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  • #40074

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    If you are going to pay someone else to install the batteries, I don’t see that it matters. However, if you are going to do it yourself, I can’t imagine anyone choosing an 8D over two group 31s.

    #37167

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    If it were me, I’d plumb in a standard garden hose to the strainer, leave the seacock OPEN, let the hose run flat (still 100% okay) and taste the water towards the end of run to see how you did… I bet you you’ll be surprised and happy.

    Cory, today I tried a fresh water flush for the first time. I have a strainer cap with a garden hose attachment to the cap. What I had hoped to be able to do was just what you suggest, leave the seacock open and run the hose while running the engine. I was concerned however about the flow from the hose being adequate.

    What I did was fill a 5 gallon bucket with a hose and connect a short hose from the strainer cap and the end in the bucket. I closed the seacock and ran the engine. It emptied the bucket in less than a minute. I shut the engine down and refilled the bucket but left the hose running into the bucket when I started the engine. This time the bucket emptied about half as fast.

    What this little experiment told me was that the hose on the dock only provided about 1/2 the flow the engine wanted.

    So, my assumption is that in my situation your proposed plan won’t work. Is that correct? The other question is, how much water does it take to flush the engine? Assuming I started with a full 5 gallon bucket and kept the hose running, I am guessing that I could get about 10 gallons into the engine. Is that enough to flush it adequately?

    #21336

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    In trying to chase down this issue some more, I have seen reference to a “Vessel View Adaptor Harness”. While I haven’t found that it should be required for a Cummins engine, I have seen references that indicate that using it can get rid of the Sim no J39 data gremlin.

    I don’t have that harness, only the VesselView harness. Is the Vessel View Adaptor Harness something that can help resolve this issue? If I can find one cheap is it worth a try?

    #21121

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Unless you have already eliminated this as a potential problem, I would recommend trying to disconect the Balmar controller on the alternator to see if that makes the problem go away.

    #21115

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Well there’s really no reason it shouldn’t work all together but it does sounds like a physical wiring issue to me…

    Also, the issues don’t change when you remove the analog style gauges from the arrangement and leave just the VesselView?

    Can you post a picture of the display so I can see what version you received?

    Thanks Corey, the issues don’t change whether the old gauges are connected or not. With the VesselView connected, all gauges will intermittently lose rpm and engine hour information when the alarm goes off.

    Not at the boat so I can’t take a photo but it is the same unit as this photo taken from an sbmar.com article.
    http://www.sbmar.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/VesselView-on-Boat-3.jpg

    No VIP box in the ER.

    #21096

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    This may be an option for someone who doesn’t want to do a roll-your-own fresh water flush system.

    http://www.quickflushvalve.com/diesel-engines.html

    #21095

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Does the NEW engine have a NEW SIM?

    Corey,

    The Cummins recon has its own sim, not the one that was in the engine that was removed. Now, whether it was “new” or not I don’t know. I know some about what Cummins does when they re manufacture an engine but not sure if they replace the sim.

    #21094

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Sounds like a BAD connect in one of the “TOO MANY” connections in the SMARTCRAP scheme of things… Take every plug apart, spray with WD-40, and re-plug…………..Or, call the Cummins people that did the work & tell them to fix the issue.

    Well, the issue there is that the new engine works just great with the existing instrumentation. The only problem comes when I am plugging in the VesselView display (which I didn’t pay for and was given by their sympathetic chief marine tech).

    A bad connection sounds reasonable. It worked just fine during the seatrial, so at least a couple hours at the full power range. There are only three plugs that are used in the harness connecting the VesselView. Two on the back of the unit itself and then one connecting to the junction box under the helm.

    #19736

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Thanks Corey. That is very helpful. 2 x 24 are a whole lot easier to move than the 8D.

    #19662

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Yes, I have had this problem at times when using Firefox on my desktop. Right now on my iPad, no issue.

    #19451

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    I spent a couple hours installing this today. I am a slow and poor mechanic. Anyone with decent skills would have taken 15 minutes.

    I ran into a couple of surprises.

    The first was that the threads for the plug needed that Tony pointed out to me were 3/8′ npt. Fortunately, I had one handy.

    Secondly, I had some trouble with getting the new piece that connects the upper hose to the engine. The piece that was there from the Walker has an O-ring and a retaining ring held in place with a bolt. This was easy to remove. However, it was impossible to insert the new one in from the CCV. A quick check with my calipers showed that the opening in the engine is 1″ (25.4 mm). The diameter of the piece from the Walker Air Sep with the o-ring was 25.3 mm. The diameter of the new piece from SB was 25.6 mm in diameter. This meant that I couldn’t fit it in place. I finally just spent some quality time with a piece of course Emory paper followed by some 600 grit emery paper and got it to fit. I even remembered to use the Rectorseal,

    Tony’s tip above about how to attach the hose first then cut it made the rest easy.

    Walker piece in place

    #19324

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Don’t forget the Rectorseal 5 on that npt plug…

    That was my plan Rob. So I just need to find a 1/4″ npt pipe plug and I should be good to go. I’ll see if I can get that done Friday as I’m not working.

    Thanks again.

    #19180

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Thanks Tony. That is simple.

    #19166

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Here is my attempt at the photos. Let me know if they aren’t good enough. The first is the blue oil hose that drains the Walker filter coming out of the bottom.
    The second is a shot of the starboard side of the engine where that blue oil line connects to the engine. At the bottom of the photo you can see where the oil pan connects to the engine.
    The last one is a close up of where that blue hose connects to the engine.

    #19155

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Thanks Tony,

    That sounds like a great way to do the hose.

    I’ll see if I can get some good pics of the Walker drain and post them.

