1987 300 Sundancer Manuals

Scorpio: your's is a newer model so maybe they learned by their mistake and moved the vent to the aft cabin.
Jeff: You have an 87 which is the same year as mine, but with a different (more modern?) panel. Is it possible that the AC in your boat was added after the boat was built?
Do you guys have a total of 2, or 3 vents? Mine has a total of 2. I'd like to play with the idea of adding a third in the aft cabin, but I'm not sure of how to hook it up on the AC unit itself. There is definetely enough air flow because the AC gets the cabin ice cold on a hot summer day, and the reverse cycle heat gets it toasty warm in the cooler fall weather. If I could just balance the distribution to the aft cabin it would be perfect. My kids sleep up in the V bunk and sometimes look like little ice cubes in the morning. Sometimes I wind up turning the AC off in the middle of the night and just let the fan keep circulating the cool air until the morning.
Scorpio: I'm pretty sure I have the same toggle switch in the head, and mine doesn't work either. I think it might be a switch to turn on the bilge pump for the shower sump. It's a nice feature for when the float switch craps out on you. Mine crapped out on me this summer. It was an easy fix once I got the new float switch, but getting the water out of that area to get to the switch was a PIA.
 
Last edited:
That shower toggle switch does turn on the cabin bilge pump. That's what mine does anyway. It's great using the shower, but when we're all done I have to go in and empty the water and dry it out. I wish I could add a box like the newer boats have! I keep a cut out milk carton and a scoop to get it as dry as possible.
 
Sundancer said:
That shower toggle switch does turn on the cabin bilge pump. That's what mine does anyway. It's great using the shower, but when we're all done I have to go in and empty the water and dry it out. I wish I could add a box like the newer boats have! I keep a cut out milk carton and a scoop to get it as dry as possible.
Click to expand...

Mine is probably the same as yours. It's just a cavity under the cabin floor outside the head. The float switch that is connected to the bilge pump down in there gets about 90% of the water out, but the rest needs to be pulled out manually. I keep a cheap dollar store turkey baster around just for that purpose. When I have nothing else to do I clean out that area with the baster, and wipe it down with some simple green and an old rag.
I have another cavity under the aft cabin where the thru hull for the AC, its strainer, pump, and the fresh water pump are located. The condensation drip tube for the AC unit (which is located under the rear dinette cushion) runs back in to this cavity and drains out there. There is another bilge pump and float switch in there, but like the other one it only gets all but the last little bit. It's another place I use the turkey baster to clean out when I get bored. This bilge pump is also controlled by a toggle mounted on the dash which is labeled "Forward Bilge Pump". Fortunately, that toggle works because that float switch crapped out on me the summer before last while we were doing an overnight on the boat. I noticed it when I found the little recessed floor under the aft cabin soaking wet before we went to bed. I pumped it out using the switch on the dash and replaced the float the next day.
I now keep an extra float switch in my little shed down at my slip.
 
Hmm, sounds like you have more bilge pumps in the cabin than I do! I only have ONE that is at the bottom of the V at the back of the aft cabin. That compartment shares space with the freshwater pump. So your shower pump is located on the backside of the shower wall in the aft cabin? Hmm, I wonder if I could plumb directly to that hose? I've got to take a look next spring!

My cabin bilge gets most of the water, but I don't have a check valve in the hose so it all runs back in! It seems like there is about a half gallon of water that the pump can't remove. So we all shower and I head into dry it out.
 
It sounds like I have one pump in the same spot as you do. That pump is the one that is labeled as "forward pump" on my dashboard. The freshwater pump, AC pump and strainer, AC thru hull, are in that same section, and the AC drip tube drains back in to it.
The pump for my shower is in a little section under the floor of the main cabin outside the head. The shower drains in to that area, and that pump is attatched to a float switch. I'm sure the toggle in the head is supposed to control that pump, but it doesn't work. One of these days I'm going to have to crawl under the head sink with a test light and see what the problem is. Hopefully it's just a bad toggle switch.
I wonder if there is a reason why they didn't install check valves with all the bilge pumps. They all spit back water after they shut off.
 
My boat is set up exactly the same as Sundancer. I'd like to see a picture of where that second shower sump is located on your boat JVM. There must have been a change to the cabin floor made from '87 to 89. I use a cheap Shop Vac to remove all the left over water from the foreward bilge. I've thought about adding a check valve to that line and may do that this spring.

