Official 390 E.C. Thread


Pure84GTT
Great video, I have enjoyed all of your videos, having just completed what you are starting I can appreciate what you are going through. One question I have is why are you leaving a hole in the floor beneath the water tank and also it looks like there is a hole in the stringer on the port side also, aren't you afraid of water getting below the floor if any ends up in the tank area? like if the shower sump ever overflows, I know there is a drain line for the sump but it happened to my boat prior to me buying it....just a thought
 
When I repaired my FW tank several years ago, I discovered that the hose on the back of my fridge was draining onto the floor. While the tank was out, I ran a 1/2" pex pipe back to the shower pump box in the hall to take care of that issue.

I know that sounds like a good idea but isn't that an uphill run? I would think draining it into the forward bilge like the salon AC does may work better.
 

I admire your ambition. Restoring a neglected boat the size of a 390 is a labor of love. I am curious as to how the tank repair is going. The tank in my 390 is a 85 gallon poly and was installed in the boat (poorly I might add). I made the needed repairs to the cross braces and it has been good for 7 years. If the tank is questionable I would encourage replacing with a poly tank.

Also. while you have the staircase dismantled maybe you should consider adding a 3rd step to decrease the height of the stair riser dimension. It's a good thing they don't have building codes for boats. The stairs in most boats would fail miserably.
 
I am not done. I will be patching those holes.

The current hold up is the shop that has my FW tank.

I discovered all those holes when I removed the tank... surprise !
 
Pure84 >> is there foam beneath the floor that you can see through the hole? Water logged?
I'm replacing the fw tank on my '87 390 now... The tank was in bad shape and leaking badly for who knows how many years before I bought the boat December 2017....under my floor water water water and more water...trying to get it to dry out will take years it seems..
 
Pure84 >> is there foam beneath the floor that you can see through the hole? Water logged?
I'm replacing the fw tank on my '87 390 now... The tank was in bad shape and leaking badly for who knows how many years before I bought the boat December 2017....under my floor water water water and more water...trying to get it to dry out will take years it seems..
BigPHat - remember to soak the area that had water in the hull areas before closing this all back up with a bora care solution. That will prevent any further deacy from happening in the stringers or other exposed wood. Maybe you were aware, just want to make sure.
 
BigPHat - remember to soak the area that had water in the hull areas before closing this all back up with a bora care solution. That will prevent any further deacy from happening in the stringers or other exposed wood. Maybe you were aware, just want to make sure.
gdavis>>> thank you for the info! I'm not aware of much LOL...brand new to big boats.
What is Bora Care? My first puzzle is how, without major surgery, to get it to dry out.... I did not expect to find the foam down there...I drilled two holes in the floor in the hopes of just vacuuming it out but...
 
Ok, this will be my first post but I have been reading and learning from a few of you on your posts. Last year I found water coming from the fresh water tank and decided this spring to replace it. After reading a bunch on here I figured I would find liquid under the subfloor in the open cell foam searay injects under it. Sure enough it was saturated. I removed the subfloor, removed the foam and dried the whole thing out. After a few weeks of running a furnace blower on it and running a dehumidifier 24/7 I figured it was dry enough to proceed. Nope, arrived one day to 2-3 inches of water in the v of the hull below the subfloor. Dried it up again and it kept returning for a day or so. Started checking possible sources and could find nothing wrong any where. Things I checked. T fitting through the bulkhead that circulates the water through the heat exchangers for the two heatpumps, Condensation pans for the heat pumps and the drain tubes for them. As most of you know the forward heat pump drains into the shower sump and the rear one drains through the bulkhead into the engine room. I replaced the rear drain tube and ran it all the way to the rear engine room sump. I also re siliconed the condensation pan where the hose goes through. I traced the front condensation line to the shower sump and there are no leaks there. Also, since the first issue I have only been running the heat pumps on heat not ac so there is no condensation from them to cause the problem again. I also dried up the engine room completely and sealed a leaky transducer(pulled the boat from the water) in the unlikely event of water penetration through the bulkhead. So, yesterday(2 weeks after last water issue, been completely dry until this point) the wife and I were at the boat. I was installing a new kitchen sink faucet and water purification system. Up until this point I hadnt tested the new water system for leaks(forgot to mention everything has been put back together). I filled the tank and saw no visible leaks(new poly 80 gallon tank) and I ran the 12v water system to purge the antifreeze and test for leaks and proper operation. No leaks and everything seemed good. Then I hooked up to city water and also ran the system and again everything looked good. I didnt mention that during the process of putting everything back together I decided to leave an access in front and behind the tank in the subfloor to monitor if the problem happend again. I think you can guess the next line, it happend again. Probably 5 or so gallons of water in the bottom of the hull below the subfloor. Its been bone dry for 2 weeks. All I can remember that I did yesterday was, turned on the refrigerator for first time(its dry behind it) filled the new water tank and ran on the 12v and ran off the city water. Also, it poured like cats and dogs last night(i cant recall if it rained or not last time). The water that I pulled out is clear. My thought is that if the water system was leaking (except for the section from the city inlet to wherever that ties into the system) then I should have antifreeze under the subfloor and the water I removed should have been slightly pink with an alcohol smell. Same thing with the drain lines if they leaked. If the refrigerator were able to produce 5 gallons of condensation then I would assume some of it would have to be on the floor behind it and besides, how would it get under the subfloor anyways. The rain I suppose could be possible but I'm confused how it would get from the the outside of the boat to the very bottom center without making anything on the interior wet. So, thats were I'm at, totally confused. I am going to rig up a pump to alleviate the problem as it arises but what I really would like to do is solve the mystery of where it is coming from and fix it. Any help or idea is welcome. At this point I will try or investigate almost anything. I am going to mark up some pictures and try to upload them to clarify some of the details (new to uploading pics on here so quality sucks, the pics show my 2 access points and the third pic is just for reference to show where I am seeing the water not how much I had this time, the amount I had this time was a whole lot more than the tiny bit shown in that pic). Thanks for any help in advance.

