Livewell Overflow Pipe Options

[J.W.]

I boated my son and his fishing partner Sunday for the Louisiana Youth Bass Nation tournament on Toledo Bend. The boys did great. Would have placed 9th out of 200 boats and qualified for state, but on the way back to weigh-in, my overflow pipe broke and all the water got sucked out of my livewell while we were running. We opened the lid to get our fish out, and the livewell was dry and we had five dead fish. We ended up in 18th after our penalties and missed the cut (only top ten make it).

Needless to say, I have had a couple of sleepless nights and can't stop thinking about it.

Here's what the original overflow pipe looks like:You cannot view this attachment.

The black threaded part screws into the bottom of the livewell, and allows it to fill up to the top of the white pipe, at which point it begins to drain down the pipe to prevent over-filling the livewell.
On mine, the white portion completely came out of the threaded black part and let all my water out.

I am looking for another option for a drain plug. I do not care about the overflow function, I just need something that will not fail on me like this pipe did. I am not sure if a boat plug or push-in stopper will stay in since the hole is threaded. If I could find a threaded plug that would fit, that would be perfect, but I'm not sure it's a standard NPT thread pitch.

Any suggestions?

[J.W.]

Well, I decided to 3D print a plug to JB Weld into the threaded part, and get rid of the overflow pipe. It honestly wasted livewell water when running anyway.

You cannot view this attachment.

Took about 5 minutes to CAD and about an hour to print.

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In the above picture you can see the pipe that came loose from the black threaded portion, and the plug I 3D printed.

Here it is together:
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Hopefully I never have an issue out of it.


Also, we got some good news. Even though we didn't finish in the top ten, there were teams above us that double-qualified, and that opened up some slots. We ended up being the last team to qualify for state from that tournament.

[Princeton_Man]

Not sure how your livewell system worked but, overflow probably allowed fresh water to flow in while the warmer dirty water flowed out. If you have an aerator, that will help but, without water re-circulation ammonia will build up and kill the fish. It's likely the pipe was never properly cemented to the threaded adapter when it was made.

[J.W.]

That overflow pipe was just to prevent over-filling, and to act as a drain plug (at which it failed).

I only pump water into my livewell once in a tournament and keep that water all day. I'll add G-Juice, and if it's warm, I'll add ice, but I just recirculate that water all day through my aerator.

[Princeton_Man]

That overflow pipe was just to prevent over-filling, and to act as a drain plug (at which it failed).

I only pump water into my livewell once in a tournament and keep that water all day. I'll add G-Juice, and if it's warm, I'll add ice, but I just recirculate that water all day through my aerator.

Since that's worked for you in the past, you should be good to go.