2017 Cutwater 28 shower sump cleaning

[Thomas22]

Hi Folks:
I recently bought a 2017 Cutwater 28 that the previous owner did not take particularly good care of and the survey done did not catch. I'm trying to clean the shower sump which is next to the depth transducer. The sump's location is half under the shower floor which is inaccessible (as are the sump cover screws) and half in the depth transducer compartment. Any suggestions for getting the shower sump cover off for cleaning would be greatly appreciated... Thanks, Thomas

 

[GaryGuthrie13]

Hi Thomas, I know that this message is late, but I just joined, so I'll leave my experience with this issue in case somebody else can use it. I just bought a 2019 Cutwater C-28 LE and have a similar problem, except that my pump is not working. It's getting 12V, so it's either the float switch or pump, but I've decided to replace both. I found that after I removed the three hoses attached to the visible side of the box (have a shop vac running) to swing them out of the way toward the aft, and removed the four screws holding down the sump box, I was able to rotate it clockwise enough to get to the aft starboard screw location that was concealed under the floor. There was no screw in there. Rotating the box as much as I could in the counter-clockwise direction, I could barely get my finger back to that corner of the sump box to feel that there also wasn't a screw there either. So my box only had screws in the corners that were visible. After removing them, I was able to remove the lid. It appears that the lip of the lid was cut off on the hidden side, enabling the lide to slideoff toward the port side of the sump (toward the hoses). I assume that this was done on purpose by the factory, otherwise there isn't really enough room to lift that lid off. By rotating the box either way, I was able to remove the "filter", which seems to just squeeze between two plastic tabs on the sump box. Then I removed the pump and float switch. Note that there is a new version of the Rule 800 GPH pump that isn't an exact shower sump replacement, but I found one called the "Legacy Shower Drain Replacement Pump" on Amazon. The switch was also available on Amazon. I was actually tracking down a smell in the head (not the typical toilet smells, more like a musty/moldy smell) when I noticed that the shower wasn't draining very fast (I had just washed it with bleach and was rinsing). That led me to the sump, which was overflowing where the wires enter to the pump/switch.