Livewell Valves... easy fix?

[Garza200ProXL225]

Hey guys...

I've been walleye fishin up here for the past couple weeks and have taken home some fish to eat.... throughout the day I keep them in my livewell except I have a small problem... The water in my wells keeps emptying out somehow...

While fishing I have my valves on auto, and it only loses a little bit of water, and I have to switch on the auxilereies every so often to keep them full...

When running I flip the valves to recirc, and it always kept the water in... now it doesn't... I checked my overflow plugs and they're in... I go to run a 1/2 mile and I open up my wells and my fish are high and dry...

I also notice that my bilge will come on and just pour alot of water out...

I'm suspecting either I have a leak somewhere, or my valves are jacked...

What do you guys think?

Jose

[PJCodner]

If your livewells are dumping into your bilge then it sounds like you have a leak somewhere. You may want to check around the fittings on the live well. Sometimes too the valve that allows the live well to fill/drain gets clogged with sand etc. You could always take a garden hose and force water up the drain with the valve open to see if it dislodges anything. The drain valve could also not be closing all the way either.

If you can't find the leak in the live well put some food coloring or dye in the live well when it is full and see if you can see the colored water coming out. That is also a good way to see if there is a leak in multiple live wells but you are not sure which one is leaking.

[Garza200ProXL225]

Yeah I was gonna try something like that today...

[ChampioNman]

Check and see if you have the T&H valves or the Flow-rites, Flow-rites are the best. If you have to re-plumb then get the complete package from them as their cables are 180 out of T & H. Also check the top of your live well for gaps to the top cap.

[Garza200ProXL225]

Well I pulled the boat out today and filled up my wells to see what the deal was...

And it is one of my livewell pumps... it is leaking pretty bad...

I shot the hose through the hose to shoot any debri out and I opened and closed them and made sure they were opening and closing...

When on Auto, the valves release no water at all... and when on Recirc, there is a small trickle of water... which I think is pretty normal... the trickle of water from the Recirc wasn't enough to lower the water level much... it did but I don't think it is anything to be concerned about...

The pump on the other hand is another story...

Thanks for the help...

Jose

[mrbassfla]

if you have the pump out opp on your boat inside your well you will have the handle that you pull out to pump water out , unscrew that pcs of pvc val , you will see that a small pcs of it might be broke that deverts the water from the well to the pump out .easy fix. my did the same thing.