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sailah · 10-04-2017, 20:42

Did a valve check, all were in spec except for #3 which was way off. 0.65mm vs everything else which was 0.25-0.26mm. Spec is 0.25mm. I adjusted anyways.

I decided that the head would need to come off to figure out if the valve was bent so I started the disassembly further into the beast.

How do you like my wire nut injector caps? It was just plastic on the threads I didn't screw them down to the metal.

Got the head off and was checking out the pistons. They looked perfect. #3 was a little wet, no surprise. There were also a couple marks on the piston. I'm thinking the worst that the valve hit.

Here's a video I took of the pistons. I was nervous about #3 and felt it wiggled around a little too much. But checking the others it was about the same.

https://youtu.be/NjxjWXIkX5Q

So I figured I was done for the night and dragged the head off and down to my truck to bring into the garage.

Flipped it over and had a closer look at the valve. Think I found the problem. And the missing pieces of my air filter

I don't know why there was so much dirt in the filter. Could have been from some disintegrating sound liner in the engine compartment. I will remedy that.

So it appears that the filter got clogged, which in turn caused it to deform and broke the mesh holding it. Which got sucked into the intake and then the valve holding it open. Maybe some got chewed up and spit out already, I'll have to check the intake carefully to make sure it's all gone.

Plan is to pop out the valves and check everything on v blocks make sure it's all straight. Check the head too. Order up some gaskets and put it back together again.

Found some coolant hoses were pretty worn in spots so I might freshen those up. I was going to pull the injectors and send them off for testing. Anything else I should do while I'm apart?

I still don't understand why none of the glow plugs checked out or worked when I put 12v to them.

Anyways, thanks for the moral support, I keep you updated on progress as I move along.

Peter

Compass790 · 11-04-2017, 00:07

Glad you found the problem & helped us all with vid etc.Had an air filter that looked worse than yours on a 75hp Cat main engine, problem was genset exhaust was leaking a little & the cat was sucking up all the carbon particles. Lucky filter didn't disintegrate like yours. It made the Cat engine use heaps of oil & it took a while to figure the problem out. I do like to run an air-filter though as you'd be surprised how much crap they trap even on a boat. Ours is an oiled foam type so washable. Didn't think it would be an injector problem with your care in filtering.

Compass790 · 11-04-2017, 00:32

Forgot to say if you dont like paying for head gaskets you can re-use if you coat them both sides with a thin layer of Loctite 515 flange sealant. I have done this on a head gasket a few times without a failure so far but it depends on your budget/time constraints. I use silicone for the other gaskets as the Yanmar ones are too pricey for me

transmitterdan · 11-04-2017, 05:55

I would say it's hard to mess up measuring the glow pin resistance. It's just one terminal with the engine case as the return as I recall. It's easy to damage all 4 by leaving them on too long. Maybe the spring switch got stuck in the glow position sometime in the past.

An alternate way to check them is to pull the wire off and connect an ammeter in series between the wire and the glow pin. Engage the glow switch and measure the current. That's a pretty fool proof way to see if they work or not.

transmitterdan · 11-04-2017, 06:01

I agree with a previous post about not having a fine air filter on an inboard sailboat engine. They cause more problems than they cure. If the engine room is too dusty that's it's own problem that needs to be addressed. I think Yanmar stopped including pleated filters years ago. Oiled foam filters, while better, can get sucked into the engine too.

**a64pilot** · 11-04-2017, 06:15

Please take the head to a machine shop. I'm astonished the air filter pieces stayed there, but while the head is off is the time to have it checked for flatness, and I'd have the valves ground and new oil seals, cheap and now is the time.
You can verify valve seal by pouring alcohol into the port, none should leak through, a little wet line around the valve is acceptable after 10 min or so, but no leak.
Due to the higher compression of a Diesel valve seal is WAY more important than on a gasoline engine.
Having all glow plugs bad is not uncommon, you usually only find out when the weather turns cold as it will start fine except in cold weather, colder than most people will use a boat. Sometimes when they go bad, they will swell up and be very hard to remove.
Buy a new head gasket, unless the original was solid copper which I have never seen a stock one, don't reuse it.
I am a proponent of copper coat for head gaskets, great stuff. However if you can get a blue FelPro Teflon gasket, don't put anything on it. I highly doubt one is available, but if it is buy it.

