410 Sundancer/Express Cruiser and 400 Sundancer/Express Cruiser **Official Thread**

Man she sure looks good and that engine room!!! Jealous of the room! Beautiful.

Heres to a short warm winter.

Dave
 
Bop spill! what do you use to keep you bilge so clean, how do you clean it and what works for you

Nothing top secret or anything. I am just particular about a clean engine room. Usually once or twice a summer I do a full engine shampoo and then do a quick wipe here and there when I'm down there. I did purchase the Cat paint color in acrylic and touch up the bolts with a brush once in a while where paint may have been removed.
 
I also have 3126s. This is my first winter with it on the Great Lakes and I am wanting to do my own. I am unsure how to make sure I get everything winterized. Mine is on stands, I thought about using a bilge pump and five gallon container to pump through the engine.
I was just going to disconnect the hose from the sea water intake and connect to it. Will this work? Can I start the engine and pump it with in while on stands? How can you “crank” the engine and make sure it doesn’t start? I know I can turn the fuel off, but it is still primed. Sorry for dumb question. On gas engine I would just disconnect spark.
I would love to know what others are doing. I also read that the antifreeze ruins the impellers. Do I just remove them after filling the engine?
 
Last edited:
This is my second year with the 3126’s.
I changed fluids, filters winterized all systems, and generator at my dock before bringing her around to the boatyard. Once the boat was blocked up I winterized my motors.
Last year, with the boat blocked up, this is what I did for each motor:
I removed the intake hose from the through hull and placed it in a 5 gallon bucket full of the pink antifreeze. I had a second bucket standing by next to me in the bilge with more pink antifreeze in it.
The total amount of antifreeze was 7 gallons between the two buckets.
I had an assistant at the helm start the motor and I poured antifreeze in to the first bucket from the second bucket as the raw water pump sucked it up.
As soon as I saw the bucket of antifreeze was about to be empty I told my assistant to kill the motor.
Repeated procedure for second motor.
It took longer to open the 7 bottles of pink for each motor than to winterize them.
I changed the fluid and filters in my transmissions this past week and plan to do that every other year. I average about 50 hours a year.
I’ll probably be starting on my winterization next weekend and coming out of the water sometime the following week.
 
Last edited:
Thanks! That helps.

What other items need done. I cleaned out the waste tanks repeatedly. I flushed a gallon of pink stuff down each toilet (I have two) but is that enough? Does it hurt to leave that in anything?

How do you treat the fresh water system? In the tank and pump it in with a hose on the fresh water connection?

I also have a Koehler generator, how much antifreeze needs to go through it?
 
The idea is to remove water from anywhere it may be and replace it with pink antifreeze.
Sounds like you have the heads covered.
I bypass and drain the hot water heater, blow out the system through the dockside water inlet with my portable compressor, then for good measure I pour two gallons of pink in the fresh water tank and turn on each faucet/outlet until some pink comes out. It isn’t necessary to do both, you can do one or the other and will be fine, but pink is cheap and we don’t drink from the fresh water tank so I do both.
Empty and clean the shower sumps and AC drip pans. Pour a little pink down each shower drain so it goes through to the sump.
Pump some pink stuff in to the AC lines. You can do it the same way you do the motors if you have the room. Another way to do it is to wait until you are blocked up. Use a hand pump and and container then rig up a hose to it that you can shove (and hold) briefly in to the discharges. Hand pump some pink in the dishcahrges until you see it come out of the intake on the bottom of the boat. I like to flush the AC lines with fresh water before I winterize them. If you’re doing it through the discharges you can just hold a garden hose tight against them. If you’re doing it through the strainer then you need to rig up a cap with a hose. Groce sells one for their strainers. You can also make one up for the Groco strainers with some PVC parts, hose nipple, and a suitable O ring from Home Depot.
I like to run a cup or so of pink through each bilge pump too.
Don’t know about your Koehler, but my Westerbeke takes about a gallon of pink antifreeze.
You need to use the right kind of antifreeze for your motors and generator. The kind that is polypropylene glycol for winterizing motors. Don’t cut corners and use the cheaper glycol alcohol that is made for water systems in your engines. For anything other than your motors and generator, use the cheapest stuff you can find,. I usually get it from Walmart.
 
Anyone replace their cockpit fridge and know what model they used? I am going to replace my icemaker and need to know what I should order.
 
Has any one pulled/removed the generator from a 410 with 3126 CATs? How did you do it?

Obviously the exhaust tubes have to come out, but I'm wondering what else? I'm thinking once the tubes are out of the way, I can get it out by tipping the top inboard. Tough, but not impossible.

If I can get the generator out, at a minimum, it needs some service, clean-up, corrosion control and paint. While it is out, I can easily replace the muffler, and as a bonus get to all that tough to reach stuff on the outboard side of the starboard motor (water pump).

If all goes smoothly, I might move the generator battery over to that side to free up space for a larger house bank, and see if I can get a sound sheild in that space.

All advice apprciated.

