I just picked up this thread, and hope you are recovering from your knockdown.
I have had my LM32 here in Annapolis MD USA since 2002, when I bought her in neglected condition but not seriously modified. Its a comfortable reliable boat for inland conditions, and we bought a pilothouse mainly to keep out of the sun, in our advanced age. I've made a lot of improvements, including a new 20 breaker panel under the helm, where it can be seen, and reinforcing the mooring cleats on the toe rail, which are poorly installed and can tear off. See the post at lmowners.proboards.com/thread/376/lm32-cleat-backing-plate-installation
The standing rigging is original and in good shape. So is the volvo MD17D raw water engine, with 2200 hours. The wiring is very difficult to deal with, hire someone young small and smart to work on it. I am happy to answer any questions or provide photos.
Chris
Last Edit: Aug 14, 2020 10:40:32 GMT by chrismunson
I have recovered enough to get down to doing the things I want. I have removed the old nav type instruments and radar and some of the now redundant wiring. I have fitted a Raymarine 9" MFD and paid the suppliers to fit the radar radome up the mast. Old age, I have always done such things myself. I now have an unobstructed view forward. Need now to remove three unused aerials on the stern rail. I have fitted two long thin solar cells forward and aft of the sliding hatch on the pilot house roof. All gone in nicely and the MPPT controller keeps the leisure batteries up and trickle charges the engine battery. I am actually off to my house in Pembrokeshire, Wales for a while. Where I ended up in hospital so will try and avoid that again. On my return I will have a go at cleaning up the old wiring and see what I can do about a deck pumpout and guage for the holding tank. I would like to reduce the amount of play in the steering wheel box and it looks to me as though there is no adjustment? Buy a new box?
Time I gave you a situation report! The boat (Tic Toc) is outside my house and I have progressed slowly. There are now two solar cells on the pilot house roof working very nicely through an MPPT controller. I wont need to get up there much as have in mast reefing. I have done some very necessary alterations to the wiring so the whole instrument area is sorted. I have changed the VHF radio as the other one had a fading screen and could not have an ATIS number, fitted a good AIS transceiver, removed the old GPS, removed the old chartplotter which was fed by the GPS, removed the Furona radar which decided to collapse and removed an old AIS receiver. All of this lot was on top of the dashboard which was badly obstructing the view forward. The radar failure was very sad, the previous owner was rather upset as well as he, and I, had carefully tested it. All replaced by a Raymarine radar and Multi Function Display. The radar and MFD are connected by a wifi link so the radar only needs power. I have also added a wireless remote control to the bow thruster. The boat is fairly well loaded now but I have a garage full of bits, mix of boat and motorvan. Had a large motorvan and downsized, could not get everything in but the surplus is too good to throw away. Had a Dehler 36 with a lot in it, emptied into the garage. Bought the Nimbus 340 with less space and already equipped with Nimbus crockery which I left when sold. Bought the LM32 and they had given up sailing, guess what that means! It had a nice anchor and chain etc for example, the original is in the cockpit floor locker. Many other cases like that. I have the manuals in 5 A4 binders including a complete BUKH manual, spare propeller and so on! Anyhow, I now plan to start getting the rigging changed and sort the holding tank!
Post by Brian & Glenda on Nov 30, 2020 9:04:56 GMT
You've been very busy! It must be very convenient to have the boat so close to home. If the old radar wasn't integrated with the chart plotter, you'll be very glad you changed it out, even if it was unexpected. What a difference that makes!
I understand your challenges with what my wife would call clutter... it can be very handy on occasion! I have more than my share too!
I just might on occasion, be calling on you for some info from your literature... my boat came with only the introductory Users Manual for the BUKH, and a single sheet of paper with recommended configurations for the main and genoa to balance the sails for various wind speeds. Hardly any other paperwork at all! I've since found a lot of brochures and manuals for the various components of my boat on the internet, but I don't yet have a complete set of documents for all of the kit on the boat. I'm at the two overstuffed 2" ring binder stage now, but working up to five!
