we bought our rib last year and have had no problem with the bilge pump just turned it on when we needed to sometimes with quite a lot of water to get rid of.
On closer inspection when we had to clean some crap out of it we found it was one with a float inside and that one of the wires had been cut about 1 inch long outside the housing
The wire is brown and my question is do we just try to connect this to positive to start the float switch working
The other 2 wires are brown and black and they go straight to a switch
The wire might have been cut for a reason but we would like to wire it up to see if it works automatically
Does the pump run whenever the dash switch is on, even if the bilge is empty? if so then the wire that has been cut is indeed the internal float switch supply (connect it to a 12v supply fused to 5amps.)
or if the pump only runs if there is water in the bige then the cut wire is the manual overide and could be left unconnected.
If your bilge pump is a Rule model 41 43 or 45 then I have wiring diagram and can talk you through it. In principle though, you appear to be correct in your assumption, although the diagram strangely doesn't differentiate between the purpose of the brown and the brown/white wire. Your experience shows that by a process of elimination, the brown/white must be for "always on" and the brown for "on when float raised".
