RobnBern
Member
Good Morning All:
My 1995 370DA has 7.4L Bluewaters with V-drives and runs fairly nicely. Recently, the starboard engine put out a fair amount of blue smoke on start up (after it had not been run in about 3.5 weeks). Once warmed up, the smoke went away. There was no rough idling or any indication (beyond the smoke) of a problem. A dock mate, who runs a single diesel, said that I've got problems coming. He recommended that I have the manifolds removed for inspection and the valves adjusted or repaired. (I may be confusing a bit of what he said because he suddenly got very mechanical and over my head). After he left, another guy on the dock who has a 340 Dancer stopped over. He said the smoke was not an indication of imminent failure. He felt that since the boat had been sitting so long and the age, model etc of the engines, the cold causes the valves to shrink a bit and the oil on the top of the engine to leak down. His recommendation was to just run the boat and if I wanted to put an oil additive in, that would stop the smoking on start.
When I run the boat a lot, I never have this issue. Now, I was down on the dock yesterday and fired the boat up and she did fine. No excessive smoking or anything. (This time the boat had only been dormant for 2 weeks) So, to my question. Who do I believe? Is it throwing away good money to have the exhaust manifolds taken off and inspected?? Or is it a huge risk to leave it as is? I don't object to doing PM, in fact, I'm all for it. I'm just confused on this one since each of those guys have a TON more boating and mechanical experience than I do but they have vastly different opinions.
Thanks CSR....Robin
My 1995 370DA has 7.4L Bluewaters with V-drives and runs fairly nicely. Recently, the starboard engine put out a fair amount of blue smoke on start up (after it had not been run in about 3.5 weeks). Once warmed up, the smoke went away. There was no rough idling or any indication (beyond the smoke) of a problem. A dock mate, who runs a single diesel, said that I've got problems coming. He recommended that I have the manifolds removed for inspection and the valves adjusted or repaired. (I may be confusing a bit of what he said because he suddenly got very mechanical and over my head). After he left, another guy on the dock who has a 340 Dancer stopped over. He said the smoke was not an indication of imminent failure. He felt that since the boat had been sitting so long and the age, model etc of the engines, the cold causes the valves to shrink a bit and the oil on the top of the engine to leak down. His recommendation was to just run the boat and if I wanted to put an oil additive in, that would stop the smoking on start.
When I run the boat a lot, I never have this issue. Now, I was down on the dock yesterday and fired the boat up and she did fine. No excessive smoking or anything. (This time the boat had only been dormant for 2 weeks) So, to my question. Who do I believe? Is it throwing away good money to have the exhaust manifolds taken off and inspected?? Or is it a huge risk to leave it as is? I don't object to doing PM, in fact, I'm all for it. I'm just confused on this one since each of those guys have a TON more boating and mechanical experience than I do but they have vastly different opinions.
Thanks CSR....Robin