Float switches

[backman]

My aft float switch was not working this afternoon, which given a roaring nor-easter was a bad thing. I replaced the aft on at 4 years, now again at 8 years; the forward one has never given me a problem. I find the aft one does a lot of cycles in heavy seas and wonder if Rule float switchs only have so many 10's of thousands or 100's of thousands of cycles in them before they bite the dust. I also found the aft one would "stick" on every once in a while in heavy seas and required a trip dowm below to jiggle it off.

FWIW - I also figured that after 8 years while I was down there it was time to replace the pump proactively; it was scummy inside the impeller, but functionally perfect.

I bit the bullet in the replacement and got one of those integrated 2K/hour Rule pump switches - 189$; hopefully it will perform as well as the original one.

What a pain to get a Dewalt down in there to screw the new one's strainer plate in place! I need to find a limber 20 year old kid as crew.

[Split Decision]

I think everyone should have one of those as a crew member. I have one but he is a little older than 20.

When we were at the factory we were having problems with the freezer boxes loosing freon. Mac was just shaking his head when 2 of us were holding him by his feet when he went head first into the rear compartment to work on the copper lines.

I wish I had a pic of that one.