I had a very strange thing happen last night. I haven't been able to use the boat for the last six weeks due to being too busy with work. So last night I went down to get ready to do some winterization work. I got on the boat and opened the A/C seacock and turned on the heat and I had no water flow from the pump. I cleaned the strainer and got a VERY small trickle. The pump was brand new this summer. I took a hose and flushed water thru the A/C in case anything built a nest in the thru hull, it flowed fine. I next back flushed the seacock/inlet with the hose thinking that those grape like things that grow in salt water may have clogged the water scoop. All this produced only a very weak stream of water but I was able to get heat. It was past 10:30 so I went to bed. I figured I'd have to clean the scoop when we haul out for the winter, although the stream of water from the strainer with the hose removed seemed pretty substantial. Today I went to put some pink juice thru the AC. I removed the hose form the strainer to the pump and put a funnel in it and turned on the AC and started to pour in the pink stuff, NOTHING. The pump wouldn't move any AF thru the compressor. I removed the four screws that holds the impeller housing on and remove the cover (Cal Marine pump). The impeller looked good and supple. I gently lifted on it and it slid right off with almost no effort. There is a set screw that holds the impeller to the flated shaft and I guess somebody at the factory didn't tighten it enough. Its weird because the pump has worked great all summer. I think the screw must have backed off somehow and was slipping on the shaft from the resistance of the water. I tightened it and reinstalled the cover and it sucked the pink stuff thru as fast as I could pour it into the funnel. So much for quality control in manufacturing.
 
Scorpio: The area with the bilge pump for my shpwer is just outside the head door between the head door and the dinette. There is a little removeable trap door in the floor to access it.
The AC pump needs to be primed. I usually have to prime mine each spring when the boat goes back in the water. Some say that if you just run around a bit with the boat with the seacock open it will self prime, but I've always just used an assistant and a garden hose.
This is the first year that I'm getting to do all the winterization on this boat because in prior years I wintered in a yard that required that they do all the work as part of the storage deal.
I picked up one of those little pumps that you drive with a drill at Home Depot for six bucks, about two feet of clear 3/4 tubing, and a cut off piece of old garden hose to winterize the AC.
The plan is to disconnect the hose that goes from the seacock to the strainer at the strainer side, hook up the 3/4 tubing to it (I honed the end of the tubing out a bit to make removal easier when I'm done), hook the other end of the clear tubing up to the six dollar pump, and hook up the garden hose to the other side of the pump.
I'm going to drop the garden hose end in to a bucket of pink stuff, and pump it through the AC system.
I had to get a couple of misc. fittings from the plumbing aisle at Home Depot, but they were only a couple of bucks each and now I'll have the set-up forever.
I'm think that this should do the job.
I should be getting to it sometime the end of this week. I'll let you know how it goes.
 
My floor between the head door and the dinette is covered with carpet and there is no access!
 
Mine is covered with carpet, put there is a little access door (also carpeted) that has a pull on it (same as cockpit hatch pulls) and it lifts completey off for access.
I'm thinking mine might be different because it is an 87 that came equipped from the factory with AC. They probably re-configured things just a bit for the 89's.
Do you guys have counter rotatiing drives on your 89's. The drives on my 87 both turn the same way.
 
Last edited:
Both my drives are standard rotation Alpha one gen one.
 
Same as Scorpio. I'd love to drive one with counter rotating props just for comparison purposes!

I've got to replace the Interphase 2801 depth finder on mine this year. I think that and getting the Kenyon stove rebuilt are the only winter projects! What a relief!
 
I wonder what year they went to counter rotating and what, if any, performance gains resulted.
It would be nice to have the counter rotating for docking.
 
One of my dock neighbors has a '99 Sundancer 300 with counter rotating props. It's like driving your car. Much easier to manuever.

Our '86 Sundancer has the 'shower sump' you're referring to. We don't use the shower so the bilge remains dry but there is a switch in the head that runs the sump pump constantly when turned on. The sump has a 'Rule' bilge pump that activates with a float or the switch in the head.
 
I have a 1986 30ft. Weekender the way I winterize the AC by pumping the pink stuff through the outside of the boat where the water exits to it comes out the back of the boat where the water comes in.
 
Just purchased a 1987 300da.
I got a great deal on her. I’m looking for any owners manual that covers my year or close to year. Any help with a Webb link or direct buy would be appreciated.
 
Some of those documents can be found on the Sea Ray website. Look for "Owners Resources" and then you can select Owners Manual, Speci sheet or whatever for your year, model and boat to see what is available.

www.Searay.com
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,143
Messages
1,427,171
Members
61,056
Latest member
Rafael Saraiva
Back
Top