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muffler

HI Jackie, I recently suffered some similar symptoms. Mine were a minor change in the noise / rattle coming from the engine. This led me to run at lower RPM's. Coming back from Vallejo the noise got worse, a light popping sound. I shut down and sailed home. A week later out testing an AP the noise went up a notch, louder popping. I sailed home. It all turns out to be a build up of carbon and unburned diesel in the exhaust riser/mixer/exhanger. Just past the exhaust manifold. I have taken this heavy metal object off and have cleaned the passage with a chisel, wire brush, and a piece of standing rigging. Finally I have taken it to an auto shop for an overnight soak in there cleaning bath. THere was a lump in the path the size of a ping pong ball that 1/2 clogged the exhaust stream. A diesel mechanic told that for sure this would explain the symptoms.

I wanted to offer an alternative means of getting information. On the day of the next Berkeley mid winters stand on the sea wall dressed in foulies with a cardboard sign, " Will crew for diesel advice".


Brian
 
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brianb said:
I wanted to offer an alternative means of getting information. On the day of the next Berkeley mid winters stand on the sea wall dressed in foulies with a cardboard sign, " Will crew for diesel advice".

Brian
Click to expand...

Your solution sounds great. I assume the Olson 34 is fresh water cooled. I don't think I have that option on my Universal M15. I agree that there are different ways to get what one needs. Two years ago I approached Bob Grey @ Berkeley Yacht Club about hosting our first Round the Rocks race. The barter agreement was that in return I work race committee for a season of that club's midwinters. That was a very pleasant trade, especially since there is often little wind and I'd rather sit around and eat sandwiches on a beautiful boat than float around for hours on the Olympic Circle in Dura Mater.
 
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The fact your engine is raw water cooled makes no difference. You should still have a riser/anti-siphon/heat exchanger, or what ever they call it on Dura Mater. All boats will have a device to mix the raw water coolant with the exhaust stream and them pump it out the back. According to my local tractor mechanic this is the most common failure he sees in all diesel installations. The exhaust stream slowly closes down and the engine cylinders then don't empty fully after combustion, causing a noisy popping sound. A way to test this is to remove the this heat riser and run the engine for a minute with no exhaust (muffler). It will fill your cabin with exhaust, but only for a minute. If the engine runs well then that is the problem. When, and if, you do this the noise in the boat will be very loud. Kind of like the GTO all the hot guys in high school tooled around in.

Of course you could have some other issue, but the fact your engine was making funny sounds and it ran sometimes, slowly getting worse, sounds like my symptoms and what the mechanic described to me.
 
brianb said:
All boats will have a device to mix the raw water coolant with the exhaust stream and them pump it out the back. According to my local tractor mechanic this is the most common failure he sees in all diesel installations. The exhaust stream slowly closes down and the engine cylinders then don't empty fully after combustion, causing a noisy popping sound. A way to test this is to remove the this heat riser and run the engine for a minute with no exhaust (muffler). It will fill your cabin with exhaust, but only for a minute. If the engine runs well then that is the problem. When, and if, you do this the noise in the boat will be very loud. Kind of like the GTO all the hot guys in high school tooled around in.
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This makes perfect sense to me. I just can't locate the heat exchanger on my own engine. I found this great article:

http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/heat_exchanger

which describes the process you suggest. I'll go down and crawl around some more tomorrow.
 
Jackie, if I understand you and Brian correctly, you're focused on different ends of the cooling system.

When the water pump draws water IN to cool the engine, it is raw (sea) water. Most diesels don't shoot this sea water into the engine directly, they pump it through a heat exchanger where the hot, fresh water that has gone through the engine can transfer its heat to the cold sea water. Apparently your engine is like mine - it DOES shoot the sea water into the engine directly. That's why you can't find a heat exchanger on it. But all this is happening on the water INTAKE side.

What Brian is writing about is what happens after the hot water comes out of the engine, on the EXHAUST side. The elbow (shiny thing in my photo) sends the hot exhaust gasses to combine with the hot water exhaust in the lift can (the Vetus plastic part that melted) and then out the back of the boat.
 
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NEar your boat tomorrow

Philpott said:
This makes perfect sense to me. I just can't locate the heat exchanger on my own engine. I found this great article:

http://www.pbase.com/mainecruising/heat_exchanger

which describes the process you suggest. I'll go down and crawl around some more tomorrow.
Click to expand...

Hi Jackie,

I will be in Alameda tomorrow until 1 30 pm and could stop by Berkeley around 2 pm. If you want another set of eyes on the engine.

