More yard work - surprises with thru hulls

We continued prepping the boat for summer storage today and as part of the checklist we inspected and lubed all the thru hull valves on the boat. We started with the head sink drain valve and it broke - temporarily plugged till we can try to locate a replacement valve tomorrow (Easter Holiday here from Friday thru today).

Next was the engine raw water intake - valve moved easily but noticed that the stem nut was turning as the valve handle was turned. Removed the valve handle, unscrewed the stem nut and after removal discovered that the stem was fused to the stem nut. More on this later.

I had an old Y valve onboard that looks like it has the same stem and nut. Thought I would take this apart and use the parts to fix the engine valve - wrong. The stem packing was fused into the body of the valve - into the trash.

Next went after the head discharge thru hull/valve. In luck this time as everything came out easily and all was in good order. Since this thru hull was abandoned when we installed the LectraSan (waste treatment system) we were partially in luck. Cleaned everything well and lubed the parts with silicone grease and the engine raw water valve is now better than new.

Took the fused parts (stem nut and stem), a hammer, WD40 and a few other tools down off the boat and was able to drive the stem free from the nut and packing. The threads on the stem were shot so cleaned everything up, lubed everything, and reinstalled in the abandoned head discharge valve. This worked fine except that the handle cannot be secured to the valve - not an issue as we do not use this anyway.

Email post to Ip Mail list and request to Apollo (Conbraco) looking for a source of spare parts.

Issue - the thru hull fitting and valve is a large brass (bronze?) part that is secured to the hull by a screw in pipe that tightens against the hull and also with three large bolts, nuts, and washers. The ball valve itself is fine, just need some internal replacement parts, almost like new faucet washers on the home kitchen sink. If these parts are not readily available then all of this hardware has to be replaced ($$$ plus lots of time to remove the old fitting and reinstall the new one.

Kind of like replacing the car if you have a flat tire!