Bass Fishing Forum - Westernbass.com

So my main live well on my boat is leaking somewhere between the intake and the live well...if I don't plug the intake my boat takes on water..so I have to assume the hose from the intake to the well is cracked or something. It seems a Bit$% to get to to even check so heres what I'm thinking.

I can fill it up externally via a siphon, but the arriator doesn't seem to work either...so do you think buying a battery powered arriator (like the ones for live bait) would be good enough to keep bass alive?

I don't really need the live wells, I don't tournament fish but it would be nice to be able to be able to do a Cast for Kids event or things of that nature.

I don't know about your boat, but there is a removable plate in the battery compartment in my TR 177 that allows access to the bilge area. I can easily get to the livewell hoses and to the pump and valve.
It isn't a hard fix to open it and check the valve, fittings and hoses.
If you can access the bilge area like I can, just plug the livewell intake, fill the livewell, and see if you can see water. As long as you have water in the livewell, you can run the pump and see if that's whats leaking, too.

I have an '87 Champion. Honestly, I havn't 100% explored to see how to access that area, but it seems to me I'd have to remove the gas tank?? I could be way off here and probably am but my gut say's there no easy way to do it. I will definitely explore it more.

Take your live well pumps apart, twist the top off. replace the "O" ring in each one or buy new pumps and insert them into the old bodies. Bet that works for you.

Could be a cracked fitting between the pump and the hose, at the livewell end, or broken pump nozzle. Or plug it outside and forget it. Have done all three. Usually easy fixes.

Terry

Sound like a bad fitting or aerater cartridge. To access your aerater pump there is a plate between your livewell and gas tank. You need to find the screws to remove them and the plate and you will find the aerater pump in there. You can replace the cartridge and avoid buying the bait aerater.

lunker punker wrote:Sound like a bad fitting or aerater cartridge. To access your aerater pump there is a plate between your livewell and gas tank. You need to find the screws to remove them and the plate and you will find the aerater pump in there. You can replace the cartridge and avoid buying the bait aerater.

I had the same issue that Punker is talking about and it looked like she was taking on water... a little hairl line crack in the cartridge, under pressure = lots of water in the bilge. When you inspect the cartridge you can check the O-rings and hoses going to the cartridges....I hope its that easy for you.

It could also be the line to your flapper valve?

I have an 87 champ 18' with dual tanks. It's apain in the a$$ to get to those pumps. Need to remove the main tank and sometime the spare one also if if you need to check furture up. It could be anywhere from your line ,valve or pump itself.
Since you have it out it's a good time to maybe replace your bilge pump. The older boats have one ( 1 ) bilge pump so the last time I had my tanks out, I added another bilge pump for safety reason. It works off a different switch so I can run both or one at a time. I also didn't go with the auto pump and installed the manual model incase something got clog in the impellar and it'll never come on. If for some reason your boat takes on water for what ever reason, two pumps are better than one.

The pumps are accessible in my '95 Champ 190DCX. Just take out the batteries and floor plates and cover behind the livewells. Hope yours is like mine and not like fishwithron2's.

Good luck.

Yep to my knowledge you will have to remove the tanks to get to the problem, it won't be a tough as you may think and needs to be done. Boats takin' on water = bad news.. thru the process of repair you willl learn good knowledge on your boat and as mentioned time for a new bilge pump or two the fix mostly won't cost much..if the problem is valves in intake-- drain hoses you can find them in auto parts stores commonly used as heater core valves in auto and trucks.

Thanks for the replies. Sounds like my assumption about taking out the gas tank was correct, which means I'll just keep the intake plugged and not have a rear live well.