[james]

We have our boat in contract, and thus doing sea trial and survey. As part of the Survey, we did a 1 minute WOT run, RPM’s on both engines stabilized at 2675, we were pretty well loaded up with people, fuel and water. Thought I’d give the community an update on this old thread. The mechanic who was aboard was very pleased with the RPM, he said most setup’s he see’s struggle to get past 2550. I attribute that to boat manufacturers propping over optimistically, and owners not paying attention to their boats.

Temperatures stayed in the 165 range, but we are in relatively cool water in gulf of mexico now.

[james]

I always run the fresh water out through the strainer for a while when the engine is off. That flushes the line from strainer to thru hull and fills it with fresh water. Fresh water is lighter than salt water so it stays in that hose. guess what? Zero marine growth in the hose. As you can tell, I have a lot of passion about this for engine preservation. My friends at the docks think I’m going overboard, but I can assure you my maintenance bills tend to be about 1/2 theirs.

[james]

David – good points about over pressuring the raw water circuit. My approach is a bit different as I am doing this solo. When my flush period, usually 10 minutes is done, I grab a bunch of extra hose, and fold it shut as I kill the engine, then I climb back down and reset all the valves.

Another thing which I’ve done which really makes it easier, is I screw a quick connect fitting onto the flush valve, then use that to connect the hose. That eliminates having to twist the hose while you get it attached in a tight engine room.

For safety, I’ve added a cap which I screw onto the valve, that way if I forget to close the flushing valve, I won’t have a water flow issue.

The benefits of the flushing really showed this last maintenance cycle. The aftercoolers, which had been heavily greased two years previously, came apart with hand pressure. We replaced the exhaust elbows, which were 20+ years old, and put new ones on with a dry section leading to a down hill down pointing shower. The Turbo’s looked great as well. No salt mist sitting around them.

[james]

My starboard main closed with an extension for engine flushing, then stuck solid afterwards. I finally was able to get it opened by putting a wrench on and working it pretty hard. I picked up a zerc fitting, but it on the drain, pumped in some grease and exercised it about 20 times and can now move it by hand with out the extension.

When time permits, I’m going to pull the hose off, close the valve and pour barnacle buster in it to help clean the crap off. Then rotate the valve 180 and do the same thing on the other side of the ball.

Mine are 25 year old Buck Algonquin valves, and I’d really like to get another 25 out of them….

Boats, do the issues ever end?

[james]

My boat had monster 8d’s as well, and I coudn’t manage the. I ended up redoing the boat with the following: House 6 trojan golf cart batteries, wired serial to get 12 volt, then parelled into a single bank.

For starting I have 4 group 27 interstates. I always use the battery parallel switch when starting, so my engines are receiving the voltage of 4 batteries.

This does require that I water the batteries once per month, but my access is reasonable ok, and it encourages me to check different spots in the engine room.

[james]

I was having trouble with exessive zinc consumption and had a galvanic survey performed. The system was entirely intact and we were puzzled. We then did a check of the power post on the dock. What we found is the power post was sending .005 volts back to the boat, causing all my issues. We installed a galvanic isolator and zinc consumption became consistent with my neighbors.

[james]

I’m a bit embarrassed, as I’ve already with my own hands pulled off and replaced aftercoolers and Turbo’s and exhaust elbows…

Should I be adding coolant in the recovery bottle, or into the main tank on the engine???

Thanks

The recovery bottles became very difficult to access when cockpit airconditioning was added to the boat (Previous owner), a duct runs directly above the recovery bottle which makes access a pickle even with a funnel.

[james]

I don’t add to the recovery bottle, it is virtually impossible to get fluid into it where it is positioned. I do add directly to the tank, and have not noted any disappearing. I recently had to add more because we lowered coolant levels to take Turbo’s off, of course some gets spilled in the bilge during that process.

[james]

Rob, that’s good thinking and I’m going that route. Who would think of adding heat in florida, but to help keep it dry it makes sense. I’ve already got on of the cheapo temp humidity things in my main cabin. To make it even more sensible, I can put it on a timer for when it should go on, a christmas light timer!

[james]

Bottom pan access is not easy, V drive configuration with big stringers in the way. I’m on the fence with doing it or not, I’m pretty picky about my engine room and have spent a lot of time and sweat cleaning it up, finding and fixing leaks and painting everything I can find.

Just put new exhaust elbows on with a dry 90 and showerhead below the turbo, 316 stainless and very nice spray pattern. Big improvement over the stock cummins elbows which appear to be made with a very low grade stainless (magnets kind of stick to them).

