Boat as a Second Home

Stopped by Central Marine to check on the status of my engine overhaul yesterday. The owner of the shop had been on vacation since mid-August. It's now September 2nd.

Said ... will need to check with the machine shop regarding your engine. Called the machine shop .. no answer .. left message. Says ... "there is nothing I can do ... engine is at the machine shop".

So I got the name of the machine shop and drive there for a visit.

Owner of the machine shop says that the engine block was only recently brought to him. Says jobs brought to me are handled quickly and efficiently. Shop is clean, professional and all about business. Completed work all over the place. My crank and cams are sitting there complete ... block has been hot tanked but rest of the work not completed. Supposed to have the bores of crank and cams checked and sleeves bored. Machine shop indicates was not given any special instruction regarding the cylinder sleeve bores. This is very odd because the entire reason the block had to come out of the boat was to bore the cylinder sleeves at the machine shop!

Back to Central Marine.

Owner proceeds to tell me that "in light of the circumstances" ... since the engine had to come out of the boat ... we are a small shop etc., that the time schedule is JUST FINE!!!! (6 months and counting) and that I somehow gave him the impression that I was not in a hurry!

I let him know that I needed to get the job done NOW one way or another and that if I needed to collect my parts that it would not be the last he heard from me. He asked me if I was threatening him. I said .... "legally ... yes!"

So ... our relationship is now over. He immediately became beligerent. There was no way to stop this from happening except to believe his line of bs and allow the charade to continue into next year!

So ... I called Johnson & Towers. They are ready to take over and get the job done. One way or another I'm calling an end to this engine overhaul fiasco of a lifetime.

I'm getting a quote for an overhaul/exchange or for them to just pick up where Central Marine stopped.

This would make for some pretty good reality TV but right now I just need to go vomit.

That is soooo bad. You have my sympathies. Suppose you haven't even gotten CM's bill yet. Rough winter ahead. I'm heading into a rebuild right now. You have me praying.

I've run a lot of yachts for seatrials, and on 100 engine surveys on various DD's I would say that the buyer only paid for compression tests on a DD 15% of the time. Most of the time the surveyors just opened up the airboxes and looked in there. Along with the normal checking the turbo's, running the engines under load and recording readings. Most people feel comfortable enough with seeing the liners and such through the airboxes that they don't go further and do a compression test.

I'm really sorry to hear about your misfortunes with them. I think you should be happy with J+T's work. You could just drive all of the parts up there, or load them (the parts) onto the boat and run it up to J+T on 1 engine. Either way, I think it's the best decision you could make.

It's a shaft that controls the fuel through the injectors. The injectors have a rack running through them that open and close mechanically.

DEFINATELY. A 75' Hatteras I ran for many years with Covington 12v71's used a Non-marine rack setting, it used a setting for a 12v71 generator for some reason. The buyer had a DD dealer do compression tests and did end up buying the boat. The tech that did the compression tests didn't measure the rack setting that was on the engines before doing the compression tests,set the rack to the injector setting the book said it was supposed to have with those injectors, and it severely black smoked after everything was put back together. Needless to say, after 7 seatrials (an hour) each way to the ocean, with DD techs on-board and working on the boat after each time, they finally figured out what injector setting it was supposed to have. After countless thousands of dollars, just in my time, fuel, and everything else.

change mechanic

let me think about this,

a pair of DD's in a 75 Hatteras and I am presuming normal smoke levels.

A mechanic comes and does a compression test ($80 to $110 per hole) and then that engine(s) black smokes excessively.

Now it takes 7, yes SEVEN, sea trials for the experts onboard to figure out what the problem was.

I think you need to change your mechanic.

The boat ran crystal clean prior to. The mechanic was from the Detroit Diesel dealer, they ended up sending 3 different mechanics. The problem ended up being a Non- DD factory spec'ed marine injector timing setting. They did the compression test prior to a sea-trial which is normal operating procedure as the engines are cold etc. When setting the rack back up, they opened the DD book and set it to factory specs. According to the DD Factory book and specs for rack settings, the rack was set correctly for those injectors and engines, why would they suspect it was in the rack setting, not knowing anything different. Then tried changing this, changing that, before they got it right. This was the DD dealer and who the buyer, then next owner insisted on using.