How did you get the foam out?
 
BigPhat, boracare is a wood rot preventative treatment. You can google or find on Amazon. Electrical doctor ( I think) was the first one on here to post about it's use. If you are in salt water, there is no need as the salt will prevent wood from rotting, but fresh water will need some sort of treatment if your stringers are wet or have been wet to prevent decay. The best way to get the foam out is dependent on the hole you have in the floor. If you are only cutting small round inspection ports, dig in with any tool you can get in the hole, break up the foam, vacuum out. If you are replacing the tank and removing sections of flooring, you can cut larger access holes and cut out the foam in chunks. No substitute for digging, in the foam.
 
BigPhat, boracare is a wood rot preventative treatment. You can google or find on Amazon. Electrical doctor ( I think) was the first one on here to post about it's use. If you are in salt water, there is no need as the salt will prevent wood from rotting, but fresh water will need some sort of treatment if your stringers are wet or have been wet to prevent decay. The best way to get the foam out is dependent on the hole you have in the floor. If you are only cutting small round inspection ports, dig in with any tool you can get in the hole, break up the foam, vacuum out. If you are replacing the tank and removing sections of flooring, you can cut larger access holes and cut out the foam in chunks. No substitute for digging, in the foam.
Thank you gdavis! I posted that question in reply to a much earlier post by mrfixit...in his photos it looked like he got one hundred percent of the foam out.
 
New marina with the new GFI system. And boat is causing GFI to shut off when both power cords plugged in. This is a up coming issue for older boats. Anyone encounter this with their boats. And how does one overcome this
problem?
 
New marina with the new GFI system. And boat is causing GFI to shut off when both power cords plugged in. This is a up coming issue for older boats. Anyone encounter this with their boats. And how does one overcome this
problem?
What is the difference between the old and new?
 
Finally got splashed yesterday! What a great feeling to be back to our summer home. Realized just how dirty the boat gets sitting in inside storage for the winter, may have to make a better plan next fall. Exterior is clean and shiny but I've got work to do inside this weekend (which makes me happy). Will post pics and update list from winter projects soon. Hope to see many other 390er's splash soon as well.
 
Finally got splashed yesterday! What a great feeling to be back to our summer home. Realized just how dirty the boat gets sitting in inside storage for the winter, may have to make a better plan next fall. Exterior is clean and shiny but I've got work to do inside this weekend (which makes me happy). Will post pics and update list from winter projects soon. Hope to see many other 390er's splash soon as well.

3 more weeks for us. Wah!!
 
Finally got splashed yesterday! What a great feeling to be back to our summer home. Realized just how dirty the boat gets sitting in inside storage for the winter, may have to make a better plan next fall. Exterior is clean and shiny but I've got work to do inside this weekend (which makes me happy). Will post pics and update list from winter projects soon. Hope to see many other 390er's splash soon as well.

Looks like next Thursday or Friday for us, usually we are in by now but launching has been delayed some due to the weather, winter projects are all done just doing final touches on things this weekend so if marina stays on schedule we’ll be in for next weekend.
 

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