[james]

Humidity is high, close to ambient in florida. That was one reason I was thinking of adding them. I also thought about putting a dehumidifier in the engine room, but that turns into a project as I have to add a sump and overboard discharge for the condensate. I use a dehumidifer in my main cabin and drain it to the galley sink which goes straight overboard. That allows me to not run the Air Conditioner’s all summer. I arrive at the boat in mid summer, it will be 95 inside, but have a humidity level of 45. AC’s kick on and in 15 minutes, temp is down to 80 and still dropping.

[james]

No heaters at all. The air grids are disabled as I don’t like the idea of them. I ran each for 10 minutes today to do a fresh water flush, at the end the temps were just starting to come off the peg, but still a little bit of white smoke.

[james]

Tony – I’ll cut an order with you folks with expedited shipping for the graphite gaskets. We are planning to put the new elbows on Wednesday or Thursday depending on shipping. My new mechanic, who is terrific, laid into me about the condition of those bolts, and I had to plead, I didn’t do it!.

Due to your guidance on BD and this new forum, I’ve become a much more knowledgeable, owner and obsessive about engine room cleanliness and maintenance schedule. As an example, tomorrow, we have rain forecasted in Florida, and I plan to spend that time in my engine room searching for the last leaks on an express cruiser.

[james]

I observed a bit more corrosion than I would like to have seen especially around the mating corners of the Turbo and Elbow. I did not see the system installed, and have lost confidence in the mechanic who did the work as he did not put anti sieze on the attachment bolts, all were terrible to get off and one snapped off, which means I’ve got to drill it and retap it. That mechanic also only painted the sides of the Turbo’s which I can see, grrr. The tip clearances on the rotors and the rotor blades themselves looked terrific, and I’m able to get 30+ PSI out of each Turbo when doing hi speed tests (which run up to 2650 heavy). We did observe some external corrosion and signs of dripping on the port elbow, which drove the decision to replace both right now.

I also noted orientation requirement on the gaskets, with a specific side pointed to the turbo. The turbo seems to have a slight indentation to accomodate the gasket, I won’t be sure of that until I get in there and give everything a thorough cleaning with breakclean.

Thoughts are always appreciated! Thanks.

[james]

Rob – I think you are talking about the height from the Turbo to the water in the waterlift and hose running to it? If that is the case, it’s just a little over 10 inches vertically and 16 inches linear. I would prefer it to be more, but it creates massive headaches for me to do so.

[james]

Attached below is an image of the new elbows. The key modification is a dry pipe all the way through the 90 with a shower head pointing downwards and well below the Turbo. Any failure and gravity is my friend and takes the water away. These fit pretty close to the size of the original elbows which means installation will not be too terrible.

A better solution would have been a dry riser that went to the top of the engine room and then came down, but that would have created terrible access problems on the engines. Our utilization is port to port cruising in fair weather, and I freshwater flush every time, so I think this is a good enough solution.

[james]

Rob – I have a 6 point 10 mill good quality box wrench, welded to an old cresent wrench, giving me a breaker bar on a small bolt. My frustration is with the mechanic who put the turbo’s on two years ago, he did not use any anti sieze on the bolts connecting the elbow to the turbo. I got seven off with out too much pain, lots of Kroil, heat and CRC freeze off, each was an adventure. The 8th one twisted the head off the bolt despite much precaution. Now, I think I’m going to have to end up drilling it out.

Tony – I just sent you a picture of the stbd turbo taken from my phone. The port side involves hanging over the top of the engine and shooting blind, haven’t gotten a good on yet. I have classic express cruiser access issues, one side pretty easy, other side ugly. I’ve been relocating as many systems as possible to make service easier, including remote oil filter (from SBMAR), relocating fuel filters with a mud/primary system (from SBMAR) mounted centerline.

[james]

We completed engine service including taking Air Coolers off and cleaning them, going through the heat exchangers, installing new SBMAR pumps and hoses.

I did a sea trial last week after filling fuel. So for us the boat was heavy. Boat came onto a plane with very little or no smoke. I finally did a full WOT throttle test and got 2650 on both engines. I would have rather gotten 2700, and might drop pitch another 1/2 inch next time the boat comes out for bottom work. In the mean while, we tend to run the boat a lot of the time at 900 rpm trawler type speed, and planing cruise is 2200 or so. Also, at WOT the temps stayed around 175, I attribute that to: Cooler water temps, better pumps, and cleaned cooling system.

Next steps, install new exhaust elbow and install wolverine heaters.

[james]

I did prefil the filters and was surprised by how much oil they held, close to 4 quarts, and how long it took to get fully saturated. Thanks for the tips!

[james]

Tony – Would you even use the pan heaters in Florida, where the engine room seldom drops below 80? Also, do you think they would help with engine room humidity. I’ve been thinking about putting a dehumidifier in the engine room, but that gets somewhat complex as I have to add a sump and overboard discharge for the condensate.

[Author]

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