As another token 4 years later the port engine was rebuilt by a DD dealer, 3 months and 150 hours later it had a dead hole, and 4 other bad ones on our way to Chicago due to a split tip on 1 injector and 4 other bad Reliabilt injectors. Western Branch (dd dealer) did the 2nd rebuild under warranty and insisted on setting it to the injector timing in the DD book, and would not set it to the correct setting it used which was what the DD dealer in South Florida also confirmed it used. It black smoked like crazy on the 1st seatrial, they then finally re-set the rack to the Proper setting that Covington initially used on it which was for a generator 1.46" instead of 1.96" (factory DD marine setting)

smoke and Stuff

When you have a Covington or J&T DD things can get hairy, my 6 71's in Florida are J&T but naturals, the serial #'s indicate a standard fresh water engine pump, are actually high capacity units, totally different, J&T blamed DD and DD blamed J&T, all very well when I am in the Bahamas and have the wrong pump delivered.

Do you not think if that was all they did and it was perfectly fine before hand and then black smoked afterwards it kind of limits the things to re-check.

As you say the Western Branch DD dealer only had too sea trial it once and then set it correctly to get it correct so using the first guy 7 times makes you wonder......

Well, the dealer down here had no history with the boat. It only smoked from either 1000 or 1200 rpm's up.......By the time the owner closed on the boat, then took the boat out again 6-8 weeks had gone by. Another tech came out, who knows......when you check the rack and it's correct according to factory specs, nothing would make you think otherwise. So first they thought aftercoolers, then Turbo's, then this, then that........

That's because I was standing there telling Western Branch over and over again that it was the wrong injector setting, but they refused to set it to the correct setting (for those particular engines) and were adament setting it to the book specs (probably considering it was a warranty DD rebuild) until after they saw the black smoke for themselves. DD has gotten so bad at trying to get out of paying a warranty claim on rebuilds, they came out to do an oil sample and fuel sample a week after the motor was torn apart. The owner also had to pay for the entire rebuild so we could leave and it took DD a month after we left to pay him back and he only got 80%. The head had a cracked valve seat, so they tried to blame that but then found out they were new reliabilt heads. They tried to claim there was water in the fuel and that split the injector tip, there was no water in the fuel.......etc etc...... 5 out of 12 mexican reliabilt crap injectors were bad, so it was a bad batch of injectors.....3 months old and 150 hours later......

I've run many different yachts with various diesels for around 2500 days of seatime. I've had 2 engines have major issues/failures and require a rebuild. I've probably only run yachts with gast engines ohhhhhh for 300 days of seatrials, I've run across many with major issues and needing a rebuild.

Some diesels are better than others, but most will outlast the owner if properly taken care of. The problem with marine diesels sitting, is that they have wet exhaust (majority of them) and if not run often, they have condensation getting forced into the engine from the boat rocking, causing water to flow in and out of the exhaust on most yachts and such, and cylinder with open exhaust valves or exhaust ports can get surface rust and such.......

Hi,



The wet exhaust he refers to is no doubt where the first part of it off the engine is hot and water is introduced to the exhaust after this by a spray ring or nozzle direct in the pipe.

The reason engines suffer corrosion problems when left for long periods with the valve gear still on is the air drawn through the engine by convection leaves moisture behind on those nice attractive metal parts.

It is not an unknown phenomenon on large engines with dry stacks for the turbos to rotate slowly by the airflow when the engines are stopped

I run all of my management boats every 2 weeks up to operating temp at the dock and it definately helps and I haven't had any issues from internal corrosion on any of them over the years. However, they like to be taken out and run with a load and that is the best thing for them.

Wet exhaust is introduced at or behind the exhaust riser and runs out the exhaust and is done for cooling purposes (so you have less heat through the boat), exhaust quieting purposes, and it helps keep exhaust smoke down a little bit usually.

Kiwi gave a good explanation on it, but the exhaust usually exits at the waterline on most yachts and sits with water in part of it all of the time. In addition to this, when the boat rocks water travels in and out of the exhaust and forces moist air in and out with it............The condensation can work it's way to the engine itself.