triton, water in livewells!!

[Marc132]

Hey again yall.   
Another question on my triton 186.  I am getting water coming in the live wells.  I know I have a little leak on one of the recirc pumps and is leaking into the bottom of the boat.  BUt my liveweels are filling up to the water line by themselves.  I am curious, since yall have much more experience then I do at this,  would it be coming in the intake? I think it is coming in from the pumps located on the transom with the little screen covers on the outside which I am calling intake.  I turn it on and the pumps kick on, but would they let water go thru them without them being turned on?   
What I am after is a dry livewell unless I want it filled and somehow they keep filling up.  I got new plugs for the bottom of both livewells, the little 1 inch plugs.  they are holding fine, far as i can tell but still wter comes in.. any ideas???

[BassBUFF]

Does your Triton have a knob/switch on the side panel for the livewells?

[Marc132]

yes it has the switches for all the controls and they all work.  What my issue is even though they all work..  water is coming into the livewells without my touching the switches. You can hear them once i turn them on.  It is kind of leaky i guess.  And I am not sure if the pumps will let water come thru them when not energized.  or if they are closed until they are turned on.

Tongiht I am going to fill them up with water from teh hose and see what happens.

[Warpath]

KC,

if it works anything like my Skeeter, if you leave the knobs open, water is going to flow in.  If you have them closed, and water is till coming in, you havea whole other issue.  That knob is connected to a valve, and sometimes it gets worn and the valve needs to be replaced.  That would keep the wate rout when it is closed.

I hope I'm reading this right...

Eric

[Marc132]

i just talked to a few mechanics and one told me about a valve somewhere.  I have 3 to 4 position switches, that control it all.  I do not know where this valve is located at. 
I put water in the livewells with the hose tongiht and they held water fine.  everythign seems to work unless i put it in the water!!  this is gettign under my skin!!

ill keep working on it and keep the ideas coming.  valve location and what it actually looks like woudl  help too.

[BassBUFF]

I believe Tritpn use the Flow-Rite system for their livewells. Check out their website and see what control you have on your boat then click on the correct system for a good diagram as to how it works. Hope this helps.

[Triton21x]

Depending on the year of your boat... the older Tritons have a valve on the right side of the drivers seat. 

Do you have this valve?  If so, that should rectify your problem?

When you put the boat in the water... how much water comes while utilizing the Bilge?

There's no way that water is coming into the livewells in that mass without you having water in other areas... and I would think due to weight this would impact the boats performance i.e. time to get on pad, rpms, etc...

Hope this helps!

Jeffery

[Marc132]

i do have a leak on one of the recirc pumps on teh port side livewell.  This would not be a problem as it is a setup where it takes water from bottom of livewell and pumps it back into the top, just a recirc.  that pump is leaking some into the bilge area.  otherwise I do not get much water in the boat.  thing is since i cannot stop teh water coming into the livewells...  the port livewell fills to the water line and then the pump leaks out into the bilge area.  I bilge it out in under a minute and am good to go. 
I called around with no joy on what the problem is.  One thing I did see yesterday as I was messing with them is that the plugs I have sort of screw down.. liek twist down on itself when you hold it in your hand.  maybe it was leaking from the underside.  Doesnt make much sense to me as I filled both livewells and they held water (minus the small port side leak I talked about earlier.)  I bought the plugs from walmart, the 1 inch plugs they sell, as teh ones i got with the boat were cheap and woudl pop out as soon as i put it in the water

Other then the plugs being bad somehow, I am at a loss.  I am going to try and get it in the water before the weekend to see if they still fill up.

[Marc132]

still no joy with this.  I took i tout last week and  put caps on teh two lower pumps in teh livewell and the water did not come in.  I dont think they fit exactly right as they did leak a little bit buit it is definately one of the pumps staying open and lettign water inside the livewells.  I go tto fix the motor now, but i am still working on this issue.  I am told ther eis no valve to shut off anything.  I really want this fixed as it is just a pain and I liek to have everythign working great on my boat.  I did fix the leak i had in the starboard livewell, now just got to figure out why water  gets in it.

I put water in the livewells and water stays in them!  If i do not want water  in them and when i just fish around  they fill up on their own!  I wish i could draw it out somehow to explain how it is set up.

[spetro]

I have a center console LTS 190.  I have the same problem.  I asked the dealer what my solution to this problem was since I wanted to use one live well for dry storage when needed. He told me to ball valve all incoming and outgoing lines leading to that live well.  Shut the ball valves off when wanting dry storage. 

Since I use my boat both inshore and off shore...I found the live well filling while off shore in rougher waters.  I have yet to do the valve installation....but I am really thinking about it.