This stuff, but you can buy it at almost any parts store, comes in a spray which I like for head gaskets, and a bottle and brush which is great for sealing aircraft engine cases and other things that spraying is hard to do. You have to shake it a whole lot to get the copper in suspension before you spray though, and it is sticky as the devil
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/s...FdgvgQodj-0AmQ

**a64pilot** · 11-04-2017, 06:20

I bet a lot of the dirt in the filter may be belt dust?

sailah · 11-04-2017, 06:23

Quote:

Originally Posted by Compass790

Glad you found the problem & helped us all with vid etc.Had an air filter that looked worse than yours on a 75hp Cat main engine, problem was genset exhaust was leaking a little & the cat was sucking up all the carbon particles. Lucky filter didn't disintegrate like yours. It made the Cat engine use heaps of oil & it took a while to figure the problem out. I do like to run an air-filter though as you'd be surprised how much crap they trap even on a boat. Ours is an oiled foam type so washable. Didn't think it would be an injector problem with your care in filtering.

I can't make heads or tails of why that filter clogged like it did. That's a factory Westerbeke filter. The previous one was in there for years and I changed it just because. The only thing I could imagine it was is the old insulation that was crumbling. I've been slowly removing it with shop vac yearly. The good insulation is all Sounddown and has the foil facing. Guess it's time to actually remove all of the bad stuff and get those 12x12 tiles.

I am very careful about fuel and my polisher runs 100% of the time the engine is running. Pump is rated for 72 GPH, I run 2 filters on it, 10 & 5 micron

Quote:

Originally Posted by Compass790

Forgot to say if you dont like paying for head gaskets you can re-use if you coat them both sides with a thin layer of Loctite 515 flange sealant. I have done this on a head gasket a few times without a failure so far but it depends on your budget/time constraints. I use silicone for the other gaskets as the Yanmar ones are too pricey for me

I'm cheap but there's no value to me to running the risk on a used head gasket. I bought a full factory Mitsubishi gasket set on ebay from the UK for $120 shipped. Westerbeke wants $169 for just the head gasket.

Quote:

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I would say it's hard to mess up measuring the glow pin resistance. It's just one terminal with the engine case as the return as I recall. It's easy to damage all 4 by leaving them on too long. Maybe the spring switch got stuck in the glow position sometime in the past.

An alternate way to check them is to pull the wire off and connect an ammeter in series between the wire and the glow pin. Engage the glow switch and measure the current. That's a pretty fool proof way to see if they work or not.

I agree, I know how to use a meter and I trust my Fluke. It just seemed odd that all 4 were bad. I found a cross reference to NGK Y114T that I found on Amazon prime for $9. My engine has always started well so maybe it was doing it with no preheat.

I had a 12V lab power supply on the boat I used with high resistance Nichrome wire to cut the caulking holding down the hatches to rebed. Which worked awesome BTW. I set the power supply to 13V and got nothing. My power supply has a built in ammeter and it showed no current so I think my confidence is high that they were all bad.

Quote:

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I agree with a previous post about not having a fine air filter on an inboard sailboat engine. They cause more problems than they cure. If the engine room is too dusty that's it's own problem that needs to be addressed. I think Yanmar stopped including pleated filters years ago. Oiled foam filters, while better, can get sucked into the engine too.

Yeah I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I like the idea of filtration and see no reason why I can't engineer a better solution than their filter setup. My thought driving to work this morning was to weld up a new elbow & flange and run a larger cone foam filter like the racers run on their cars. That way it would be visible.

But I don't think I'll be trusting the same filter setup.

I ordered up some cork plugs from McMaster Carr to plug all the holes in the deck. Plan to scrape the gasket off and get ready for reassembly after I check all the valves and the rest of the head.

deblen · 11-04-2017, 07:52

Quote:

Originally Posted by sailah

Did a valve check, all were in spec except for #3 which was way off. 0.65mm vs everything else which was 0.25-0.26mm. Spec is 0.25mm. I adjusted anyways.

I decided that the head would need to come off to figure out if the valve was bent so I started the disassembly further into the beast.

How do you like my wire nut injector caps? It was just plastic on the threads I didn't screw them down to the metal.

Got the head off and was checking out the pistons. They looked perfect. #3 was a little wet, no surprise. There were also a couple marks on the piston. I'm thinking the worst that the valve hit.

Here's a video I took of the pistons. I was nervous about #3 and felt it wiggled around a little too much. But checking the others it was about the same.

https://youtu.be/NjxjWXIkX5Q

So I figured I was done for the night and dragged the head off and down to my truck to bring into the garage.

Flipped it over and had a closer look at the valve. Think I found the problem. And the missing pieces of my air filter

I don't know why there was so much dirt in the filter. Could have been from some disintegrating sound liner in the engine compartment. I will remedy that.

So it appears that the filter got clogged, which in turn caused it to deform and broke the mesh holding it. Which got sucked into the intake and then the valve holding it open. Maybe some got chewed up and spit out already, I'll have to check the intake carefully to make sure it's all gone.

