Head System Modification/Safety Upgrade??

Here's one tossed out for comment from my esteemed HOF colleagues.

Aslan has three heads equipped with the latest '80's technological wonders--Galley Maid 32V pumps. #1, I'm not entertaining any upgrades. However, soon I will need to replace the sea strainer to their respective head pump 3/4" hoses. They are, all three, various degrees of hell on access. Likely, I'll have to abandon one or two. Further, never in the known history of Aslan has more than one head been flushed at a time. In fact, the bow cabin head is typically shutdown.

Why could I not run one hose (or PVC) from one sea strainer to the forward bilge and manifold it there to serve each head pump? This is much the same system we use for our HVAC units, right? The worst that I anticipate happening is a less effective flush should history be made and two heads be simultaneously flushed; that's no big deal.

So, if I

a. eliminated two below-the-waterline hoses;
b. and I replaced the sea strainer hose barbs with bronze plugs,

wouldn't that be a good thing? Have to add ball valves to isolate the heads after the manifold.

Would not elimination of the seacocks themselves during a future bottom job be an even better thing?

What sayeth y'all?

PS: Remember I have sensitive feelings.

Or, add a pickup to your water tank attached to a valved manifold, don't forget the check valve back to the tank, and run your GM heads on fresh water.
Think we used 1" pvc pipe for the pickup tube into the tank.
Now you can eliminate 3 thru hulls.

When we did this we had 3 heads, now only 2 as we converted the v berth head into a tackle room.
Also, the remaining 2 heads share a common discharge thru hull.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Cricket

Or, add a pickup to your water tank attached to a valved manifold, don't forget the check valve back to the tank, and run your GM heads on fresh water.
Think we used 1" pvc pipe for the pickup tube into the tank.
Now you can eliminate 3 thru hulls.

When we did this we had 3 heads, now only 2 as we converted the v berth head into a tackle room.
Also, the remaining 2 heads share a common discharge thru hull.

---

Very good. Thanks for the input.

Forgot one thing, we have to be careful not to overfill the water tank as sometimes the bowls will flood.

The fewer thruhulls the better. When I repowered a couple of years ago, I had a total of 8 unused thruhull removed and glassed over. My boat used to have 3 GM heads each with discharge. They had been capped in the late 90s when the GM were replaced by VF.

I sleep much better with far fewer holes... I m down to just 4 thruhulls. I even removed the macerator TH and added an above WL discharge

I think Raz carries a freshwater conversion kit.

I’m not sure if you use a manifold if one head might suck air from the other head, possibly causing the non-flushing head to lose prime. Might need check valves or backflow preventers.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by davidwigler

I’m not sure if you use a manifold if one head might suck air from the other head, possibly causing the non-flushing head to lose prime. Might need check valves or backflow preventers.

---

Well there you go. The braintrust comes through again. Thx

Should have explained our check valves previously, each manifold outlet has a check valve and a shut off valve. Never have had a priming issue..

The GM freshwater kit is for using pressurized water from the fresh water system which we did not want to do for 4 reasons.
All of our GM heads were only 2 years old, didn't want to add something else to possibly leak on the pressurized side, didn't want 2 pumps to run at night when flushed, and it was much easier for us to just run the hoses to the water tank anyway.
We got 21 years before we had our first GM pump issue, 2 years using saltwater and 19 with freshwater. Not bad.

I am in the process of rebuilding all 3 GM heads on my 84 55'. I am also entertaining the thoughts of converting to freshwater flush using the Raz systems. Can anyone give me an overview of what it takes to construct a pickup in the freshwater tank. The Raz system, as I understand it, creates the pressure at the pump and pulls water directly from the tank. I like the idea of removing 3 thru hulls and strainers.
Guy