Dave
 
RPM gauges act wonky - sometimes i'm getting double the reading (ie - normally idle at 620rpm; when i restart it will read 1240... bad connection? where to start?
 
A lot of us have had to deal with this. Sea Ray tachs are made by Teleflex and they have proven to be far from reliable. Most everyone ends up with Aetna digital tachs, but the Sea Ray tachs are inexpensive and easy to get from a Sea Ray dealer . Both are plug and play and connect to existing wiring.

One other point, if your engines are set to idle at 620 rpm, they are idling too slow. They should idle at 750 rpm.
 
A lot of us have had to deal with this. Sea Ray tachs are made by Teleflex and they have proven to be far from reliable. Most everyone ends up with Aetna digital tachs, but the Sea Ray tachs are inexpensive and easy to get from a Sea Ray dealer . Both are plug and play and connect to existing wiring.

One other point, if your engines are set to idle at 620 rpm, they are idling too slow. They should idle at 750 rpm.
Ok. Thanks. Since it doesn’t happen all the time I’m hoping it’s a loose “something” but maybe not.
 
Anyone recovered the helm seat? From what I’ve researched I should take my existing to a local shop and “bend over” for the price.

Also - need carpet runner for galley floor. Again local sunbrella shop I assume. Not sure why someone doesn’t sell this as a replacement part...
 
Has any one pulled/removed the generator from a 410 with 3126 CATs? How did you do it?

Obviously the exhaust tubes have to come out, but I'm wondering what else? I'm thinking once the tubes are out of the way, I can get it out by tipping the top inboard. Tough, but not impossible.

If I can get the generator out, at a minimum, it needs some service, clean-up, corrosion control and paint. While it is out, I can easily replace the muffler, and as a bonus get to all that tough to reach stuff on the outboard side of the starboard motor (water pump).

If all goes smoothly, I might move the generator battery over to that side to free up space for a larger house bank, and see if I can get a sound sheild in that space.

All advice apprciated.

Dave

Previous owner replaced the generator on my boat with a brand new Westerbeke in April of 2016. I remember asking how they got the old one out and new one in.
They told me they removed the aluminum deck support and exhaust on starboard motor.
Looks tight to me but doable as a three man job. One guy to operate whatever you’re lifting it out with and two more to guide it.
Taking that support out opens things up a bit. I remove mine when servicing the generator (oil filter & impeller) or changing the fuel filter on the starboard motor.
 
RPM gauges act wonky - sometimes i'm getting double the reading (ie - normally idle at 620rpm; when i restart it will read 1240... bad connection? where to start?

This will usually work:
Pull the panel out to access the back of the tachs. There is an adjustment back there that a small flat blade screwdriver fits in to.
Take note of the position of that adjustment screw.
Use a screwdriver to twist it back and forth a few times.
Return it back to the original position.
 
Anyone recovered the helm seat? From what I’ve researched I should take my existing to a local shop and “bend over” for the price.

Also - need carpet runner for galley floor. Again local sunbrella shop I assume. Not sure why someone doesn’t sell this as a replacement part...

Ask around for recommendations for vinyl guys. You can probably save a few bucks by removing the seat and bringing it to a shop rather than having them come back and forth to you.
As for the carpet runners: you’re better off having them made for your boat so the snaps get put in the right places.
If I were having a new set made I would modify it a bit for more coverage than the originals provide.
There are supposed to be 3 pieces. The large salon piece, another small one on the step outside the aft head, and the third on the main floor area in the aft cabin.
I’ve actually got two sets. The previous owner held on to the originals when he had new ones made. The originals get installed for the Winter while the newer ones are home getting washed, re-waterproofed, and ready for the Spring.
 
Previous owner replaced the generator on my boat with a brand new Westerbeke in April of 2016. I remember asking how they got the old one out and new one in.
They told me they removed the aluminum deck support and exhaust on starboard motor.
Looks tight to me but doable as a three man job. One guy to operate whatever you’re lifting it out with and two more to guide it.
Taking that support out opens things up a bit. I remove mine when servicing the generator (oil filter & impeller) or changing the fuel filter on the starboard motor.
I just removed our metal support to do maintenance. I couldn’t see how getting the generator out without moving the motor was going to be possible.
 
Previous owner replaced the generator on my boat with a brand new Westerbeke in April of 2016. I remember asking how they got the old one out and new one in.
They told me they removed the aluminum deck support and exhaust on starboard motor.
Looks tight to me but doable as a three man job. One guy to operate whatever you’re lifting it out with and two more to guide it.
Taking that support out opens things up a bit. I remove mine when servicing the generator (oil filter & impeller) or changing the fuel filter on the starboard motor.

JVM, by removing the support and reinstalling, do you get incredible vibration? Do you reinstall the screws? maintenance on the Gennie was a big PITA this year with that there and now that I see someone has removed it was just curious for future purposes.

Thx - Erik
 

Forum statistics

Threads
112,945
Messages
1,422,752
Members
60,928
Latest member
rkaleda
Back
Top