuck pig.  We bought him some elbow pads to help with part of his arm, but the bottom got gouged by a hose clamp.  Watch out for those, they can do some real damage to your body parts.

Owie

I think we’ll have to invest in a full sleeve thing.  I wouldn’t want him to bleed out just repairing the boat :).

Now, everything is installed and it’s time to test the pump and check for leaks.  I flick on the master head switch and wallah!  It is working wonderful and best of all…..no leaks! Another good job by the Captain.  Hopefully we won’t have any problems with the other head for a loooonnng time :).