Today's R21-EC Mods

[SGIDAVE]

I was busy today.

I've been wanting to replace the warped board/bulkhead in the motor box. It looks bad

Here, the tear-down begins

And, now the board is completely removed

I also worked in a couple other tasks while I had the wiring all exposed. My boat came with factory AC but the original owner didn't like it so he had the dealer remove it. When I purchased the boat, it had a group 24 Deep cycle battery under the aft port seat plus the two usual group 24 batteries under the engine box (a starting battery and a deep cycle). Anyway, I wanted to move the deep cycle battery from under the engine cover (VERY HOT in there whilst underway) and connect it in parallel to the other deep cycle battery under the aft seat to give a bigger "house" bank. This would leave just the cranking battery under the motor box.

I THOUGHT this would take several days, requiring me to order custom length battery cables, etc. When I got down to it, though, it was very simple and I was able to recycle the no-longer-needed cabling so I didn't need to get anything new. Re-routing the bilge wire was a chore mostly because the factory had installed it so well originally (bundled with elect tape, then put inside of a split wire loom, then more tape and wire ties.

I would like to get a switch to turn off the 'house-bank' somewhere near the source. The switches in the pilothouse turn off the juice up there. Since there are only two battery banks, I eliminated one of the ACRs...so I have a spare now.

There was still a little daylight so I ripped out the factory raw water strainer. I like the looks of the Vetus model being installed on the 2014 21ECs with the Volvo engine. MUCH nicer strainer and it is mounted ABOVE the water line so safer too. You can see the new strainer in these two pics. In this first pic I'm running the engine on a hose connected to the "T."

Oh, here is the finished bulkhead board. Now the Yanmar coolant recovery tank sits straight(er).

I'm going to put my feet up now... 🙂

Fair Winds,

/david

 

[rt11002003]

Nice work, David!

gene

 

[SGIDAVE]

Nice work, David!

gene

Thanks Gene it was mostly fun.

/david

 

[RProffer]

Lookin good! 😎

 

[zodiacengineer]

I like the look of that new strainer. I think I see one in Happy Tuggethers future! Nice looking bulkhead too! Did you make a template?

 

[SGIDAVE]

I like the look of that new strainer. I think I see one in Happy Tuggethers future! Nice looking bulkhead too! Did you make a template?

Hello Zodiac,

I like the strainer too. A simple look and I can immediately see water pumping against the clear top and know my raw water pump is doing its thing. No more wondering for 10-30 seconds waiting for the water to start coming out the exhaust.

I used the old board as a template for the BOTTOM and STARBOARD edges. The PORT and TOP edges I made 1" and 2" bigger, respectively. A dry fit is mandatory before screwing it all back together. You could probably make it 3-4" taller without interfering with the motorbox cover.

/david