'THERE IS SMOKE EVERYWHERE!!' not what you want to hear 40mi offshore....

[madhatter1]

So I have an uneducated guess. Hydro lock from one issue at low idle RPM stopped the engine and jolt was enough to bump it backwards and run for a few seconds in reverse rotation. Any oil in any cylinders from first issue could have been enough to spin it a few revolutions.

Maybe everyone is partially correct.

 

[rustybucket]

Long time no update on this thread. Made some good progress this weekend. The pistons/liners were finished a couple weeks back. Got the heads and the exhaust manifolds hung this weekend. Major milestone on the rebuild schedule. Hopefully everything else buttons up rather quickly and we will be fishing in a month or two!

Block prepped and ready for final wipedown

Gaskets and spacers installed

Head suspended over the block. Once in place everything gets a final wipe and gasket check

Since the heads weigh over 300lbs each, ATV Winches were rigged to low profile unistrut which was screwed to the ceiling. This allows us to winch up and then slide the head into the block. Once the head was 1" or so from the block, 1 last gasket check and the guide studs were installed, so the head could be placed perfectly.

 

[rustybucket]

The winches were powered with small M12 Milwaukee drill batteries.

The setup really allowed us to lift the heads as high as possible as the low height of the ceiling required.

After setting the heads the winch system was used to set the exhaust manifolds as well.

 

[Avenger]

Very clever hoist setup!

Many thanks for sharing and (continued) best of luck...

DAN

Ditto that. Nice to see positive progress, and pics.

Lots of pics.

 

[rsmith]

Glad to see your making progress. Ever solve the cause of the problem? That’s a great use for the unistrut trolley system. I need to keep this one in mind. I keep having these pop up on my Amazon page.

 

[cww]

Glad you're getting closer to being back on the water. Since we had this argument, I tried a new mechanic who to give the short explanation was a nutcase and trashed my engines. I ended up doing inframe rebuilds on both (with a different mechanic who knows what he's doing). It took about a month and a half to have it done, but the final cost was right at $70k. I like your way much better.

 

[rustybucket]

Ok, little update. Finally got everything buttoned back up and fired her up Sunday! One small oil leak (gasket mis-positioned on turbo install) and two small raw water leaks which just needed a little more torque on the hose clamps.
She fired right up and purred like a kitten. Not gonna lie, it was a GREAT sound to hear.

Quick video of running during the initial startup.


Some things I learned along the way.
- An inframe rebuild is a MAJOR project. Sooooo many parts/pieces to these engines, and doing the work in a hole leaves a lot to be desired. Total project time on this was approx 1yr for us, but it took 6 months for cylinder liners to arrive. So in reality, it was more like a few weeks for teardown and about 6 months to re-assemble. Keeping in mind this was done on free and long weekends (I live 4.5hrs from boat).
- Organization was KEY!!! All parts got bagged and tagged/labeled with any special instructions listed on the bags.
- Many parts of this project are 1 person, but when doing in-frame it's sooooo helpful to have a second person, if for nothing else to hand you a wrench/tool...etc instead of having to crawl out of the hole find the tool, then crawl back down in.
- I'm guesstimating, without labor, I've got approx $12k in the rebuild. Approx $7k in parts and $5k in misc supplies, tools, gloves, solvents, oils, cleaners...etc. I don't even know how many hours of labor, but def in the 100's. I also did two blower rebuilds with bypass that added approx $2k to the project.


I installed a new blower with bypass valve on the rebuild engine. While everything was down I went ahead and changed the blower on the other engine as well. Both engines got rebuilt injectors, new coolant, oil...etc. The blower bypass mod should remove an 80hp load on the engines at cruise-wot.

Hoping to do the break-in run this coming sunday, still got a few things to button up before we are ready for seatrial. Hopefully everything stays buttoned up and we are back on the water soon!

Special thanks to all here as well as the guys over at boatdiesel.com who really helped me with questions/guidance along the way. Without these two resources (and youtube) there is no way I could have done this project.

 

[rustybucket]

Solution: After lots of thinking and figuring, I believe I've come up with a way to keep a 'short shutdown' from happening.
The idea is to work a timer-relay into the shutdown button circuit. So when the shutdown button is pressed, even if for a split second, the relay stays closed for 5-10secs before it releases the shutdown solenoid. So even if you accidentally bump the button the engine will just go ahead and shut down.

