New to the Westerbeke diesel generator - is this as loud as it should be?

Two things:

1). Can you see the discharge to make sure there is sufficient water flow.

2). When you do a cold start do you continue to hold the preheat down for 20-30 seconds so that it stabilizes?

It sounds fine to me. If you have sufficient discharge…..that is as good as it gets without a sound shield.
 
Sounds normal other than an unrelated rattle due to vibration somewhere in the cabin.
 
PlayDate said:
Two things:

1). Can you see the discharge to make sure there is sufficient water flow.

2). When you do a cold start do you continue to hold the preheat down for 20-30 seconds so that it stabilizes?

It sounds fine to me. If you have sufficient discharge…..that is as good as it gets without a sound shield.
Click to expand...
Good discharge. A cold start typically requires 5-6 10 second tries before it finally starts.
 
@dtfeld has a good ongoing write up on how to quiet them down. I’m likely to add a soft sided sound shield in the spring, about $2k, but claims up to 80% reduction in engine noise. The other half is the exhaust note which can be quieter with an inline exhaust add on.

I’m also going to pull injectors and send them out for cleaning and testing as ours only has 190 hours of total runtime so it’s been sitting a lot over it’s 20 year life
 
I was thinking about the injectors as well, curious to know who you are sending yours to for cleaning. I plan to crawl up in there is a couple of weeks to do some service, figure I should do as much as I can while I am stuck in there :)
 
I can’t seem to figure out how to post a question here, has anyone taken tge side window out of a 1990 sea ray sundancer?
A043F30E-9E83-48E5-84B0-0E44B51559D3.jpeg
 
Sounds normal to me, other than the rattle but mine does that as well at times. I replaced my rails this spring, and put in additional rubber pads to further isolate any vibrations, that definitely helped to quiet things down. Last year I added an additional inline muffler downstream of the 2 stage lift muffler, and that helped. I will need to pull the injectors and have them cleaned/inspected, will do that this winter. That's more for dirty exhaust/sooting than sound though.

I suspect the soft sided sound shield will be my next option, but so far it's much more bearable with those changes.
 
Greg
A couple relatively inexpensive and easy items to help quiet the generator down is to upgrade the muffler to a dual stage and get new engine isolators/rails (they are likely old and failing…seems like a lot of mechanical noise coming through the hull). Each job is a couple hundred bucks, but together made a big difference.

Replacing the muffler reduced the exhaust noise to just splashing water. You can add a water separating muffler and get rid of that noise all well if your so inclined. Starts at post 1927.

http://www.clubsearay.com/index.php...express-cruiser-official-thread.53469/page-97http://clubsearay.com/index.php?threads/westerbeke-7-6-btd-vibration-noise-reduction.95727/

Replacing the isolators and rails was a little more physically demanding, but prior to that, the engine vibration could be felt throughout the boat. Huge improvement.

http://clubsearay.com/index.php?threads/westerbeke-7-6-btd-vibration-noise-reduction.95727/
 
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The last bit of annoying noise is the mechanical noise from the engine escaping out the engine air inlets, and to reduce that, you’ll need a sound box. As Ryan pointed out, the soft sided ones are fairly easy to obtain. I’m hoping Ryan takes the lead and show us how it’s done!
 
As to your cold start issues…preheat is 10-30 seconds and hold it after it starts. One of the weaknesses of our install is the engine gauges can’t easily be monitored to see if the glow plugs are working properly. They are easy to remove and test though. Replacement is a PITA as finding cheap replacements is difficult, and the Westerbeke versions expensive.

34B84499-9340-4A63-9E60-DC4C3C79445E.png
 
mrsrobinson said:
I was thinking about the injectors as well, curious to know who you are sending yours to for cleaning. I plan to crawl up in there is a couple of weeks to do some service, figure I should do as much as I can while I am stuck in there :)
Click to expand...

It sounds fine to me, as much as you get from that video.

With regards to long starting, check the glow plugs, they can be taken out and connected to 12v to see if they get hot or not. Be careful though, there called glow plugs for a reason, they get very hot and will glow red.

96202glow1LOjpg_00000049609.jpg
 
mrsrobinson said:
I was thinking about the injectors as well, curious to know who you are sending yours to for cleaning. I plan to crawl up in there is a couple of weeks to do some service, figure I should do as much as I can while I am stuck in there :)
Click to expand...

we have a local D&W Diesel that does them so I’ll likely go there. It soots and smokes quite a bit, and dumps black shit into the water when I start it so something is amiss. The engine might just be worn out from underuse, an oxymoron certainly, but I’ll do the basics and try to rescue it.
 
It starts quickly and sounds good. Don’t mess with the injectors.
 
Strecker25 said:
we have a local D&W Diesel that does them so I’ll likely go there. It soots and smokes quite a bit, and dumps black shit into the water when I start it so something is amiss. The engine might just be worn out from underuse, an oxymoron certainly, but I’ll do the basics and try to rescue it.
Click to expand...
Mine and a lot of these do the exact same thing…I doubt anything seriously wrong. Certainly a tune up of the injectors and torque the head, but it’s a mechnical diesel best suited to running under a decent load, not lightly loaded as we probably run 90% of the time.
 
Mine is a 1988 four cylinder not rebuilt. It has 3200hrs on it and starts right up after 10 seconds of pre-heat. I put in a programmable auto-start that did away with having to hold the preheat, one touch start. It always start in one cycle. Except for late early spring and late fall when it's still cold outside.

Have the injectors serviced if not running smoothly. Depending on the color of the smoke, white and or black, start with the injectors. There's always a little soot around a mechanical diesel.
 
The 7.6 BTD's use Mitsubishi four-cylinder engines. It's important the valve lash be adjusted per the maintenance schedule. The injectors if over 1000 hours should be sent out and cleaned/tested. You will be amazed how a valve lash and injector service will quite these engines down. Upgrading the water-lift muffler and changing the rubber isolators will also go a long way to quite the boat down. But the most improvement will be a sound enclosure.
Starting the generator - if your setup doesn't have the Monoplex module (looking at your video, it doesn't) then press the Preheat for twenty seconds - it's not really the glow plugs (unless you are in cold climate) that aids in the starting but the lift pump priming the system that gets the generator up and running. The Prestart button does three things - activates the glow plugs, activates the lift pump (that clicking noise), and bypasses the oil pressure switch. Once the machine starts and oil pressure comes above 10 psi the Prestart button can be released.
If, on the other hand, it will not remain running or is spewing black smoke there are other issues. The fact you must crank the engine multiple times when cold lends service is needed. These little engines are very robust.
And, as an edit - never continuously crank these generators; you will fill the cylinders with raw water and that will be a very bad day.
 
mrsrobinson said:
Good discharge. A cold start typically requires 5-6 10 second tries before it finally starts.
Click to expand...
A cold start should not require 5-6 tries. I started mine last weekend cold in 45 degree air and 53 degree water, and it took about 8 seconds, but holding the preheat as described in other posts is really important. It shouldnt take you more than 2 tries.
 
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