Good luck on the rest of the project. Stay safe, healthy and in touch,
Brian, It is indeed much better with just one display covering everything, even nice with depth displayed there. I do have a computer on the desk but in front of the sink. It runs Seapro which I was a beta tester for. I plan with it as it saves working out in detail the tides hour by hour to get a CTS. It does it for you and it is so quick to try different speeds in case. Cross English Channel is interesting as it is about 60 miles. Hence the 1 in 60 rule applies. 1 mile error is 1 degree course change. The laptop also displays the S curve with the actual track so you can see an error easily. Yes, I do have so much information. Previous owner had it for 21 years and was very thorough. He was the local GP. He must have been Royal Navy once as a member of RNSA. Royal Navy Sailing Association. Can scan as necessary but not the whole Bukh manual! Still looking at holding tank. Have worked out, using your photos etc, the deck pump out. Got to 100% sure I can get the Y valve in, careful measurements and maybe a cardboard dummy. A possible tank sensor is a closed pipe with foil strips internally and the gauge via your acquaintance. I looked at pressure sensors but just too expensive. John
I am looking hard at the holding tank now. The first point is that Dennis at ferriellosales died a while ago, I found out from the owner of New Providence Marine which makes the foil type sensor and gauge. It turns out he suppled the kit I fitted to the Nimbus we had. It came from Tek Tanks who no longer sell it, presumably because Dennis died. One option Providence Marine sell now is a tubular version of the foil system which simply inserts into the tank. That solves getting at any other part of the tank, that effectively being impossible. I will adopt your solution with the alteration wires will have to be on the surface of the floor. I have the panel under the starboard bed which blocks dropping the board back in, can only slide with great difficulty. As far as I can tell the tanks depth is 180mm / 7" but I will have to drill the pilot hole for the hole saw to get a stiff wire in to measure accurately. The minimum depth the pipe can be is 6". I have emailed Providence Marine to ask if there are any constraints as to closeness to tank walls. Long shot but can you remember the depth and how much it slopes up from the centre line?
The plumbing looks feasible as I have found space for a Y valve, TruDesign Aquavalve looks best due to the flexibilty of outlet angles and ease of maintenance. Pipe will have to come up in the front corner of the cabin as I can't see any way into the forward pair of lockers. There is some very expensive pipe available with a long no smell life. The neighbours will make the usual comments I get when I attack the deck with a hole saw!
Post by Brian & Glenda on Dec 11, 2020 2:57:05 GMT
Hello John, Sorry to hear of Dennis' demise. I found him to be a very thoughtful person, and very generous with his time when I had a challenge he assisted me with.
On my boat, the aft end of the tank is partially visible when I remove the floor board that lies in the corridor between the salon and the V berth. There is a cut-out in the fiberglass floor stringer arrangement, through which the aft end of the tank can be seen. I don't recall the exact depth of the tank, but it's base follows the same slope as the inside of the hull. The holding tank is a separate unit, suspended above the inside of the hull on the fiberglass floor beam structure. I believe the holding is about 9 inches deep in the center of the aft end if I recall correctly. I put my rod to the stbd of center to keep it clear of the passageway, and it is between 7 and 8 inches long (again ... if I recall correctly) It is definitely more than 6".
I have found it necessary to remove the sending unit on occasion, such that it can be recalibrated. I suspect that as it is infrequently used, and the power to it is only switched on when I am checking the tank level, or pumping out the tank... that it looses it's memory after a period of time. Because you can't see the fluid level in the tank itself, I accomplish the recalibration by removing the sending unit from the tank, then immersing it to various depths in a small bucket of water.)
The first time I removed the sending unit, the bond between the tank lid and the base piece failed as I had evidently not roughened the tank-top sufficiently to effect a good bond. I also did not use a wrench to hold the base piece stationary while unthreading the sending unit on that first attempt, something I always now do. Thus, if your unit behaves in a similar fashion to mine, you will want to be sure that your hole through the wooden floorboard is of sufficient size to allow you to get a wrench on both the sending unit, and another wrench around the base piece that the unit threads into. You'll also want to be very careful to not allow that larger diameter hole saw used to cut through the wooden floorboard, to penetrate the fiberglass tank lid!
I also once found reference to a Swedish? made tank monitor that uses ultrasound? to monitor tank levels by sending signals through the tank and measuring the return, thus there is no need to make any holes in the tank... supposed to be very good, but probably would only work when the boat is stationary, as I doubt it could be accurate in a sloshing tank... and as I already had my SCAD, I didn't follow up on it much... but I'll look for any references to it I may have saved on my pc and let you know if I find any.
Hope that helps, Happy tank monitoring... Cheers, Brian.
My beam is solid so cant see the tank. Two pics here. I will get the sensor and gauge from either New Providence Marine or SCAD. I think it is only SCAD that supply the TM1. I have a feeling it is New Providence Marine who make the foil type sensor, both the one which sticks to the outside and the one where the foils are inside a tube inserted in the top of the tank, and presumably sell to SCAD? I will screw and bond a plate to the top of the tank in the position you chose I expect.
I wont do much until next year as going to bury myself in Pembrokeshire, Wales for Christmas with two old friends having Christmas lunch in my house there. It is safer for me to stay away from children and grandchildren this year. At least I get vaccinated soon at just 80.
It is going to be self inflicted madness and stupidity in the New Year with Brexit, it really upsets me as I have spent so much of my life working and playing and getting to know people in mainland Europe. Since I retired at the end of 2000 we took our motorhome there in Spring and Autumn and the boat there in Summer. Before then I worked on various projects there.