    Have a great weekend. I know I will!

    #18865

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest


    For some reason the font color in the reply window is a very light gray so I can hardly see it. If anyone knows ho I messed that up, please let me know.

    OK, so the problem went away when the mechanic disconnected the alternator. Taking the belt off helped some, but disconnecting the wiring from the alternator eliminated the problem altogether.

    The boat has had two charging setups for the start battery. A Blue Seas ACR that combines the house and start bank whenever there is a charge voltage to the house bank, and a Balmar Duo Charge that charges the start battery whenever there is a charge voltage at the house bank. At some point I changed from the ACR to the Duo Charge. The problem didn’t occur right away but when now when I setup the ACR the engine runs fine. When I setup the Duo Charge the engine runs terribly.

    The first thing that I thought of was a comment Tony made in the Trawler Forum about not letting the engine battery “talk to” other batteries. This is just one example of why I suppose. Tony’s comment at the time didn’t make any sense to me at the time. It certainly does now.

    For my own curiosity, I need to see if the Balmar Duo Charge was operating correctly. Maybe it wasn’t getting the voltate of the engine battery high enough? Maybe it was sending to high a charge current to the start battery? Maybe it was just sending some very odd electrical pulses to the battery that confused the engine ECM? I don’t know. Now that I have an engine that is running as it should, I can do some investigating to satisfy my own curiorsity.

    BTW, the idea to investigate the alternator came from the mechanics at Cummins Northwest who were hashing over my problem. One of them had a similar experience with this engine in a commercial road application. In that instance, the problem went away when the alternator belt was removed and the problem ended up being a bad alternator. This prompted my mechanic and I to look in that direction. Without that nudge in that direction, we would still be chasing our tails and throwing more parts at the engine.

    #18602

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Thank you Rob.  That is really helpful.  I really like the suggestion of using some taps to clean the threads.  I will add some to my kit.

    On my 2008 build QSB 5.9L 380 engine, the heat exchanger calls for 1 5/8″ anodes.  I believe it is Cummins part #3970463 which is an E-2C size pencil anode.  The E-2 size pencil anodes are for the aftercooler.

    E-2C anodes are pretty easy to find and save the trouble of taking a hacksaw to the E-2 pencil anodes.   Not sure if all of the QSB 5.9 aftercooler are the same or not.

     

    #18599

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Thanks for the information.  Again, I learn something new, which is why I asked.

    I have no idea if/when the internal coalescing filter was changed.  I also don’t know when/if the filter was cleaned last.  1000 hours on the engine at this point, of which 250 were hours I put on over a year.

    So far as I mentioned above, the gauge on the Airsep has not shown any restriction, but I think it is time to clean the filter just based on its appearance.   A quick check showed that the internal disposable filter is definitely expensive.  I can get 2 of them for $300 but of course only need one.  Buying one isn’t half the price amazingly enough.

    That does make Tony’s CCV kit pretty attractive.  I think I will do that once I get my other issues figured out.

    #18585

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Hi Tony,

    I agree about needed some better instrumentation. That is something that I want to do and will likely do in the near future.

    Today was a long frustrating day.

    Engine still runs rough. Still the same issue.

    I have a bit more detail.  The engine has been consistently throwing a code (2275?) that indicates over voltage or short to high on the lift pump.  The lift pump was just replaced.

    Not surprising given your post here are some other odd behaviors.

    The problem goes away when the fuel pressure sensor on the rail is disconnected.  The rail fuel pressure jumps all over when running. This is what prompted the mechanics to try pulling the sensor. The problem also goes away when the fuel actuator is pulled. As I understand it, these regulate the fuel pump behavior. With these disabled the rail gets the full 25k psi fuel pressure and the engine runs smoothly.   Occasionally, there has been another code indicating a high voltage or short to high in the fuel rail pressure sensor, but that code is intermittent.

    It appears that at some point in the past, the fuel pump actuator and the fuel rail pressure sensor have both been replaced. I don’t have the records from the PO to confirm or know when and why.

    The trouble shooting tree for the codes given was inconclusive.  However, at times manipulating the harness would cause the codes to go away or return. However, most of the time the lift pump code is active and the fuel pressure sensor short code is not.

    The engine starts quickly, no smoke, and runs very rough. Again, with either the actuator or fuel pressure sensor pulled this doesn’t happen.

    The mechanic happened to have a test ECM in his truck. With that connected there was no change in the behavior.

    Our first thought was the pressure sensor, but it is newer and wouldn’t explain the intermittent high voltage codes for the lift pump. It could be the fuel pump actuator, but no codes point in that direction. Since messing with the harness can cause some of the codes to appear and disappear we are wondering about a problem there even though we can’t find any definitive problems with a multimeter or visual inspection.

    At this point I would be happy to try the pressure sensor and actuator, and if that doesn’t solve the issue then possibly replace the harness.  I am grasping at straws at this point and so are the two Cummins mechanics.

    #18268

    David Hays
    Participant
    Vessel Name: Kinship
    Engines: Cummins QSB 5.9L-380
    Location: Pacific Northwest

    Gary,

    I am in the same situation.  This is my first large Diesel engine.  I also have the 5.9L QSB with the Walker Airsep.  On mine, there is an indicator on the unit that is supposed to tell you when there is beginning to be restriction on the filter.  After a year of owning the boat, mine doesn’t show any restriction.

    I have the same question though, should I clean and re-oil the filter anyway?  I would use the same cleaner and oil as I use with the K&N filters on my cars but frankly don’t want to bother if not needed.  The ER is a very clean place on my boat so not sure how much particulate the filter would pick up anyway.

Viewing 20 replies - 1 through 20 (of 32 total)