Misc 42/44 stuff

I do have the boat shrink wrapped in the water, and I do not allow any standing water in the bilge area. The final engine room winterization task I perform is to scrub the entire ER deck down(to include the bilge pump and throughhull areas and limber holes) with simple green or an equivalent cleaner, dry it completely, then use a small shop vac I keep aboard to get all the residual water out. Then I wipe it all down with a towel. My shrink wrap guy has figured out how to wrap the boat such that I can raise the engine hatch about 2' and get into the ER over the winter-I do this monthly to check to make sure that everything is dry and in good form.
But our winters are not like yours. We rarely get below zero. If I boated where you do I'd pull her and block her, preferably in an indoor heated facility.

Frank-I considered that option. My three year old loves cats. I need to figure out a humane solution. .45 maybe.

Regards
Skip
 
Robski97 said:
Guys,
Splashed the boat today and a few things came up that I think u guys should be aware of.

1) my batteries werent fully charged and a fire suppression control under the dash disables the fuel pumps. ( The nasty alarm was a clue something was wrong ) Well after my marina tried to start the boat to no avail we found said controller and it has a by-pass postition to allow u to start the boat. Once batteries were fully charged this became a mute point.

2) my battery charger would only trickle charge the port side batteries. Nothing going to stb batteries. For an hr I jerked around looking for a bad connection at the charger and then a circuit breaker, just for hail mary turned the charger on and off nada . My manuals were home so I hadnt a clue the electrical circuit. One of the marina mech's came over and manually triped both DC circuit breakers in the bilge that pretained to the battery charger. He then reset them and all was fine again, Battery charger was off and running . I havent a clue WTF that was all about . they were not tripped but after he manully tripped and reset them the charger was pinned trying to charge the batteries.

3) Diesel engines hate the cold . These BAD boys sucked the life of the batteries trying to start. TRULY amazing amount of electric consumption when COLD .


So charge ur batteries and find that fire by pass control . ( its just under the dash where ur radio plugs in)

Rob
Click to expand...

I thought I had a clue about the DC power system on boats, but I'm puzzled over this one. Battery chargers are AC power, with DC leads going to the batteries. I don't get it- running the DC leads from the charger through a DC breaker and then to the battery? There's no load on that wire, is there? What purpose would a breaker serve?
 
tobnpr said:
I thought I had a clue about the DC power system on boats, but I'm puzzled over this one. Battery chargers are AC power, with DC leads going to the batteries. I don't get it- running the DC leads from the charger through a DC breaker and then to the battery? There's no load on that wire, is there? What purpose would a breaker serve?
Click to expand...
I think he's refering to the breakers that feed the chargers. When the tech cycled them it probably booted the cpu in the charger. IMOP
 
U know until u guys brought it up i didnt give it thought. I think the breakers are on the DC side. Ill verify this weekend . Only answer i can come up with since it was only charging one side.

Rob
 
Was down on the boat changing my genset impellar. Half the splines were gone . Guess i should change them every year... The breakers in the ER room are marked DC. so that was my problem.... go figure!!!

Rob
 
Rob - Yeah, the genset impeller is so frig'n small and "cheap" that it always goes...if you suck anything in - expect it to blow apart. Sucked in some sand last year - and it shredded it...and I had just replaced it. PS - don't you enjoy all the room that is down there to change that one?? ha ha!
 
I have to change my gen set impeller AT LEAST once a year... always good to have a spare on board.
 
Impeller pic ... Now to fish out the broken pieces from my heat exchanger...

Also QSC owners .... Dont forget the Common rail recall and there is a water pump issue too... They wont tell me what the water pump thing is but they replaced mine at the end of last year


Rob
 

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Robski97 said:
Impeller pic ...
Rob
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Wow - your's actually had some paddles left on it. After changing mine, I was stumped as to how to retrieve any of those bits from the system. With that said I have run the unit probably a few hours since and temps were well within range. Though I would guess that after few impeller's worth of junk - things would get a little gunked up in there.

Is there a way to "backflush" the system to get the debris out?
 
Rob,
I don't have a sound shield on my gen set, and the generator impeller is STILL a pain to replace. On my Onan 9MDKAV, removing the water pump is two hose clamps and two bolts. With the pump out and easily accessible, the impeller swap is much easier.
On the heat exchanger, what I did when my impeller went south in August '07 was to remove the inboard end cap of the heat exchanger, and using a small shop vac with a clean debris tank, I used my hand to clamp the shop vac hose onto the heat exchanger and suck out all the rubber parts. Then, per Frank W's suggestion, I laid out the pieces on a clean white towel next to the new impeller to see how much residual impeller i still had left in the exchanger. The shop vac got almost all of it, and was a lot easier and less time consuming than disassembling the heat exchanger.

regards
Skip
 
Skip said:
... The shop vac got almost all of it, and was a lot easier and less time consuming than disassembling the heat exchanger. ..
Click to expand...