Plan is to pop out the valves and check everything on v blocks make sure it's all straight. Check the head too. Order up some gaskets and put it back together again.

Found some coolant hoses were pretty worn in spots so I might freshen those up. I was going to pull the injectors and send them off for testing. Anything else I should do while I'm apart?

I still don't understand why none of the glow plugs checked out or worked when I put 12v to them.

Anyways, thanks for the moral support, I keep you updated on progress as I move along.

Peter

Congrats! Well done!

"anything else I should do......"
You could remove your galley table & just eat off the engine!!

Len

etterridge · 11-04-2017, 09:16

Great troubleshooting!

In picking up on A64pilots tip I ordered a couple of cans of the copper spray for my own head gasket replacement project now in progress.

To A64pilot: thank for that tip.

**a64pilot** · 11-04-2017, 09:20

1 can will go a long way, likely do 10 head gaskets

Cheechako · 11-04-2017, 09:35

Quote:

Originally Posted by a64pilot

It did that because the valve stuck, when it was stuck open, there was a whole lot of play, enough so that the push rod could fall out of the indent in the rocker arm.
Often they fall out only part way, then get bent when they try to open the valve further than it can because the valve spring stacks up.

You got lucky, the valve freed up and didn't stick again, it happens.
Google "Lycoming morning sickness" for a very good explanation of valve sticking

Cool, That makes sense. In this case it was a boat that had been stored but ran occasionally for 3-5 years. So it all adds up regarding a valve being stuck, no lube , no run time. The engine was making about a quart of oil every 8 hours of run time, until I figured it all out. Not only the push rod but one injector was streaming. Good engine after all was solved. The perkins 4-236 was near new, (300 hours) but the 80 year old owner hadn't used the boat. It was on a water lift cradle in his back yard canal on Florida.

Cheechako · 11-04-2017, 09:40

Quote:

Originally Posted by transmitterdan

I agree with a previous post about not having a fine air filter on an inboard sailboat engine. They cause more problems than they cure. If the engine room is too dusty that's it's own problem that needs to be addressed. I think Yanmar stopped including pleated filters years ago. Oiled foam filters, while better, can get sucked into the engine too.

I heartily agree ...as I said earlier. Your engine isn't going to wear out from sucking dust on a boat.

sailah · 11-04-2017, 10:32

Quote:

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Please take the head to a machine shop. I'm astonished the air filter pieces stayed there, but while the head is off is the time to have it checked for flatness, and I'd have the valves ground and new oil seals, cheap and now is the time.
You can verify valve seal by pouring alcohol into the port, none should leak through, a little wet line around the valve is acceptable after 10 min or so, but no leak.
Due to the higher compression of a Diesel valve seal is WAY more important than on a gasoline engine.
Having all glow plugs bad is not uncommon, you usually only find out when the weather turns cold as it will start fine except in cold weather, colder than most people will use a boat. Sometimes when they go bad, they will swell up and be very hard to remove.
Buy a new head gasket, unless the original was solid copper which I have never seen a stock one, don't reuse it.
I am a proponent of copper coat for head gaskets, great stuff. However if you can get a blue FelPro Teflon gasket, don't put anything on it. I highly doubt one is available, but if it is buy it.

This stuff, but you can buy it at almost any parts store, comes in a spray which I like for head gaskets, and a bottle and brush which is great for sealing aircraft engine cases and other things that spraying is hard to do. You have to shake it a whole lot to get the copper in suspension before you spray though, and it is sticky as the devil
https://www.summitracing.com/parts/s...FdgvgQodj-0AmQ

Interesting about the gasket sealant. I've never used that on any engines but I will try it. I don't know what the factory gasket is made from but that's what I have coming. In removing what I assume was a factory gasket it is a high temp graphite material. We used the same stuff at work to seal up high pressure steam traps when the regular stuff won't seal.

I have a AA lab surface plate in my shop, actually have a couple other larger ones too. I'm confident in my AA plate, the others are probably a B grade granite. I have all the tools to check as well for flatness. With 800 hours I don't know if I want to regrind the valves. Will look at the seat condition and Dykem the mating surfaces. If I have a good seal I'll leave them alone. I do have new valve seals coming along with my gasket kit so I'll def install those.

I've used the alcohol trick before it works well but thanks for posting it for others so they can hear how to do it

I may end up bringing it to a shop and have them hot tank it, I just don't have the tank to dip something that big. Since I'll put a fresh lap on the valves getting rid of the lapping paste is important to me.

Good to know on glow plugs, ordered up some new ones.