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This
is where the newbies and novices start to become old salts, if they
have any wits about them. A bit of a preamble follows here
just to give you an idea of why this topic can generate so much
controversy.
There are three types of boat owners. The first
are those who really like boats, and are distinguishable by the
fact that they have taken the time to learn a lot about them. You
know them right away when you talk to them. They know their subject
because they have a real interest in boats. The second kind
are those who basically buy boats as a status thing, of doing the
"in" thing or just the latest fad in recreation. These
are the folks who tend to get into the most trouble with boats because
they buy them for reasons other than the sheer love of boats. It's
not the boat, but what it represents that counts. The third type
are newbies, who could end up going either way, but who know nothing
about boats for a different reason.
So why am I engaging in this desktop psychology?
Mainly because these are the people I deal with in my everyday work,
and it's rather obvious that the owner's reasons for owning a boat
has everything to do with the condition of the boats I see,
and those clients who propose to buy their cast offs. It's one thing
to be able to purchase one, something else again to maintain it
in good condition. I like to think of boats as analogous to aircraft.
To own an aircraft without thorough knowledge of the machine is
risking your personal safety. To own a boat is risking your financial
security as well. That's because one cannot truly appreciate the
real cost of ownership without experience. Yes, it is quite possible
to own a boat for 3 years and be lucky enough to have few large
expenses. Those odds decrease dramatically with your second boat,
and disappear with the third.
Whatever reason has motivated you to buy a boat,
this essay will not only help educate you about the necessary maintenance
required, how and when to do it, but the costs as well. Some say
that I am overly negative and trying to scare the hell out of people.
Well, yes, because owning a boat is a serious and costly business,
even though the decision is often taken lightly. I see too many
people get into big trouble with boats, large boats and small boats
alike. That's because they don't know what they're getting into
because, if they did, they wouldn't have done it. They were thinking
in terms of status symbol (I was once a member of an exclusive yacht
club, so I know all about that) or thought they were buying an RV
or Floating Jaguar. Instead, it turns into an horrendous financial
loss due to ignorance.
The basic problem with boat ownership stems from
three points: (1) Decent quality boats are very expensive, (2) boating
is often regarded as a recreation, which it is not (some say it's
a form of madness), (3) the objective is to have fun and not always
be working your behind off on the dang thing. Unfortunately, to
keep your boat from going to rot and ruin, many boats end up becoming
bottomless pits in terms of the time and expense required to keep
them in decent shape. This is why you'll find in most of my reviews
considerable discussion about whether a boat is easy or difficult
to maintain. Some of you are probably familiar with the modern automobile
where, just in order to change the spark plugs, a mechanic has to
disassemble half the engine to get the darn things out, and you
end up with an outrageous bill for a simple tune up. This happens
a lot with boats, too. With boat maintenance there's a lot more
to it than just tune ups.
Some people (a minority) regard boats as hobbies,
and as such they love to spend their time working on them. A friend
over in Texas calls them "fiddlefarters." Yet, the
vast majority of boat owners regard a boat as a recreational vehicle,
something to be used, parked and forgotten when not in use. Back
in the days of wood boats, adopting the later attitude was a prescription
for disaster because wood boats were basically little more than
make-work projects, they deteriorated so rapidly. Fiberglass, along
with a better knowledge of materials, has gone a long way toward
reducing maintenance. Even so, one cannot regard a boat as just
another recreational vehicle to use with a park-it-and-forget-it
attitude. While fiberglass hulls don't deteriorate rapidly, everything
else in a boat is pretty much the same as it was 30 years ago. Without
some frequent TLC it goes to hell in a hurry.
Think of it like keeping 10 godzillas in a cage
that is not quite strong enough to ensure that they won't break
out. Rather like the old King Kong movie. There's that nutcase who
brings a monster to New York in weak cage. As long as you feed them
and keep them happy, they'll stay in the cage. But neglect them,
let them get hungry and angry, and they are going to go on a rampage
and destroy the world. Your world, that is.
Water is the Enemy And here
you thought it was your friend. Oh, no, every good hath its evil.
Yin and yang, now that we're all China happy. Remember that book
Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance? Never read it
because motorcycles don't float. Anyway, water is both an electrolyte
and a solvent. Being an electrolyte, simply put, means that it facilitates
corrosion, essentially an electro-chemical reaction, of many materials,
particularly metals. A solvent means that it will dissolve certain
materials to which it is exposed. Water is also a facilitator for
the growth of certain microbes and especially fungus. Boats are
made of wood, plastic and metal, all of which deteriorate with varying
degrees of speed. Needless to say, the general rule is that the
more expensive the material, the slower it deteriorates, whereas
cheaper materials deteriorate more rapidly. Which is why cheap boats
go to hell so fast, and good ones cost so darn much. That's the
yang part.
The Plan The best way to
deal with the issue of boat maintenance, both from the standpoint
of knowing what it takes, and getting it done on time, is to develop
a plan. Oh, I know you are a busy person and don't have time for
that sort of thing, but let me tell you something. When I do surveys
on larger boats that are well maintained, one of the common traits
to these boats (or yachts) is that I usually find a drawer full
of lists, and not infrequently a maintenance log, even if just a
small notebook. The fact is that without some kind of schedule or
list, much of what is needed just isn't going to get done. It's
too easily overlooked.
You know how it is; if you make a punch list, things
will get done ten times faster and you'll wonder how you managed
to get so much done in one day. That's because we rarely work from
plans, but waste our time going in circles.