Brian
 
My little one lung Faryman diesel is raw water cooled, and the water jacket that was replaced a few years ago, (hot salt water on the alternator seemed bad), is already exhibiting small signs of corrosion.
The previous owner, spliced in a Prestone flush kit tee just above the intake, and after every use, the engine is fresh water flushed with the flush kit hose in a 5 gallon bucket.
I really think this continued practice has saved me some grief and expense.
A little Mrs. Stewart's bluing in the bucket indicates the system is flushed through.
 
oops! Just got this email! I'll drive down to the boat right now (1:45pm) in case you stop by O Dock 212. That's the entrance nearest the Berkeley yacht club.
 
You should see the new chartplotter she's getting for Christmas - I may need that third battery!
 
You will regret that ! My little garmin, min size network plotter, is a power pig. ALl the new plotters are due to the wonderful, bright, color display that needs lots of backlighting energy. When on a longer event I keep the display at min brightness. I would have preferred to shut it off but it has to be on to trigger the radar every 5 min for a safety sweep.

I spoke to product mktg at Garmin and RM in hopes of discovering they were working on a lower power model, If anything they are going the other direction. Of course if your interest is just position data occasionally a handheld unit is the best solution.

But enough about engines.
 
It takes fewer electrons than LORAN :)

The net draw won't be much more than my old setup since I've eliminated some separate units. I had a stand-alone AIS (w/display), powered splitter, the old VHF with its bright, incandescent screen, etc.

The decision was actually between the new chartplotter or an iPad with iNavX, which would have also shown AIS targets, etc. I'm not sure if a DSC alarm would have plotted on an iPad screen. Anyway, I think it will be a nice upgrade.

Yeah, back to engines . . .
 
Good golly, I'm heading over to Power. Or maybe a new "chart plotting" thread?

I'm having a terrific time with my iNavx and iPad.
 
Philpott said:
10 miles out of Half Moon Bay my engine sounded different. I turned it off and crawled into the cockpit hatch to see what was wrong. "Thank goodness there is no wind" I said to my boat. My muffler had blown up. I thought diesels liked to be driven. I disconnected the clamps and put the unit into the cabin. When I was again in the quiet cockpit I said to my boat "Oh, there is no wind, it's a sail in the fog for us, honey". So we sailed at about 1.7 knots and never saw land, and the fog at the entrance to the gate obscured the towers. I could glimpse the bridge through the fog as I sailed under it. Now that was cool. Thank you, MX Mariner'
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MUFFLER REDUX: More than 1800 people have read this thread, which tells me that more people than I have difficulties with exhaust systems on old boats. Thank you to Max Crittenden, Bob Johnston, Brian Boschma and Pat Broderick for advice. Here's what finally worked for my Universal M15. The raw water thru-hull directs water via a hose to the water filter. On Dura Mater this is a bronze Perko. I took it apart and made new gaskets with gasket paper purchased from an auto parts store. Then I sealed it with blue goopy permatex. I immersed it from top to bottom overnight and no water got in. I think it is sealed. A hose goes from the water filter to the new Oberdorfer water pump. It’s a beautiful water pump. Its impeller is intact. Yes, I bought a spare.

So far, so good. Then the engine overheated (again) and melted the top of my new Vetus muffler. Oh, hell. Someone then gave me a used muffler (a perfectly good used muffler). It was sitting around in the corner of a yard, much like the Cal 20 keel given me a few years ago by Dave Morris (thanks again, Dave). Why would the engine overheat? According to Max and Brian, cleaning out the engine’s exhaust elbow helped their engines live right. Like eating more roughage works for humans. Yuck. Brian sends me a photo of the engine part. He draws an arrow: unscrew these two bolts. Duh. Surely I could do such a simple thing myself. No way. Those bolts were on tight.

I took Dura Mater across the marina to the Berkeley marine center. Kurt the mechanic snorts: “of course I can remove two bolts”. Well, he removed the two bolts, but then the elbow broke off, having rusted all the way through. I suppose it had been there for 33 years, but still. He broke it, right? Kurt felt no remorse. “Better here than out there,” is his line. I concede the point. Kurt tried to remove the elbow from the manifold. No way that was going to happen. So he removed first the alternator. Then the manifold. Now I know what an alternator looks like. And a manifold. And an exhaust elbow. I suppose Mike Jefferson thinks this is a good thing.

After separating the manifold from the elbow, Kurt rebuilt the exhaust elbow, wrapped it with fiberglass tape and replaced it. To the manifold. And then he replaced the alternator. And the muffler. And all the hoses. Finally he scolded me for the inadequate tie downs holding all the electrical wiring up above my engine. Kurt scolds me every time he works on my engine. I hang my head but I feel no remorse.

And now! When I start my engine the water gushes! Yes, gushes! No more squirts, but gushes. Like on Solar Wind. I mean Iniscaw. Whatever an Iniscaw is.
 
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I prefer to think of it as the redistribution of wealth. Having done my part, I needn't throw my body in front of those Google buses.
 
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