[Jared LeBlue]

All livewells have an over flow valve and a drain. If you close your drain the water that is in your livewell will stay in there or in theory it should not let any water in through the drain. The problem with the plungers for the drains is they reall don't work well. You will find most of them will aloow some water in or out. There is a very simple solution to this problem. On the transom of your boat you will find two drain holes for your livewells. One is the overflow, don't mess with that one. The other is your drain and will be the smaller of the two. Plug the hole from the outside. I use a small plug that most boats have for their ice chest. If you plug it there will be no possible way for water to get in there unless of course you turn on your pump. You can still use it as a livewell even with it plugged because your overflow will take care of the water. When you pull your boat out simply remove the plug. I've been doing this for a little over a year now and When I open my livewell it is dry. I have to pump water in it. Ilike it that way because I'm not carinng around gallons of water when I don't need to. Until I catch a fish and pump water in there those puppies are dry.

[Marc132]

what type of plugs do you use..  I talked to Marty at Triton and he said that the only way to stop water coming in was to put a shut off valve in the mix.  The system is suppose to allow water in , the way the pumps are designed for this,  somethign about a rubber and plastic impellar??  i dunno.  he pretty much said that was the way it is and I am just kinda dealing with it.

My drain plugs are not leaking at all.  it is the pumps that are letting the water in.  It may be unique to tritons.

[Jared LeBlue]

I don't understand that. Here is the basic system on most if not all bass boat livewells. You have an areator pump. This pump pulls water from the through hull transom mount. You have a recirculation pump. This pump takes water that is in your livewll and recirculates it. This pump is basicall used when your boat is out of the water. You have a drain at the bottom of you live well. This drains your livewell. You have an overflow drain. This drain is set at a level above your boats water line. It allows you to hold more water in your livewell but does not allow it to over flow. Basically when the water reaches this level the water flows out of that drain and out of your boat through another hole in the transom. Some boats have an extra pump which pumps the water out of the livewell eliminating the need for a drain. So instead of their being a drain hole in your transom there will be one located somewhere on the cap of your rig and it takes a pump to push the water out of it.  With all of that said there should be no reason for your boats livewell to fill up unless you pump water into it or you have a drain and the water in coming in through there in which case the water will only fill your livewell to the waterline of your boat. Only when you turn the pump on and close the drain will it get higher. No water should come in through your pumps unless they are on. Your hose coming from your pump will eventuall get higher than the water line of your boat and water will not travel up unless pumped. That is why when your drain is not pluged the water in your livewell will fill to the water line on your boat and then stop filling. Water will not travel up, it's just that simple.

Look at the back of your boat. You should have a drain hole which is for you boat. You should have another hole with a screen on it. That is you pump. The screen is to keep trash oout of your pump. You should have two othe holes close to eachother and one will be bigger than the other. The bigger one is your overflow and the smaller one is your drain for your livewell. Plug the smaller one. You can buy a small plug from any boat marine. They use these little plugs for ice chest in boats. If your boat has a built in ice chest I can almost assure you it came with one of these plugs.

If you have a switch on your boat that you turn to close your livewell than I promise you there is a drain. That switch or whatever you want to call it is connected to a cable. Kind of like the cable for breaks on a bike. When you turn the switch it pulls the cable which pulls a plunger tight against the hose and blocks the water from flowing in and out of the livewell. These plungers are often not that great or over time the cable stretches and doen't apply the pressure need to hold the plunger in place therefor water will seep in and out of the livewell. The easiest fix is to do what I stated above a put a plug from the outside.

Let me know how things turn out.

[Marc132]

i will try this but i am tellign you these thigns are weird.  I do not have the cable  type/valve opening in this system.  My triton is a 1999 and marty said that it was either the first or second year they went without the valve/cable option because it didnt work very well.. his words.  Ill try it this coming weekend, but when i plug the connections on the inside of the livewells with pvc caps..  which are a different thread but  it would tighten somewhat.  I did not get much water at all in the liverwells.. maybe an inch or 2 after all day of fishing.  I unplug those pumps witht he caps on it and in an hour they are full to the water line.
My syatem has a drain in bottom,  a pump and switch for pumpout, an aeroator or recirc..  pumps from bottom back into the top of the livewell, and an overflow and intake in the very top.  3 pumps altogether
recirc, pumpout and pump in.  a drain and 4 other holes(pump hoses or whatever u wann acall it)  only one below the water line is the pump out and the bottom recirc pump.  weird thing is the pumpout exit hole is above the water line on the outside of the boat.

Ill try your idea and let ya know what happens.

thanks
Marc

[Jared LeBlue]

The pump out hole will be above the water line, normally on the driver's side on the cap of the boat towards the back. Most people use this to fill up their weigh in bags. Now it gets the water from the bottom of your livewell, that way it completely drains it.

[bass1cpr]

   Marc the valve Rattle is refering to is the shut off valve it's not really a plunger but a rotarty type with rubber flappers that open and shut off the flow in and out. The flappers sometimes wear out and get weak with time or there may be something holding the flapper partially open allowing water to flow. Quite common with this type of valve but it is one used in most bass boats.

[crazydave]

 the water is comming from your over flow drain when you put your motor in reverse it pushes water up though into your livewells