Two recent learnings I thought I'd share.
I have a '92 21-ft Champion. Absolutely love it. Recently when I was putting the boat up I heard a whirring through the drain plate on the floor in front of the middle seat despite the fact all my switches were off. Lifted the battery/gas tank comparment lid and my Perko switch was off too. But hte whirring was louder. I couldn't figure out what was causing the noise. Some suggested it was the bilge pump, which likely was wired directly to a battery. When I started taking connectors off my running battery the noise stopped. My mechanics found debris under the float of the bilge pump, cleaned it out and now everything's fine.
In my Champion the bilge is behind the wall/panel on the front side of the battery compartment. Not a friendly place for a mechanical klutz like me. While my mechanic friends (they're great...the guys at Burton Marine in Wills Point) had my boat I asked them to fix the live well. The cable that opens/closes the live well was frozen stiff. They figured out the cable in those old Champions runs under the big dual gas tanks and over time gets squashed. So they replaced the cable and ran it over the top of the tanks. Now everthing's fine. I hope this helps solve a mystery or two for someone else who's fairly new to the bass boat/fishing game.


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