Yo Pilgrims, I have a 1985 Sea...

[Shootist]

Yo Pilgrims, I have a 1985 Sea Ray Sundancer, duel 260's. My question is about the Halon supressing system that's on the boat. I don't know if it still functions, there's a gauge left of the dash that doesn't work. 

  My question is:   1- Do I have to have this system?

                             2- Can I remove it safely?

 Thank you, John

[Bishoptrue]

Find the Halon bottle in the engine compartment. It will have a gauge on it which will show if it's in the green, or discharged and in the red. It can fairly easily be removed from the engine compartment. It's just held in a bracket and attached to the manual discharge lead. There's a cotter pin you pull and you unthread the end of the manual discharge wire. If you want to reactivate the system if it's discharged you have a problem. Most of the Sea-Fire extinguishers are not refillable. Finding an actual Halon extinguisher is almost impossible. Sea-Fire makes a new environmentally friendly replacement, but they are larger than the Halon bottle to protect the same volume so you need to replace the bracket that held the fire extinguisher too. It's also not cheap. I'm replacing the 150 cubic foot model on my Sundeck and it's about $700.