Cost of Air conditioning repair

R

rmilian340

New Member
Oct 17, 2006
39
Ft Lauderdale, Fl
Boat Info
340 Sundancer 2005
Engines
twin 8.1 Horizons
Greetings,

I have a 2005 340 DA and my water pump for the air condition died. Any ideas as to what the price range should be for the replacement pump and labor? I am not very mechanically inclined.

Best regards,
 
Pump is about $200.........labor should be about an hour depending upon what , if anything, has to be removed to get to it.

In the grand scheme of all things boating, this is a pretty cheap one to have fixed at the dealership.
 
Just curious - how you know it died? Are you sure it didn't lose it's prime or a bad connection?
 
$200 isn't bad, but twice I've had knuckleheads tell me my ac water pump was dead. First time the line needed to be primed and second time the impeller (albeit a small little thing) needed to be replaced, and I run my ac/heat all year long.
Before I get dinged, I have a Mermaid pump that has a serviceable impeller. I'm sure marineairrr uses a powerful but non repairable model.
Dan
 
I replaced mine earlier this year. There was not much to it. I bought the replacement on line, and I'm pretty sure it was less than $200, but I'll have to check. The main problem was that there are 2 different series of pumps that are identical, except for materials and price. It took me forever to find out which one was original due to various companies having a hand in the packaging of the SR system.

Bottom line - buy the cheap one - it's the original equipment. The reason mine failed was that the previous owner dripped a lot of salt water into the ER right in that area - it was well corroded (hatch motor failure next?). I'm going to have to research to see if I just bought the electric motor or the whole assembly. I think I ended up getting it all, but I'll have to check Monday. I'll be out of town this weekend.

This is definately a great, do-it yourself starting job. There isn't much to it at all. About the worst part was re-routing the extensive wiring up into the swim platform to the original junction. They leave a lot of wire to get it up and away from the bilge before making any connections.
 
I just had the same thing happen. Newport Boats (the dealer in this area) quoted $500 for parts and labor. They are notoriously high for all repairs.
 
Hampton said:
I replaced mine earlier this year. There was not much to it. I bought the replacement on line, and I'm pretty sure it was less than $200, but I'll have to check. The main problem was that there are 2 different series of pumps that are identical, except for materials and price. It took me forever to find out which one was original due to various companies having a hand in the packaging of the SR system.

Bottom line - buy the cheap one - it's the original equipment. The reason mine failed was that the previous owner dripped a lot of salt water into the ER right in that area - it was well corroded (hatch motor failure next?). I'm going to have to research to see if I just bought the electric motor or the whole assembly. I think I ended up getting it all, but I'll have to check Monday. I'll be out of town this weekend.

This is definately a great, do-it yourself starting job. There isn't much to it at all. About the worst part was re-routing the extensive wiring up into the swim platform to the original junction. They leave a lot of wire to get it up and away from the bilge before making any connections.
Click to expand...

John, a link to where to get the OE pump would be great. Oddly enough, my pump still works great but the mount is rusted away from water dripping into the bilge and onto it. Most every 340 I looked at when looking to buy had the same problem. On mine, there is no ground wire connecting the pump body to the (mercathode?) grounding terminal block. How about yours? SB
 
Newbie said:
John, a link to where to get the OE pump would be great. Oddly enough, my pump still works great but the mount is rusted away from water dripping into the bilge and onto it. Most every 340 I looked at when looking to buy had the same problem. On mine, there is no ground wire connecting the pump body to the (mercathode?) grounding terminal block. How about yours? SB
Click to expand...

The pump is 120V AC, the case is grounded via the green AC ground in the triplex wiring. Do not ground the case to your boat's bonding system.

Don't worry too much about an "OEM" pump. It's only a waterpump- just make sure it has the minimum flow rating as the OEM pump and can mount in the same way as your original if you want to keep it simple.

If this is in an area where water is dripping into the bilge I'd move the pump to another location nearby if possible (pump inlet must remain below the waterline) or find out the source of the water and fix it.
 
The original pumps are March pumps which has be acquired by Dometic so the model numbers have changed from OEM parts listings unless its a very new boat.

Spend more money than the OEM design.........the more expensive pumps have sealed housings that protect the internal portions from drips.
 
March is a good brand. If you want to throw money at it, check out a self priming pump. You can locate it and the strainer in an easier to get at location above the water line. I understand they are noisier though. Worth a look.
 
March was acquired by Dometic, so you probaby aren't going to fin a March brand pump. There are several sizes, so you need to get your dealer to help you figure out the correct one or just get the numbers off you OEM pump.

As far as a spare.......I'm wondering how necessary this is as A/C is not a saftey or operational requirement for boating....i.e. you don't need A/C to be safe or get home. Besides, I owned my first boat 9 years and never changed the A/C pump and it was working fine when we sold the boat; my current boat is 12 years old and it's still on its first pump. Just keep the pump dry and they last a real long time.
 
i replaced my original pump in the summer of 2005. it was working but the flow at the forward discharge was anemic and i'd often get a shut down code that signified low water flow (forget the code now). i found it at boater's world and took the price to west marine and they matched it. it was $259 but b/c it runs two units, i had to get the larger capacity one (they break it down by BTUs but the real unit of measure is GPM. i cant find it on the boaters world site but this is it at west marine. mine was the 1000gpm (for 23K BTUs)

http://www.westmarine.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/producte/10001/-1/10001/120997/377%20710/0/seawater%20pump/Primary%20Search/mode%20matchallpartial/0/0?N=377%20710&Ne=0&Ntt=seawater%20pump&Ntk=Primary%20Search&Ntx=mode%20matchallpartial&Nao=0&Ns=0&keyword=seawater%20pump&isLTokenURL=true&storeNum=5002&subdeptNum=12&classNum=583

sorry but i see no need to spend $900 on a better pump. the impeller is not servicable but you can replace this thing 3 times and still be ahead. and if mine lasted 16 years, i doubt you'll ever have to replace it again.
 
Don't make the mistake of sizing the pump based on BTUs. In addition to the BTU size of the unit, the pump is sized also depending on the distance it pumps. The pump will be up-sized (gph) additionally based on the distance, both horizontal and vertical, from the pump to the A/C unit. Sometimes this requires going up a couple of sizes in the catalog. Always is best if you can see the model number on the pump before buying the replacement, and not the A/C unit.
 
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