Westerbeke impellar?

[Luckydogs]

5.0 Westerbeke gasoline generator impellar gone bad. Does anyone know the part number and name of the recommended impellar for this model? Also, how many vanes is it suppose to have. When I pulled it out it was in really bad shape but I was able to get 5 vanes, hopefully this is all so I dont have to go fishing.

 

[never monday]

I has 6 vanes to it. Part#46622

 

[Luckydogs]

Not exactly sure what happened but this past Sunday I had the gen running as we were leaving the No Wake. I make a habit of periodically checking the water discharge to make sure it's running smoothly. It was fine before we planed out got a little ways and checked it again, this time there was no water :smt013 . Shut the gen down immediately and when we anchored up I pulled the face plate off and that's when I saw the culprit, the impellar was shot. I removed what was left of it and pulled the hoses off and tried to retrieve the missing pieces, hopefully I got it all. I'm not sure how to flush the system to be certain nothing is going to fowl the gen up in the future.

I have read other posts about generator water circulation while at cruising speeds in the 280DA. Guess I had first hand experience :huh:

 

[Luckydogs]

Loks like I'm talking to myself here :smt014 but I'm certain you gurus will chime in soon.

Well, I spoke with the technical support at Westerbeke. They tried to walk me through the back wash technique to flush the system of any debris. I was told to disconnect the 3/4" hose to the exhaust elbow and take a graden hose to it, this should flush out the heat exchanger and hoses exiting the water pump.

Has anyone done this before, sounds too easy!

 

[never monday]

That method will work.
I've had as much success easier, by 1) following the hose out of the raw pump to the heat exchanger. 2) Removing the end cap of the heat exchanger and removing the offending rubber parts.

 

[Luckydogs]

Anyone know what direction the impeller needs to be installed in?

 

[never monday]

It doesn't matter, the impeller will orient it's self

 

[BSenzina]

IS it OK to run the gen while i am actually cruising?? At any speed??? :huh:

 

[Luckydogs]

I thought it was since I have done it in the past. Just be aware of the location of the thru hull so that it's in the water.

 

[skolbe]

You should be fine running the genny on plane.

 

[Luckydogs]

Got the impellar changed today and everything seems to be good.

During the process, the gen and I got pretty familiar with eachother as I was trying to back flush the system, no luck. I could.nt figure out which hose to flush and the heat exchanged was different than the one in my manuel. In the manual, it shows the heat exchanger to be on the bottom, mine is located near the top portion of the gen.

The heat exchanged had two bolts, one being the drain for the coolant and the other for the raw water/zinc anode. Of course, I picked the wrong one first and dropped it resulting in all of the coolant to spill out in my bilge. :smt013 Oh well, it neede to be flushed and refilled anyway.

After the clean up, I got the other plug out and there was ot zinc left, did not even look like one existed. Did I identify the parts correctly or is the zonc somewhere else on this model (Westerbeke 5.0)

 

[never monday]

A good dealer would have removed it for you. This is because the boat is in fresh water. Part #11885 is a true zinc, zinc. It's ineffective in fresh water and turns to a clay like substance.

Pat

 

[Bounty]

IS it OK to run the gen while i am actually cruising?? At any speed??? :huh:

Why would you want to? I am having trouble imagining any reason to run the genny while a planing vessel is cruising.

 

[Alex D]

IS it OK to run the gen while i am actually cruising?? At any speed??? :huh:

Yes, it is. The genny water intake is in a place that is always submerged (all water intakes are, duh) and has a scooping water intake thru hull w/ grid. We run ours because our six month old son overheats in 95F weather very quickly, so our genny is doing overtime these days when we are out.

 

[osd9]

IS it OK to run the gen while i am actually cruising?? At any speed??? :huh:

Yes, it is. The genny water intake is in a place that is always submerged (all water intakes are, duh) and has a scooping water intake thru hull w/ grid. ......

Genny's do NOT have a scoopoing water intake. A scooping water intake is installed on the main engines as they are always running when the boat is moving on plane. The Genny, although it can be running when on plane, is not ALWAYS running when the boat is on plane. If the Genny were to scoop water up through its through hole at planning speeds, without th genny running, there is a high potential that the Genny would ingest water in to the cylinders where the valves are open.

 

[Alex D]

IS it OK to run the gen while i am actually cruising?? At any speed??? :huh:

Yes, it is. The genny water intake is in a place that is always submerged (all water intakes are, duh) and has a scooping water intake thru hull w/ grid. ......

Genny's do NOT have a scoopoing water intake. A scooping water intake is installed on the main engines as they are always running when the boat is moving on plane. The Genny, although it can be running when on plane, is not ALWAYS running when the boat is on plane. If the Genny were to scoop water up through its through hole at planning speeds, without th genny running, there is a high potential that the Genny would ingest water in to the cylinders where the valves are open.

I am pretty sure mine does ... but I will check. I am not sure how water would be pressured into the genny and cause water ingestion if the genny is not running?? There is no way even pressured water gets past the raw water pump impeller when the genny is not running and I am not sure that scooping intakes actually produce real pressure of any significance. They just keep the intake from cavitating.

 

[osd9]

From the Westerbeke installation manual...

http://www.westerbeke.com/technical/installation_manual/installation_manual.pdf

Scoop-Type Intake
Where generators are installed in very high speed vessels
(50-60 knots), it has been necessary to use a scoop-type raw
water intake to insure an adequate supply of cooling water to
the generator. Generally, this is not recommended, but if it
needs to be done, the generator must be mounted high
enough so that the exhaust piping has a continuous
downward pitch from the muffler to the exhaust outlet in the
hull. The pitch should be adequate so that the muffler will
continuously drain and no water can back-up into the engine

 

[Bounty]

IS it OK to run the gen while i am actually cruising?? At any speed??? :huh:

Yes, it is. The genny water intake is in a place that is always submerged (all water intakes are, duh) and has a scooping water intake thru hull w/ grid. ......

Genny's do NOT have a scoopoing water intake. A scooping water intake is installed on the main engines as they are always running when the boat is moving on plane. The Genny, although it can be running when on plane, is not ALWAYS running when the boat is on plane. If the Genny were to scoop water up through its through hole at planning speeds, without th genny running, there is a high potential that the Genny would ingest water in to the cylinders where the valves are open.

That is my understanding as well. While it is OK to run the genny during a harbor cruise at 5 knots or something like that, to me running it while the boat is on plane seems like asking for trouble, not to mention pointless.