12v92 DDEC WITH ANTIFREEZE IN THE OIL!

[northshoreone]

Took her out for a Birthday ride yesterday and the Starboard engine overheated on the way in. I just changed oil and filters the day before and after pulling the cover on the impeller finding no issue went to the coolant tank and looked in and the antifreeze was barely able to be seen! My worst fear! It was all fine before I left the dock as I checked it. It didn't run long as I shut it down as soon as the alarm sounded. My question is does anyone know someone on the west coast of Fl......Fort Myers area that is able to handle this. I will call Detroit Diesel here tomorrow but Charlie is the only one there that works on these and he may be scheduled a long way out. Right now all I can see are $$$$$$$$$$$ going out the window!! I'm praying that its not a total rebuild!
I sure ended up with one heck of a present!!!

 

[Boatsb]

Calling Captdis. Calling Captdis.

 

[saltshaker]

I wouldn't panic just yet but you do need to get someone there ASAP to check it out and get the coolant out of the oil. I Dave/captddis can't take care of it, I know a couple guys you can try.

 

[captddis]

Thanks Guy's but I am really backed up and FM is a little to far to travel.
Hopefully it is only tube.

 

[northshoreone]

Heading back to pump it all out....hope four five gallon buckets is enough!
I think I have about ten gallons of extra oil....after I pump everything out should I add some of the new back in while I wait for someone to take a deeper look into the issue??
I'll take any names you guys have.....
Thanks

 

[dsharp]

Do you know how hot it got?

 

[dottieshusband]

There are not a lot of ways to get coolant in the oil. Cracked injector tube, cracked head, or failure of one or more of the rubber seals in the head, or the oil cooler itself. Failure of the rubber seals can be due to blow by at the liner seals. You describe voluminous coolant in the oil, so either it's been going on for quite some time, or its a catastrophic failure of some type. Is there oil in the coolant?

 

[dottieshusband]

The V92 is a wet liner design, so failure of a liner block seal will also result in coolant in the oil. But all the causes are big deals.

 

[saltshaker]

A bad injector tube can do exactly what he's seeing. A friend of mine had one go on a 12V71TI. All was good when he did his fluid check before he left. After a short run he came back and noticed the oil level was high on one engine. Turned out he dumped almost 3 gls of coolant into the oil. Hopefully that's what happened here. I'll PM you a couple of names and numbers of good Detroit guys in the area.

 

[rsmith]

I don't see that he said there was coolant in the oil just that the coolant was gone.

 

[Canuck Dennis]

If a tube goes would that not put coolant into the cylinder ?

 

[dottieshusband]

A Detroit head is a complex thing. The injector tube runs from the top surface of the head, through the fire deck, where it is cooled with antifreeze, and only the very end is flared above the cylinder opening where the injector tip passes through. If the injector is in place, only traces of coolant would pass into the cylinder, and then not when it's running, because of the extreme pressure inside the combustion chamber. I recently had a cracked injector tube. It was a hairline crack wher a reaming line had caused some fatigue to set up. I wasn't losing any measurable coolant.

 

[northshoreone]

Pumped out the oil last night. The first three gallons were pure antifreeze...laying in the bottom of the pan...after that a mixture which made the oil thicker. I pumped a total of about 19 gallons out of the engine. It holds about 13.5 gallons of oil when full so about 5 gallons of antifreeze was dumped into the engine. When I heard the alarm the engine was at 197 degrees and I shut it down. I ran the rest of the way in on the Port engine but when needing to get back at the dock.....tide and wind were a factor....not wanting to wipe out some of the boats in the marina....I fired back up the Starboard engine for just a few min. to turn the boat. When I started it the temp. was 150 in just those few min. it went to 225 and a trail of white smoke was seen coming from the exhaust. I shut it down...as I was in a good enough spot to use the thruster's to get the rest of the way in. Like I said all was well when I left with no prior changes in oil or antifreeze level prior to this run. I ran out at hull speed for about an hour checking some adjustments made the the Naiad system and other electronics. I did bring it up on plane....ran briefly at wide open throttle....backed it down to about 1,800 for a bit and then slowed to hull speed again. I ran back at hull speed for about a hour prior to the alarm sounding.
Now that I have the oil and antifreeze out should I add back some good oil until someone can get there to dig into the issue?
Thanks everyone for your help!

 

[rsmith]

That much coolant in the oil is not good. Coupled with a overheat on a 92? I think an overhaul is in your future.

 

[Cricket]

We never ran our 892 Detroits with antifreeze in them because they would run too warm. Used distilled water and a treatment, think it was Nalcool.

 

[capttonyf]

First,,, I'm NO Mechanic, but I know enough that I was concerned you had a major failure when you said there was water in the oil. Then you said the Temp hit 225 Degrees. Now I have major concern, and am pretty certain in my thinking that you may need a rebuild. That just sucks. We had a perfectly running 6V92 that tore a liner and flooded the oil with coolant. We could've just did the the simple repair of kits on one bank but since it was apart we had the whole motor done, from the crank up, including new rods, kits, and heads.

We did it for two reasons, 1, we wanted it to be right, but 2, I also wanted to know what caused it. Thank goodness we did because we came to find out the mechanic that did the previous rebuild before we owned the boat made a major mistake.

When he put the the caps on the bottom of the Rods to attatch them to the crank he mis matched the 3 rod end caps to the proper rods. So the tolerances were off. According to our mechanic the caps need to be and are matched to each specific rod. I believe he also said the rods have pre drilled holes that should line up with the same hole in the rod end cap for helping oil work up into the cylinder, and if you mismatch the caps those holes don't align properly. So for 500 hours which is how long it took to fail. Our mechanic "thinks" the cylinders probably weren't getting the proper amount of oil and weren't riding 100% correct on the crank and in the cylinder. So Cylinders/Pistons were wearing prematurely and without warning one cylinder, not the water temp for the whole motor, overheated and tore the liner and the rest is history.

Again this is what I was told, I'm not a mechanic but he said he knew right away it wasn't good just from the smell of the engine room. Hope it all works out and I''m wrong but Coolant in the oil and 225 Degrees, just doesn't look good.

Tony

 

[takefive]

I have had very good results with On Site Diesel service, ask for Jim Brown. He worked for J&T in Jersey for years. Good luck

 

[saltshaker]

Any update as to what went wrong and the extent of the damage? Hoping it's just an injector tube as Dave mentioned earlier.

 

[dsharp]

If you hit 197 and 225 temps the seals in the head are cooked. You'll be lucky if you didn't crack a head.

 

[northshoreone]

Jim Brown is coming over to the boat at 4 pm today. I pulled the inspection covers and antifreeze came out of the outside aft three cylinders. The others had no sign of antifreeze...could be a exhaust manifold failure...I'm praying I didn't cook everything but at this point it is what it is! I will post an update once I find out the rest of the story........
Jack, thanks for your suggestions of help in the area after talking to the first one he was on board but turned out to be a no call no show.....guess he changed his mind...FYI