I'm never going to be able to enjoy this boat for its purpose if I don't get this figured out. Driving me CRAZY!!
Boat: 2017 Cougar FTD Flow-Rite Remote Drain Plug. No visible holes or cracks on outside of hull.
When I use the remote plug turn handle from driver seat it goes in hole but with quarter inch to spare. So I have to get under boat to push it in the rest of the way. The very first time I took it out as the owner it took in a tremendous amount of water rather quickly. I happened to open up the bilge lid and noticed water already up to base of batteries before we even left idle zone. I just bilged it all day. After taking boat out I noticed for the first time that plug needed to be pushed in flush by hand. Even though that defeats the purpose of a remote drain plug, I figured I had issue resolved. But it's not. Now when I push plug all the way in and launch, I'm still taking in water but not AS BAD as before. But still something is not right. I manually bilged my boat the other night before going to bed while it floating on the water. 7 hours later the water was near the top of the lower bilge area and getting near bases of batteries (my automatic float switch does not work for some reason even though it raises like normal and I hear the thing moving around in it but that's another issue). So that day I manually bilged it and immediately got my body and head with flashlight as deep in the bilge area as possible and just watched. I can see water coming in but can't say for sure from where. It almost looks like an upwelling of water when the flashlight light hits a certain area. Once pushed all the way in before launching, the plug stays in the hole flush like it's supposed to while running lake etc. When I pull boat on trailer and immediately inspect I see water draining from only the left circular vent on lower back of boat (no water exiting the right if this is even relevant to issue). I see no water draining out of the drain plug area even though there was plenty of it in the bilge area.
So does that mean no water could be coming IN the drain hole from around the plug? I have inspected all hoses and clamps the best I can and see no water dropping off of anything.
I would just put a standard plug in drain hole to see if that fixes the issue. But I don't think I can get it around the Flow-Rite plug. And I don't want to just go tearing stuff up just yet. I don't want to badmouth the Flow-Rite drain plug but it already doesn't serve it's purpose but is a lot of hardware to just remove or do away with. It's possible I'm focusing in the wrong direction as far as the culprit for water intrusion but have to start someplace.
All comments and suggestions are welcomed. Thanks