Websterbeke genset water output and steam

K

k9medic

Active Member
Mar 27, 2013
597
Florida
Boat Info
1998 420 Aft Cabin
Engines
twin 3116 CATs
I had had to replace my impeller yesterday on a Websterbeke 8 genset and now I find what appears to be steam coming from the exhaust. Any thoughts on this or the water flow amount?


[video=youtube_share;RHYGpPN6-f4]http://youtu.be/RHYGpPN6-f4[/video]
 
Was your boat running right before you changed it and it was not like that at all?
 
looks a little light on the flow to me but I am comparing to my Onan
possible the fingers on the impeller are reversed ??
 
moparlvr4406 said:
looks a little light on the flow to me but I am comparing to my Onan
possible the fingers on the impeller are reversed ??
Click to expand...


I disnt kniw you you could reverse the vanes. Quite frankly after 3 hours in the engine room I was spent. Whoever put this on the back side of the granny should be shot.

As as it is now,I think I just smoked the impeller anyway. I went to check it and forgot to turn the stopcock back on and it shut down when it overheated. As the kids say FML.
 
I've got a 8BTD as well and your flow is 1/2 or less than it should be. The water flow should be constant with spurts every 2-3 seconds and you aren't cycling enough water to cool the exhaust, so you are getting steam. From your description, you likely have an impeller do-over ahead of you.

If you haven't burned up the new impeller, then check the intake for blockages, then your next step should be to remove the end caps off the heat exchanger and see what debris is in the ends of the exchanger body. If needed, you can run a dowel or brazing rod down each tube and clean out any plugging. If t here is a lot of build-up, you might be time ahead to just take the heat exchanger off the boat and clean it with acid.

Also, I find it easier to just remove the pump from the generator and rebuild it on a bench rather than trying to do it blind behind the engine.............but be sure you mark the orientation of the shaft before you tear into it.

Good luck with it...........
 
As fwebster said above, not near enough water. You can tell by the sound the muffler is dry. Hope you didn't cook the new one. You need to verify nothing is blocked from the old impellor coming apart. Good luck!!
 
I finally got down to the boat this weekend and repaired the impeller. I chose to use a sawzall to open up a hole on the back side of the engine room so I could access the impeller easier. The plan was to put a hatch there as some others have done. Unfortunately for me, I wasnt sawing perfectly level and managed to get into the wiring harness. After another hour repairing wires I was able to get back to focusing on the impeller but now I am stuck with hole that is too small for a hatch. I wil probably cover the hole with a piece of starboard though.

As for the impeller, it would not have lasted long anyway. There was a bunch of sea weed packed tight in the intake line before the strainer that too forever to get out. I actually had to pull the whole impeller housing (which was much easier than just the impeller plate) and had to dig out all of the now very small particles of rubber.

Needless to say another 3 hours in the engine room got the generator back running again.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Forum statistics

Threads
113,238
Messages
1,429,082
Members
61,119
Latest member
KenBoat
Back
Top