Or if you are an idiot like me and just don't hold it down for long enough, the timed relay will stay closed for plenty of time.

In addition I'm going to add some alarm parameters to my electronic display that will be able to warn of no oil pressure when rpm (even if negative) is present.

Hopefully these two fail safes will prevent this from happening again.

 

[Pascal]

Congratulations and best of luck on the sea trial!

 

[JuiceClark]

Solution: After lots of thinking and figuring, I believe I've come up with a way to keep a 'short shutdown' from happening.
The idea is to work a timer-relay into the shutdown button circuit. So when the shutdown button is pressed, even if for a split second, the relay stays closed for 5-10secs before it releases the shutdown solenoid. So even if you accidentally bump the button the engine will just go ahead and shut down.

Or if you are an idiot like me and just don't hold it down for long enough, the timed relay will stay closed for plenty of time.

In addition I'm going to add some alarm parameters to my electronic display that will be able to warn of no oil pressure when rpm (even if negative) is present.

Hopefully these two fail safes will prevent this from happening again.

Great idea. Have one designed and patent it! After replacing most everything, the on/off switches on the helm were about the cheapest part. It's too important to be the cheapest. AND, make them different colors for me will ya....I still confuse the damned things.

Congrats on that monster undertaking. You probably saved $30k and finished just as quickly as shop would have done at full cost.

 

[zigzag930]

Awesome job on a huge undertaking. I noted that you didn't remove the crank. I was really wondering how that would be done with the engine in-frame.

One question from your post. You mention "short shutdown" (which I believe means, not holding the shutdown button in long enough to completely stop the engine). I didn't realize doing so could create any major problems. What issues can doing this cause?

Anyway, after doing this by accident twice, I've now been pretty diligent about making sure I hold those buttons in for at least 10 seconds.

 

[rustybucket]

Awesome job on a huge undertaking. I noted that you didn't remove the crank. I was really wondering how that would be done with the engine in-frame.

One question from your post. You mention "short shutdown" (which I believe means, not holding the shutdown button in long enough to completely stop the engine). I didn't realize doing so could create any major problems. What issues can doing this cause?

Anyway, after doing this by accident twice, I've now been pretty diligent about making sure I hold those buttons in for at least 10 seconds.

Luckily the crankshaft was in very good condition, no cracks, no scratches/galling..etc.

Short shutdown can cause an engine to roll over backwards and make the engine run in reverse rotation. Think of when cranking a pull cord lawnmower or dirt bike and they kick back and about jerk your arm off or rip your foot off. That is basically the engine trying to crank or fire in reverse rotation. Being 2 stroke engines detroits can and will run backwards for a short period of time until lack of oil flow (oil pump pumping backwards) seizes the engine.

 

[rustybucket]

Got the port engine back together and ready for breakin/seatrial. Went ahead and put in rebuilt (locally) injectors in both engines.

During the first 30ish mins of running the boat we lost some power and picked up some black smoke on port (the rebuilt engine). Port and stbd engines seemed good but we def were down in power.

Limped back to the dock, engines were running good, but the idle speed had jumped from 500 to 700-900ish. Very odd, I was thinking. Questioning my idle setting, buffer and gov adjustments, back at the dock I started the idle setting procedure again. But whenever I would approach 500ish rpms the engines would roll/stumble and were not acting the same reliable way they were when I set idle earlier. Lots of rolling, lots of sumbling/surging, basically making it impossible to set idle. (on warm engines btw).

So we pulled the gov cap and noticed the action on the fuel rods was not as silky smooth as it was prior to seatrial. We pulled the valve covers to look for binding...etc and found one injector on each engine stuck. Stbd´s plunger was stuck in the down position and fuel about halfway. Port´s plunger appeared to be free but the fuel control arm was stuck about 3/4 throttle.

I pulled the two injectors out and took them back to fuel injection place this am. They pulled one of them apart while I was there, plunger was galled, tech (non-detroit) said it looked like fuel contamination and sediment. Later on the detroit guy called me back and says it looks like the injector hold down clamps were over-torqued. I know we torqued the hold down clamps, but memory slips me now as to what we torqued them to but it would have been as per manual specs (unless we read/did it wrong).

