I'm trying to replace a electrical bilge pump in my boat, how do i tell which wire is which?

Question

Whoever wired things before did not use a consistant color pattern, and the wires are really hard to trace.

The pump has an automatic float switch built in that always turns it on when the water gets high and there is a switch at the helm that will turn the pump on even if the water isn't high enough to turn the float switch on.

There are 3 wires going to the pump, all grey, how do i tell which is which and how to wire a new pump?

Thanks!

Mike

Answer 1

having wired 7 zillion bilge pumps in my life, and traced 27 million wires that made no sense.....
1st, get a multi-meter as suggested and learn how to use it
2nd in your case, if the switch is just on-off, not on-off-auto, and if there's 3 wires going to the pump, what you have is:

a hot wire from the switch going to the pump
a hot wire going to the float switch, and then another wire from the float switch going to the pump
a neutral wire going from the pump back to negative.....

that make any sense?

Answer 2

Well when I was in the navy, electrical power was 3 phase. There was no common. Because its is a pump, my suggestion is disconnecting the pump from your "load". Go ahead and wire up your pump placing the 3 wires on any terminal. If the pump rotates in reverse, stop the power and swtch any 2 wires and you're good to go.

Answer 3

Put the wires in your mouth and turn the pump on. YOu'll figure out which is which at the speed of light.

Answer 4

First you need to get a Digital Volt Meter
Turn it on volt
Touch the wires, if it comes up with a neg. voltage, then your leads are backwards (+/- / -/+)
The third wire is probably for a switch...if you touch it with the power on, and the switch off,you are not going to get a voltage reading
Lable your wires for the future...LOL
And hook her up...hope this helps...

Answer 5

reverse phone number search compiles hundreds of millions of phone book records to help locate the owner's name, location, time zone, email and other public information.

Use a reverse phone lookup to:
Get the identity of an unknown caller.
Identify an area code.
Recall the name of a person whose number you wrote down.
Identify an unfamiliar phone number that shows up on your bill.
https://tr.im/721a7