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replacing a shower drain....

willow

willow

Regular Contributor
I have a 41 foot Gibson. The aft stateroom has its own shower. The drain looked pretty corroded so I thought I would replace it by just unscrewing the top part.....it fell apart.

Believe it or not the drain is a simple drain fixture with a 1 inch sanitation hose connected to it which is then routed to the drain pump located in the centre of the bilge.
The "chrome" top which one sees in the shower was initially screwed to the drain, (sorta just like a household shower drain) but the two pieces were in pretty bad shape.

I now have no drain and the really difficult part is that there is no access to the bottom of the shower !!!!! There are no access panels anywhere and the shower is held in by a ton of ss screws in a aluminum molding that goes all around the shower.

Does anyone know if there are any shower drains that can be fitted by dropping the entire piece through the drain hole and then perhaps screwing the piece to the fibreglass shower bottom????.,. I can 'fish' another drain hose from the pump over to the drain hole and connect it OUTSIDE the drain hold and then drop it in the hole and secure it.....Is that an acceptable fix or do I have to dismantle the entire shower???
 
willow said:
Problem solved..Admin may DELETE this thread if so desired.
Click to expand...

Ayuh,... Threads don't get deleted,.. they sink into the archives, where somebody else will search 'em lookin' for answers to Their questions...

Which is WHY, 'it'd be nice if you stated HOW ya fixed it...
 
bondo said:
Ayuh,... Threads don't get deleted,.. they sink into the archives, where somebody else will search 'em lookin' for answers to Their questions...

Which is WHY, 'it'd be nice if you stated HOW ya fixed it...
Click to expand...

Sorry to take so long to reply but I am on my boat for the next few months and did not have my password!!

OK as you can see with the first post I had a real problem... Gibson builds a good boat :eek:but many boat builders seem to forget about the possibility of future repairs.

I did not want to put an access panel directly in the one piece shower unless there was no other way so I decided to try a different approach. The old drain was in bad shape so I managed to pry it up,bend and break the flange enough without damaging the fiberglass, that I could push the entire piece through the shower drain hole.

I then used a coat hanger and fished the old drain and hose up to the hole. I managed to wrap electrical tape around the hose and led the tape to a small metal bar I had so the hose and drain was held firm against the bottom of the shower.

I then took a hacksaw blade and pushed it down the hole and sawed off the old drain at the hose connection. The drain piece dropped in the bilge, (unacessable) and is still there, but the tape held the hose so I pulled it up and out of the hole and found I had about six inches of slack hose. Secured the tape that was sticking out of the hole.

Went to a hardware store and bought a new drain, almost the size of a regular kitchen sink drain piece that would fit in the hole. The problem was going to be fixing the drain so it had a hose nipple and a blanking plate on the bottom.

Here I got fortunate as I have a friend who can do anything with stainless steel. He came over about two days later and gave me my store bought drain back !! He had made a perfect drain with a flange and an enclosed bottom with a nipple for the one inch hose !( I believe he took the correct diameter of SS pipe and welded on the nipple, flange, slightly beveled, and polished it so it almost looked like chrome...etc )

I double clamped the hose on the nipple, put a sustantial bead of 3M 5200 around the flange and put the entire rig in the shower drain hole, piled on 3 tool boxes and let it sit for a week....... Been using it for a month now with no problems .......thanks for your patience
 
kimcrwbr1 said:
The only problem I see is you dont want that chunk of metal vibratin around it can punch a hole in the hull you know time and pressure. I was in the bilge of a fish processing vessel doing fire watch and noticed a weird hole shaped like a wrench when I was cleaning the bilge of the slag. What happened the wrench vibrated down into the metal hull about 5/8 of an inch and the hull was 3/4 inch thick. I would try and fish that chunk of metal out just in case just to be safe!
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You have a valid point but there is no access to that area of the boat and the part dropped in was very light and only about the size of a small kitchen drain. Personally the way the part snapped apart, the flange, when I was trying to remove it makes me think it was one of those cheap...looked like chrome....tin drains. I have not heard any rattling so think it is just laying there beside one of the 2 x12 stringers....I'm gonna live with it.
 
Hey! I have been trying to figure out a similar issue with my silverton 34. Ho did you know the old drain did not have a ring underneath the drain, screwing it into the pipe (vs a drop in/ screw in kind). I am worried about breaking apart the old drain just to have old piping stuck.
 
Agree with Mark. Unless you know how the drain is installed, it could be an error to try my procedure.
I called Gibson boats to find out how my old drain was installed…. No ring,.. just a drop in
 
VGC said:
Hey! I have been trying to figure out a similar issue with my silverton 34. Ho did you know the old drain did not have a ring underneath the drain, screwing it into the pipe (vs a drop in/ screw in kind). I am worried about breaking apart the old drain just to have old piping stuck.
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Any update on the Silverton? The aft shower drain (in my Silverton) totally fell apart. Noticed it after replacing the sump pump kit... so I know it is still draining properly.
 
Silverton Ingrid said:
Any update on the Silverton? The aft shower drain (in my Silverton) totally fell apart. Noticed it after replacing the sump pump kit... so I know it is still draining properly.
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As stated aove...my drain was a "drop in" .......There was no ring, no pipe, just a hose that went from the drain to a pump that pumped the water overboard. My "new" drain was made by a metalsmith and had a nipple on the bottom that extended into the hose that was already there
 
willow said:
As stated aove...my drain was a "drop in" .......There was no ring, no pipe, just a hose that went from the drain to a pump that pumped the water overboard. My "new" drain was made by a metalsmith and had a nipple on the bottom that extended into the hose that was already there
Click to expand...
So sorry... meant to reply specifically to VGC since we both have Silvertons... if they called Silverton or figured out another way.

Thanks for the quick reply tho 😎
 
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