FCF E1 troubleshooting

[Jcat2010]

Record heat here in the East. Yesterday got to the boat to find the AC down with a E1 code. Strainer was a bit dirty, but I've seen worse. cleaned it, opened breaker, waited, restarted and had good water flow and cooling. Ran continuously for 3 hrs - was above 100 in cabin. Then shut down on another E1 code. Backflushed, didn't look bad. Restarted. good flow. Then, after a few hrs another E1. Still no obvious clogs. This time, after clearing fault and attempting restart, it just went to E1 code. Pump never started. Multiple times.

As it was getting late, and still hot enough that we weren't going to get any sleep, we abandoned ship and went home.

Anyone ever see this behavior ? Failing pump ? Thermal overload on pump kicking in ? then resetting ? Ac worked fine for hours 3 days ago.

 

[KKRCRACE]

Mine shut down yesterday because of sea nettles and fish in the strainer. Cleaned everything and seems to be okay. You could possibly have growth around the inlet under the hull as I have had that. I found a round brush to clean from the strainer out to the inlet. It’s abnormally hot and maybe you’re okay. 4-5 years ago I had a problem in the heat and it turned out to be the capacitor, replaced it and it’s been running since. I’m in Maryland by the way.
Ken
Sunny Daze
C242

 

[Jcat2010]

Water flow is good. Backlash used out some silt, but far less that previous "clogs". Gotta wait until Monday to talk to koolair, and webasto, but since it ran for hours, then tripped, im hoping its just the seawater pump.

 

[IslandHopper]

Have you been doing the yearly maintenance of flushing the water lines with "barnacle Buster" or a mild acid solution? We don't have the webasto on our R27 (velair), but I believe it was in the webasto manual that it gives instructions for this maintenance (removing scaling from the heat exchanger in the heat pump. Not sure what E1 code is - but if it's high pressure this is likely the case (High pressure - no release of 'heat' so pressure builds up).

 

[Jcat2010]

Goid point. I backwash often. But haven't descaled in a while. Will do once I get this solved.

But this was the pump not running, no noise. It was hot and late and dark and I forgot about the overtime on the pump. Just dont know what's causing the overheat, it maybe it was just too hot in the bilge. Or maybe the motor is dying.

 

[Robert]

This mag drive pump motor has two cooling ports connecting to the pump head. They could be blocked.

 

[KKRCRACE]

I forgot to mention that in April of 2025 I had to install a new water pump for the AC. My boat is a 2018 and the AC runs a lot during the summer here in Maryland. The brush that I use to clean the intake line to the strainer is something I found on Amazon. Another thing I do a couple times a summer is use water pressure to blow out the intake line from strainer to the underside of the boat. I took an old garden hose and cut it about 12 inches long and it still has the female end on it. I wrapped tape around the end until it fit the strainer hole tight. Connected a garden hose to it and hold it in the strainer hole and turn the water on. Most of the growth is around the intake underneath. Even with growth around the intake I would still have what I thought was enough water flow but not. Fine line between enough and not enough water flow.
Ken
C24
Sunny Daze

 

[Jcat2010]

Thanks for the info about the cooling ports on the motor. I'm waiting on a call back from Koolair, but will add this to my list. Yes, as hot as it was in VA on friday, with 85 degree water, and 100+ air, the bilge was very hot. And the pump ran a very long time. So I'm trying to determine if it's something fixable, add to the PM list, or time to replace the motor.

 

[Jcat2010]

Following up to document resolution (at least until something else happens). After discussion with fcf their recomme nation was to measure water flow and strive for 5+ gpm. Initial mearurement was 4 gpm. Back flushing and cleaning got me to 4.5. During cleaning I noticed the impeller was showing damage. Replaced wet end and now at 5gpm. Also per fcf im working to replace the hard 90 discharge fitting with something less restrictive. Might get even more if successful.