www.iFourWinns.com

Thanks for posting those. I'll probably remove my seat to clean it out next time I'm down that way...

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2004 Sea Ray 420DB
Formerly: 2005 348 Vista

Good news is the factory pulled out all the stops to send me another water heater. Overnight, saturday delivery. It got to the house by 10:30am. I was at the boat installing it at about 1pm. By the time the admiral arrived at 6pm I had the whole thing put back together.

Bad news is no hot water when on electrical power. I'm thinking it may be a simple connection issue. But it's truly impossible to get back to the electrical bits without pulling the whole thing apart again. Since I've done it once it'll be relatively easy to do it again. We're up in scenic Havre de Grace this morning. We'll be back in Annapolis tomorrow so I'll check it then.

There's still the issue of the other tank. It's still on it's way to the house. Since this one didn't work right away I may actually hang on to that one for a couple of days as a spare.

So, the saga continues...

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista

Finally, we have a working hot water heater. One that doesn't leak.

I got it installed last Saturday but it wasn't making hot water when on AC power. This wasn't a big deal since we were motoring around, and that makes plenty of hot water using the engine coolant.

I had to pull the decking back up again to get at the heater. I tested the harness and it had AC power. I check the connections and the cable from the heater and they were good. I had to pull out the old wiring to compare and noticed a difference. (I'll try to post pix later). The AC wiring connector has 'pins' in it that can be set to one of three 'depths'. The harness on the boat was set to one depth, but the cable that came with the new heater was set to a different one. It's a difference of about an eight of an inch. Hardly enough to notice visually. But plenty wide enough to keep it from making a complete circuit. I had to push out the retaining pin, move the pins and reassemble it. Voila! Now we have hot water from AC power!

Two things became apparent.

One is that it would be a GREAT idea if FW changed how the tank is positioned. Right now it's facing forward. This makes it exceptionally difficult to get to the drain and relief valves. I have long arms but it's a real challenge crouching over the v-drive and straining to reach the valves. If they turned the heater around 180 degrees, facing aft, it would be MUCH easier to get to the valves. It really wouldn't require much changing. Just make the engine coolant hoses about 2' longer and slide the water connections likewise aft about 2 feet.

The second is it's not possible to remove the water heater whole in a 6.0L inboard setup. You have to remove the housing around the tank. This isn't complicated, just tedious. There's no way to rectify this without changing fiberglass molds. The molded-in seat supports would have to be moved.

Other than shipping screw ups, the Four Winns folks have been very helpful during this dealer-inflicted fiasco.

Now, on to the fresh water leak...

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-Bill Kearney, 2005 348 Vista