A Sherwood vs. Seamax thread-gctid814947

[egbauman]

Just noticed this thread on James Hamilton's website on the reliability of the Seamax water pumps. As someone who just recently swapped out the Sherwoods for two new Seamax pumps, I'm curious to know opinions on the issues raised about these pumps. Has anyone here experienced this kind of major failure?

http://mvdirona.com/2008/03/sherwood-vs-seamax/#comment-182243

[Norton_Rider]

My mechanic has a huge amount of experience with Cummins marine engines. He is not a fan of Seamax pumps, but I've never asked him the reason why. He much prefers Sherwood pumps and says the main issue with them is that they are not rebuilt often enough. When I bought my current boat he took both Sherwood pumps off and rebuilt them. In a few years I will have him do it again.

[MerlinV]

The James Hamilton article is from a number of years ago, and by now, I would imagine that many Cummins owners have switched to SeaMax raw water pumps.

2 of our previous boats were powered by Cummins 330's, and I had no luck at all with the Sherwood pumps, and was finding that the best life out of the bearings and ceramic seals was around a season, and usually less before they leaked.

Rather than continue to rebuild the Sherwoods (I had 2 spare), I installed the SeaMax units and my problems were over. On our 490, I changed out impellers at 400+ hours, and frankly they would have lasted much longer.

There are lots of threads on this topic.

[smitty477]

I have not seen any Sea Max pump problems other than the "C" clip issue which was a supply of poor clips.

I have seen a huge amount of issues with the stock Shrewood pumps.

[cosmo777]

I had a Sherwood fail at cruise a number of years ago. We shut it down when the high temp buzzers went off.

The shaft had sheared off where the snap ring groove is. This is a common failure point.

I replaced both with SeaMax pumps and haven't looked back.

I still carry the one good remaining Sherwood in case I have a need, or I come across someone else in need.

[ksanders]

Just this last week I replaced my starboard sherwood pump with a seamax unit.

690 hours, and 6 calendar years since the engines were factory reman, and the pump was leaking.

Fortunately I had a set of seamax pumps onhand, just because of the sherwoods known issues.

Will tackle the port one this summer. Its not leaking yet, so it was not a "have to do" thing just yet.

BTW, this is a easy job once you get over the fear of having to jack up your motor to get the pump out.