Given the propensity for this impeller to regularly self destruct, it seems like an inline screen or filter would be appropriate.
 
I think the design is just fine. I put nearly two hundred hours on my gen set last year, and by September I just felt like it was time to swap it out. When i finally got the old one out it was fine-very pliable, no obvious cracking of the vanes, etc.
The key for me is to pay attention to the strainer. the Potomac and tributaries get a lot of vegetation in the summer months, and if the strainer clogs the impeller will go quickly; fortunately the gen set shuts down when there is insufficient cooling water flow.

regards
Skip
 
Hold on here... Im looking up words in the dictionary .. Ok im all caught up... heck shawn... smaller words please... us diesel guys arent that smart... all them years of breathing in gas vapors dont u know .....

Skip... awesome post... ill give it a shot .. I was also going to try what shawn alluded too ( S.A .T word ... " Alluded " ) how many points ? oh sorry.... i was going to try and back flush... The onan manual shows the hoses and flow direction.. The hose thing should work...

Back to the impleller, Skip u removed the entire pump then opened the housing ? if so thats two gaset kits ?

Rob
 
Rob, on my Onan there is no gasket between the pump and the block, and the joint does not leak any oil. Impeller is a 30 minute job by pulling the whole pump-or two plus hours of swearing in your ER trying to get the impeller in with the pump on the genset. I know-I;ve tried both ways!

regards
Skip
 
Robski97 said:
Hold on here... Im looking up words in the dictionary .. Ok im all caught up... heck shawn... smaller words please...
Click to expand...

C'mon now...I'm just a roofer from farmtown Ohio. I heard those words once in a bar and I've been dying to use them. Guess I'll save them for the Avon Dinghy Forum. :lol:

As far as 2 hours for the impeller change...hmmmm.?? Mine was pretty darn quick - maybe 20 minutes as I recall (except for losing one of those tiny $*@&^*$ nuts that hold the plate on the pump). Have there been changes in the setup from '03 to '05? Or Skip are you saying that most of the time was cleaning out the old bits (which I didn't do).
 
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On Saturday our engine tech described the exact same process. Disconnect the pump from the two hoses, remove the top bolt, remove the lower nut and bolt, and pull the pump out a bit to replace. He also said it gave more access to look into the tubing to see if impeller parts were lodged.

Also, he suggested cutting the engine zinc in half for the port engine lower cooler zinc, as there isn't enough room to insert a fresh one against the stringer. Interesting. Anyone experienced this?
 
Skip,
The manual shows a gasket behind the wear plate . So thats why we didnt go that way. I didnt have another gasket. Looks like it may be easier pulling the entire pump. I guess i'll find out next year.

Rob
 
Ed,
The zinc issue must be unique to the 480CE/420DB application-the 420DA with Mechanical C's has plenty of room for accessing the zinc in the bottom of the aftercooler. Now-the genset racor-there is another story. And so is the AP fluxgate compass placement. SO much colorful writing was lost with SRO.

Shawn,
Impellers are funny. In August '06 when my first impeller failed in the Onan, it was about 95 degrees out and the crew (including four kids under 5, and two rapidly stressing Moms) was clamoring for AC-so perhaps desperation guided my fingers-and I was able to pop the new impeller in with a shot of silicone and about 10 minutes of labor without removing the pump. This is why I assumed that it would be similarly simple for every subsequent impeller swap.
Not so last fall, when I spent two hours fighting the danged thing in the ER. But the story gets better. After two hours of wrapping the new impeller in tie-wraps to compress the vanes and slide it in without success, I called fwebster, who told me to take the pump off the generator. I got the pump off and the new impeller on with no problem.
Overcome with joy, I cranked the gen set up.
My 5 year old son was in the ER with me..he thinks the fact that the Cummins are as tall as he is reflects total coolness, whatever that is.
Anyway, I crank up my Onan with spiffy new impeller and climb out of the ER to put a load on the gen set once it comes up to temperature. It is at this point that I think to myself, "self, that little 1.1 Liter Kubota diesel on the genset sounds oddly, uh, throaty today! About 15 seconds later, my brain finally kicks in and I realize the generator seacock is still closed. It was at this point that my 5 year old heard some rather salty language from his old man. (Did I mention I spent 20 years in the Army? I have been chewed out by professionals, many wearing lots of stars on their shoulders, and along the way I learned many fascinating permutations of the "F" word)
So--I then ingeniously TOUCH the friction plate on the water pump-yup, burned the heck out of my finger. So, I shut off the genset, and call Cummins and order a new impeller, plus a spare, in case of any future attacks of dumbass. I removed the now heat-tempered impeller and keep it as a permanent reminder of the "stupid tax" that my friend fwebster occasionally refers to.

So yes, sadly, I know that of which I speak.
But it is experiences like this that make me really appreciate weekends like we just had aboard, where every last thing on the boat worked perfectly, and the Cummins purred like big kittens with an attitude for 6 hours.
All good.

best regards
Skip
 
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