Is is always a fuel issue?

[REBrueckner]

In a recent discussion,

http://www.samsmarine.com/forums/showthread.php?t=16651

once again lack of fuel proved to be the culprit causing a Detroit Diesel to not run...apparently a leaky RACOR filter.... again.

Which got me thinking: can anyone remember anything in all these forum discussions that either prevented an old Detroit from starting or causing it to stop that WASN'T fuel related? The darn things seem to keep going and going and going....like the energizer bunny.

Sure they can overheat, and mechanical failures must occur from time to time, but it seems 99% of the time its a fuel issue....dirty filter, airleak, water in fuel, etc. Have we ever had anybody post a piston thru the head, or a broken crankshaft,etc,etc,etc...I don't remember any.

In my own case I've been running Detroits almost all of 38 years... (3-53's,
6V53's, 8V71TI's) in three different boats....(which of course suggests a Detroit "rut")...... and in all that time the only "engine" issue I had was a governor bearing seize up on a 6V53...I jury rigged the governor control with a wire to give me the RPM's I wanted to cruise home. left the engine at idle for maneuvering in the harbor......Nor have I had a transmission failure on a Detroit in all those years.

Now that I think of it, the above was again confimed when Bill Allen and I took his boat from Brielle NJ to Marathon Fla....after a filter change in rough water headed down the Chesapeake Bay last November, we could not get one 6-71 restarted....turned out it was air in the fuel line.....

Seems like it's ALWAYS fuel....???????

 

[DCMY #92]

In 29 years the only problem I have had with our 6V53s is one fresh water circ pump seal. Even this failure I caught before it caused a problem. However, I did have several transmission failures in the '80s and early '90s that were show stoppers. These seem to be sorted out now.

 

[saltshaker]

I had a coolant leak that took out a cylinder. Trashed a liner and bent a connecting rod. Did it keep the engine from starting? Unfortunately no. If it did, I wouldn't have bent a rod.

 

[REBrueckner]

DCMY reminded me: I had a rebuild raw water pump housing, belt driven, pop a pinhole leak and caused an engine to start running warmer than normal...one of my 6V53's, in REAL steep seas, of course....luckily I turned around a few hundred yards inside a breakwater and anchored....wire brushed the pump housing exterior, used some epoxy smear on the housing, warmed it with a propane torch to cure, and we were underway again in about 45 minutes....

never had a DD fail to run for any reason....not always at full throttle, but always got me home....

 

[Passages]

Air - Air door got tripped and I didn't know. Took me a while to chase it down.

Bad Fuel pump - I guess that's fuel related so doesn't count.

Weather - One really cold December day, the old girl struggled for 10 minutes to fire. Battery was tired and the 40wt was like glue. When she finally fired, there was more smoke, much hunting, but settled down after a minute or 2.

 

[DCMY #92]

I must have been half asleep this morning when I made my transmission report. Within 10 hours of having the heads on both 6V53s overhauled and new exhaust valves installed I had one of the new valves snap its head off. I contribute this to a defective new valve. The engine didn't shut down on its own, but it lost power and put a fuel slick out the exhaust. The result was a cracked head. The good news is that I was near a DD dealer with new heads in stock, so the cruise to the Bahamas resumed after two days of down time to replace the head.

I also had to do a premature overhaul on both engines due to leakage of coolant past the liner lower seals. The seals on one engine failed catastrophically while underway. Again the engine continued to run, but was puking coolant and steam out the exhaust and lost power so I shut it down. I overhauled the second engine later when spitting of coolant out the air box drains (that I was monitoring for) started to occur.

 

[gbittner]

I had a friend who had a crankshaft break. Caused by a bad vibration damper. To my surprise he went to arbitration against his insurance company and he won. The insurance company paid for the cost of repair which was around 40,000 dollars on a 671 Detroit. His insurance company is Boat USA. I am trying to find out where in the policy a statement says they would pay for that. Anyone else got insurance to pay for an engine failure?

 

[REBrueckner]

"Air door got tripped and I didn't know"

yes, that happened to Bill and me on our recent trip to Fla....while mechanics were trying to bleed air out of the fuel line, which was the real problem, one of them tripped the door on one of Bill's 6-71's and that probably delayed them maybe a half hour....

Well, compatred to all the fuel stories I recall here, I'm sticking with my thesis that fuel seems to be by far the most common cause of running and starting problems.