[Dave Galehouse]

Just curious where exactly you apply the rectorseal prior to reassembly? I also have a 6CTA and just purchased new gasket’s and washers for the end caps to eventually inspect the heat exchanger.

[Dave Galehouse]

I tried to order the same coolant filters that the boat yard that serviced our boat when we bought it used last week. The parts guy stopped me asked which of the 7 different filters I wanted based on DCA4 levels. When I talked to my diesel mechanic, he didn’t seen concerned at all about what filter to use…

[Dave Galehouse]

Tony,

we purchased this boat last winter from a person in Connecticut who only owned it one season. We don’t have a ton of history on it maintenance wise, but my broker knows the previous owner before the CT owner and we were told he took good care of the boat and that money was never an issue. I am in the process of trying to track down some maintenance records. I have a Cummins certified mechanic going through it in the next few weeks and helping me getting it ready for spring.

I appreciate your help.

[Dave Galehouse]

Tony,

as requested here are some photos. In a brief discussion with our marina mechanic (he was a diesel mechanic in the Coast Guard but isn’t a “cummins mechanic”). He thinks, the very slight canted angle of the air filter and housing is not allowing oil vapor from the vapor/blow-by hose to funnel back down the sump hose. The housing is almost horizontal, but the air filter springs were a little loose and the air filter was angled down slightly and I think that’s why the little oil vapor that was in there was slowly pooling at the other end of the air filter over time.

But I would appreciate your input.

Thank you

Dave

[Dave Galehouse]

Tony, I apologize for not having photos right now. The boat is wrapped up 60 miles away from me. I will try to get some in the next week or so.

[Dave Galehouse]

I don’t quite understand the scenario you described. Where is the oil originating from. Blowback? Mist in engine room?

[Dave Galehouse]

I noticed it last summer by seeing a small spot of oil in the engine room on the floor. It was dripping from the bottom of the air filter where the metal cover meets the end of the filter held on by the three spring hooks. The only current photo I have of the air filter is attached, though not sure it helps.

[Dave Galehouse]

Batteries were holding 12.6 and 12.5 volts after resting a day and load testing well on two different load testers (an electronic one and the old school toggle switch toaster). I am getting pretty high amp readings from wires on my 3 electric float switches. The company told me they cycle every 2.5 minutes to check for water but only for one second at a time and will use less than 1 amp per day total doing that.

[Dave Galehouse]

I used a clamp meter. I was going to try to a multimeter in the amp setting going negative post to negative battery cable just for comparison, but I didn’t get around to that.

There is/was nothing on on the boat (presumably) no DC switches on, no bilge pumps running, the CO2 meter isn’t hard wired, not sure about the galvanic isolator.

[Dave Galehouse]

So I went back up to the boat today with the intention of pulling the 8D’s out (a shop down the street offered to look at them and throw them on their 60 amp charger). When I last ran my charger several weeks ago (a pronautic 12-60) I noticed after several hours, it was in conditioning mode, only running at 50% and putting out 2 amps. I ran the charger today so I could open the engine hatch and today it was operating at full power and 60 amps and running in charging mode and seemed to be putting a charge in both batteries. Not sure why, but it was 70 degrees out today after being 30 for a month. We decided, we’d run the charger today and tomorrow all day and then see where we are at Friday before we try to yank out 340 pounds worth of batteries.

My other plan after pulling the batteries was to put a new 12 volt battery in there I bought to do some parasitic draw tests and to be able to open and close the engine hatch. I didn’t get a chance to do that, but I did do a parasitic draw test on the 8D’s and the port battery seems to have a draw of .4 amps, which is high! That, along with the bilge running at some point multiple times might have caused these problems. The starboard battery seemed to have a draw of maybe .1 to .09, also still high maybe…

Obviously I need to get someone in there more proficient to investigate the draw.

[Dave Galehouse]

I wanted to add one thing I remembered. When I went to Connecticut in the spring to drop some stuff off on the boat I tried to raise the engine hatch and it didn’t go up. The service manager sent over a guy who did some testing. The DC/AC panel was down and I remember there were a bunch of switches on when I first got there. After a few minutes, the guy said “I think the batteries are dead!” to which I responded “the brand new batteries?”

He jumped off the boat and there was an extension chord right by the boat coming out of the shop. He plugged it in and said, “you can do whatever you need now.”

My theory is someone was working on the boat (there was stuff/parts everywhere), they left a bunch of DC switches on, and then someone in the shop unplugged that chord that was providing power to the boat for who knows how long?

So my question is, is it possible they killed the batteries once last spring and the batteries were never at full health? The boat was on 50 amp shore power all year and the longest we used the house battery on the water to run stuff with the engine off was probably 3 hours.

it doesn’t really explain why the starting battery is bad, if it’s just wired to be a starting battery.

[Dave Galehouse]

I know there was water coming in from the side of the boat when it was unwrapped and I don’t know from where. It’s the first time I noticed it all year. I was in the engine room one weekend and I could not only see water on the side of the interior wall, but the little anti-freeze I dumped in the mid bilge was completely gone and replaced by clear water. I pumped that out. When my marina wrapped it, my friend said there was more water in there (because it poured again) and at one point he may have said he heard a bilge pump running. I also have a deck hatch that will probably collect water in it’s bilge if it’s overwhelmed by rain. It didn’t just rain this fall, it poured for days on end for 6 weeks. Aside of not being able to account for rain, my marina was short staffed a bit, and the shrink wrapping took way longer than anyone wanted and maybe my boat just hates rain. I won’t wait that long to have it wrapped next year.

I can’t definitively say it was just the bilge pumps that drained the batteries, but I know they ran and probably ran a lot…I obviously need a better plan next year!

[Dave Galehouse]

I believe the bilge pumps running off and on for 7 weeks drained the batteries

[Dave Galehouse]

Thank you Rob,

I gave the woman I spoke to at Cummins my serial numbers. She said she couldn’t locate the CCA’s but that someone near here said 660-900. She kept saying it’s up to the OEM’s or the battery companies. She wasn’t making sense?? I told her it sounded ridiculous that they couldn’t tell me how many amps it takes to start one of THEIR engines and it should have nothing to do with any other company!!! Maybe I just got unlucky with whom I spoke to.

I didn’t know there were/are deck drain plugs. Someone else just mentioned that and I had no idea. Leaving the charger on in the winter isn’t an option at this yard, it’s simply not something they or any yard by me really allows. As it is, the 110 outlet is 150 feet from my boat. Another yard I tried to get into but was full, doesn’t even allow batteries to be left in during the winter after a gas tank of a boat came off it’s hinges and the bilge pump pumped the fuel that was leaking out of the tank into the yard!

I think I could take group 31’s home more easily and trickle charge them and I guess I’ll try to get the boat shrink wrapped much faster next year.

[Author]

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