Any suggestions or guidance? Seems like the shop is pointing blame back at me for fuel contamination and/or improper holdown torque. I could kinda buy the fuel contamination, but we were very careful with the fuel rails, injectors...etc by keeping them bagged, capped and cleaned...etc. Not sure I´m buying the over-torqued idea.

Either way, 2 injectors are on their way, hope to have them in this weekend and run her again and see what we look like.

 

[Avenger]

I don't buy the over torque idea either. I'd consider a few possibilities, primarily contamination, but also poor fuel flow leading to poor cooling, or maybe just cr@p parts.

 

[Captain Ralph]

Here is why I always fix my injectors, including pop & match and don't buy rebuilt POS.
Yes, I have had supposed rebuilt injectors bind when captured correctly years ago and learned my approach the hard way..
So, Yell B S at the guy trying to sell you junk.

Don't feel pregnant; rebuilt injectors from shops in the next town or the next country, most suck.

You need a local shop that fixes what you have, and pop/matches them.

 

[Bob Quinn]

That is quite the undertaking! I'm impressed

 

[rsmith]

There is a screen filter in the injectors that should keep any contamination out of the injector. Unless their was crap in that unless water got in the system I wouldn’t buy any of that. When I rebuilt my engines I rejected more than half of the injectors due to brand new out of the box spray tip erosion. When you say fuel rails you mean the jumper tubes? They are one time use and should be replaced and not reused. A cracked one will fill the engine with fuel.

Got the port engine back together and ready for breakin/seatrial. Went ahead and put in rebuilt (locally) injectors in both engines.

During the first 30ish mins of running the boat we lost some power and picked up some black smoke on port (the rebuilt engine). Port and stbd engines seemed good but we def were down in power.

Limped back to the dock, engines were running good, but the idle speed had jumped from 500 to 700-900ish. Very odd, I was thinking. Questioning my idle setting, buffer and gov adjustments, back at the dock I started the idle setting procedure again. But whenever I would approach 500ish rpms the engines would roll/stumble and were not acting the same reliable way they were when I set idle earlier. Lots of rolling, lots of sumbling/surging, basically making it impossible to set idle. (on warm engines btw).

So we pulled the gov cap and noticed the action on the fuel rods was not as silky smooth as it was prior to seatrial. We pulled the valve covers to look for binding...etc and found one injector on each engine stuck. Stbd´s plunger was stuck in the down position and fuel about halfway. Port´s plunger appeared to be free but the fuel control arm was stuck about 3/4 throttle.

I pulled the two injectors out and took them back to fuel injection place this am. They pulled one of them apart while I was there, plunger was galled, tech (non-detroit) said it looked like fuel contamination and sediment. Later on the detroit guy called me back and says it looks like the injector hold down clamps were over-torqued. I know we torqued the hold down clamps, but memory slips me now as to what we torqued them to but it would have been as per manual specs (unless we read/did it wrong).

Any suggestions or guidance? Seems like the shop is pointing blame back at me for fuel contamination and/or improper holdown torque. I could kinda buy the fuel contamination, but we were very careful with the fuel rails, injectors...etc by keeping them bagged, capped and cleaned...etc. Not sure I´m buying the over-torqued idea.

Either way, 2 injectors are on their way, hope to have them in this weekend and run her again and see what we look like.

 

[cww]

I have never replaced a complete set of injectors and not had one or two bad ones. This is par for the course. Quality control ain't what it used to be. Don't buy the BS from the shop, make them give you functional replacements at no charge.

 

[rustybucket]

There is a screen filter in the injectors that should keep any contamination out of the injector. Unless their was crap in that unless water got in the system I wouldn’t buy any of that. When I rebuilt my engines I rejected more than half of the injectors due to brand new out of the box spray tip erosion. When you say fuel rails you mean the jumper tubes? They are one time use and should be replaced and not reused. A cracked one will fill the engine with fuel.

Yes, the fuel jumper lines. I updated both engines to the new o-ring style a few years back, I believe those are reusable (and MUCH easier to install, and never leak). All jumpers got new o-rings. So my jumper lines are approx 2yrs old, all new at that time.