Seacocks

[Gary Moody]

Hi all. We have been having trouble with our Spartan seacocks being difficult to open and close. We decided to have the yard service them while they were doing some other work on "Savannah". Now they are just as hard to open. We asked the maintenance person who did the work why they are so difficult to open and he told us that we need to loosen the bolt on the opposing side to open the seacock and then tighten it up again. So that each time we open the seacocks we have to find a wrench to loosen the opposing nut. I've never known this to be true on any other boat, and would appreciate the opinion of the board here. Thanks. Gary

[RichMason]

There are people who are more expert than I on this issue but I just purchased a new seacock from Spartan for my 79 CD 28 and I can assure you that it is quite smooth and easy to operate without having to touch the nut. Furthermore, I regreased all of the other Spartan seacocks at the same time and most of them are quite easy to operate. The one exception is the seacock for the overboard head discharge, which appears to be of a different design. It has a three inch sliding tee handle on the nut which I have to loosen to open and close the seacock. It leaks water around the barrel until I tighten the nut handle with the lever open or shut. I did not regrease or disassemble this unit so I don't know if it is meant to function this way or not. I think that instead of dealing with the nuts on your seacocks you need to address the nut who worked on your boat.

[Guest]

You got the usual boatyard hose job. Deny, Deny, Deny there is anything wrong with the work they did. They may not have even serviced the seacocks and charged you for it.

Properly greased and adjusted, seacocks will move with the force of two fingers. See the archives for more information on how to maintain them. I use Morley's Red and get 2-3 years of trouble free service between rebuilds. I can even rebuild them while the boat is in the water.

Boyd
s/v Tern
CD30MkII
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

[Bill Goldsmith]

At next haulout you should try lapping the seacocks. After time, irregularities develop in the barrel-to-plug fit that no amount of grease or adjustment will fix. Lapping the seacock re-seats the plug in the barrel, takes down any high spots or irregularities inside.

What you need:

LAPPING COMPOUND (also known as Valve Grinding Compound). It is a fine abrasive material, usually mixed with oil, water, or some other vehicle in the form of paste. Spartan sells a fine compound, but coarser compounds are also available. I use the Permatex valve grinding compound sold at auto part stores.

Disassemble the seacock, clean it out, and apply the paste to the plug all around the mating surface. Insert the plug and work the seacock back and forth 15 to 20 times, applying inwards pressure. Remove the plug and clean it off, repeating the procedure for particularly difficult seacocks. Re-grease the seacock with Spartan grease, Morey's red waterproof grease or other heavy duty waterproof grease of your choice. Now that the mating surfaces are repaired, the seacock should operate well.

If it still won't operate freely, you may wish to try lapping with a coarser compound followed by a fine compound.

Since you are actually grinding away a little bronze every time this is done, it should be done only when necessary. Eventually the plug will go so far into the barrel that there won't be enough threads left to adjust it.

Overtightening the retaining nut is sure to cause the problem again soon, as much of the grease is squeezed out, causing metal-to-metal contact. For longest seacock life, try to get the nut adjusted so that there is enough resistance to hold the handle in any position, but not too tight to work comfortably--this will hopefully put off the next lapping by several years.

[Parfait's Provider]

Properly mated and greased Spartan seacocks can be adjusted to be so smooth that they can close by themselves; needless to say, you don't want that to happen, especially on the raw water intake. On the other hand, if you tighten them too much, the grease will be squeezed out and they will bind. If you succeed at operate them while they are binding you will probably scratch the barrel and then you get to start with the lapping operation again. If you just squeeze out too much grease, you can pull the barrel out and simply add grease before reassembling. This is all easier to do on a workbench.

I don't know how much they charged you, but I'll bet it was $50 each considering how hard some are to reach on Parfait. They owe you a hauling and proper maintenance.

[Neil Gordon]

The one exception is the seacock for the overboard head discharge, which appears to be of a different design. It has a three inch sliding tee handle on the nut which I have to loosen to open and close the seacock. It leaks water around the barrel until I tighten the nut handle with the lever open or shut.

The head input and outflow seacocks on LIQUIDITY are the same design. The inner workings are a rubber barrel with a hole through. The tee handle is loosened and the barrel is turned. Tighten it and the rubber seals. Mine leak as well when they are loosened. This is a different design... no Spartan seacock and no seacock otherwise, imo, should require you to find a wrench in order to operate it.

[mahalocd36]

Rich maintains all our seacocks now (bless his heart) especially since we found the boatyard didn't do some of them - they just did
the easy ones - but there are 9 on Mahalo.

Early this season I politely mentioned that one of the head seacocks was too hard to turn. He went in there with a wrench and Poof, easy to turn. You can adjust them yourself. You can make them too loose so they just want to close, so you have to play around with it.

If the boatyard is telling you you need a wrench everytime - well - they are boneheads.

[RichMason]

You should let us know what boatyard took you for a ride so they can be properly shunned. Tar and feathering was once the appropriate treatment for such miscreants.

[Jay Kanavos]

I service my own every spring and grease them just before she goes into the water. I've always favored them to be snug and they take some effort to move (not much but enough to give me a feeling that they are snug and waterproof). Mine certainly need a lot more effort than 2 fingers to move. Perhaps they are too tight, but I sure don't want them to leak!

You should NEVER need a wrench to open them. I'd ever so slightly loosen the locking nut (the outside one) a very very slight amount and then try to open the seacock with the lever to see if it is easier. If this doesn't work, then the yard might have tightened to flange nut too much and this might need to be loosened a very slight amount. I want to emphasize that when the boat is in the water, loosening these nuts should be done in extremely small amounts to ensure that they won't leak.

Jay

[Guest]

It just so happens I was looking through the Spartan Marine catalog last night, and I spent a few minutes looking through their seacocks and the diagrams and instructions in the same section.

They have a very good diagram, on which all the parts are numbered. Then, an explanation walks you through the proper cleaning and adjusting procedure. They do address how to adjust the ease/difficulty of opening effort with a wrench, but as others have mentioned, this is only an occasional adjustment, and after that they should be operable with only hands, no tools.

In addition, there is a very clear description of how to use lapping compound to re-condition the seacocks, if they need it.

They also sell the lube, lapping compound, and a special wrench, although I don't believe these are proprietary items. If I had Spartan seacocks, I would get a copy of the catalog just to see this section.

FWIW,

--- R.

[Suzanne Moody]

Thank you for your replies. We spoke to the yard manager, who said he would look into the matter of the difficulty in opening the seacocks. When we next went to the boat, they were all in good working order - easy to open (maybe 3 fingers)! The yard (Camachee Marina in St. Augustine) did several other repairs, all of which were satisfactorily done.

Suzanne Moody
s/v Savannah
CD330