Car vs Boat

[Laidback]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Any sailor who stripped down a petrol car engine in his misspent youth () would have no problem whatsoever doing this. The parts which are different between diesel and petrol are superficial -- just the fuel system, that's it. All the basic mechanical parts of diesel and petrol engines work exactly the same way -- crankshafts, rods, pistons, cylinder blocks, cylinder heads, camshafts, pushrods, rocker arms, flywheels, etc., etc, etc.

Unfortunately the above maybe an over simplification of the real difference between an automobile's gasoline engine and a sailboat's marine diesel engine.
Consider :-
The gas engine requires electricity to ignite the gasoline/air mixture - The diesel engine requires only compression to ignite the diesel/air mixture.
And probably the greatest source of problems in a marine diesel engine is it's need for raw water to cool it. To do this it will utilize a heat exchanger with its own water pump which in turn cools the engine's fresh water circuitry.
The Automobile's cooling system usually relies simply on a radiator and a fan.
Probably the closest one might get to a marine engine in an automobile would be a light pickup truck with an diesel engine around 2,500 cc.

[Chief Engineer]

If you lived near me or vice versa, I could teach you all you need to know about maintaining/troubleshooting your engine.

Another good book is "Troubleshooting Marine Diesels" by Peter Compton

I give that book to some of my customers for reference.