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| Small leaks invariably
become big leaks. This is your warning sign that something
bad is about to happen. |
This fellow waited a little
too long as his engine is about to drop into the bilge as
Big Bill comes a-calling. Imagine how long it will take a
mechanic to straighten out this mess. |
What's Your Time Worth Newbies
rarely appreciate how time consuming owning a boat can be. In thinking
a bit about maintenance, some folks get their priorities bollixed
up. First, whatever you do for a living, figure how much you earn
on an hourly basis. Take that hourly rate and use it to set priorities
on what you will do and what you will pay someone else to do. One
of the hidden costs of boat ownership is the amount of time a boat
will take away from your income earning time. Whether it's
time stolen from work, or because you're too tired to work effectively
because you busted your cojones working on the boat, believe me
the boat will cause you to become less effective in your business.
That's part of the cost of ownership too. Pay attention to this
and use this hourly rate scheme to utilize your time most effectively
and it will ultimately save you money. If you earn $80/hr. and it
only costs $40/hr. for someone else to do it . . . . who should
be doing this job? Fiddlefarting also has a price.
Regular Inspections Most folks
get behind the maintenance eight ball because they won't take the
time to find out what's going on with their boats. It's a procrastination
thing, and we are all victim of it. Here's the deal: we don't check
things out because we don't want to know. Out of sight, out of mind.
We don't want any more work or problems, so we avoid that by not
going looking for them. Right? Right. Now relax, take a deep breath,
or go to the fridge for a beer. It's easier and cheaper to keep
up with things. I would also suggest that it won't cost very much
to hire a surveyor to make a quick punch list of things that need
to be done. Applying the under-the-rug theory costs a lot more,
and to stay ahead of things is both easier and
cheaper. That's because nipping small problems
in the bud is better than waiting for their full bloom. The rule
here is: Blooms cost more than buds.
Working from your list, making a routine inspection
isn't going to take more than 30 minutes or so. Just lift
the hatches and stick your head down there in those holes and look
at that stuff you really don't want to see. Another rule is: The
things you don't want to look at are most important. Take a
note pad and start making a list. Maybe you're not going to do everything
that needs to be done. You needn't have a guilty conscience about
it, but don't stick your head in the sand. Open those hatches and
stick your head down there. Later on you may find the odd
hour to get something done, but if you don't know about it, that
won't happen.
What! You say you don't have time for all this?
If you're not willing to do it yourself, and unable to write a check
to pay someone else to, then you should sell the boat. You don't
need that millstone hanging 'round your neck. Join the golf club
and no one will ask you to do greens maintenance. Otherwise, be
prepared to foot Big Bill when his time has come. If you make a
pact with the devil, he will always collect.
Engine Maintenance Keeping the
engines going is the big item and is a top priority. Engine maintenance
on boats is not well understood. Nine out of ten boat owners I talk
to will put the emphasis on oil changes, but that is not really
where it should be. You see, unlike cars, boat engines don't put
their nasty emissions back into the engine, which is what can wreck
a car engine in a hurry. In fact, oil related engine damage in boats
is quite rare. All you have to do is follow the recommendations
by the manufacturer and that's it. Just be sure that you use the
properly rated oil. Go to the manual, pick out those service codes
and write them down in big letters on the front of the manual so
you don't have to go rooting around for it every time you change
oil. Make life easier.
The vast majority of engine damage results from the failure to
maintain the cooling system. A marine engine cooling
system is NOT like a car. Here's the deal: Whether you have an open
or closed cooling system, the engine is using the water that the
boat is floating in to cool the engine. Whatever is in that water
is also going through your engine. Hopefully that statement lifted
your eyelids a bit after drinking that beer. If your boat is floating
in rotten, stinking polluted water, then that is what's going through
your engine. If it's salt water . . . . and so on.
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| This photo of the internal water jackets
of an engine was taken with a fiber optic boroscope. Corrosion
scale like this inhibits cooling transfer and resulted in
chronic overheating. Once this happens, it is irreversible. |
Point #1: You need to have good filters on your
engine water intakes. These are called sea strainers, and if your
boat doesn't have good bronze ones with removable strainer baskets
that can be easily cleaned, then you should have them installed.
Under no circumstances should they be el cheapo plastic strainers
which are only going to break. And after they are installed you
need to check their condition every time before you start the engines.
That also means that you have to keep the insides of the plastic
lenses clean so you can see when they get all fouled up with gook.
Point #2: If you have an open, or raw water cooled
engine, hopefully you are in fresh water and not salt. Salt water
cooled engines don't last long. If so, then gasket failures
are your number one problem, and you need to inspect your engine
for gasket leaks. Cylinder heads, thermostat housing, manifolds
and riser gaskets are the things to look at. If it's all rusty or
you see rusty water trails around gaskets, this indicates that salt
water is weeping through the gasket surfaces. If you don't do something
about this pronto, it's going to cost you big time. If you drink
salt water you will get very sick, and possibly die. Your engine
will definitely die. Count on it. More about this in the Risers
and Manifolds article.
Water Pumps All inboard,
closed cooling system engines have two water pumps. The first is
called the seawater pump and is a pump with a replaceable
neoprene impeller inside. It doesn't last forever: up north you
should have the impeller pulled and inspected annually. Down in
the southland, biannually. And you must replace the cover plate
gasket too. Don't wait till the impeller fails. It will always do
at the worst possible moment.
Now, here's an interesting point. If for
any reason your water pump impeller gets all chewed up (like because
you don't have good strainers), and when you open it up and
find big pieces of the blades missing, where do you think those
pieces went? That's right! They are jammed against your heat exchanger
tube bundle, blocking off water flow. That's yet another reason
why cooling systems need to be serviced every two years.
The second pump is the circulating pump.
Be it gas or diesel, this is a pump attached to the front
of the engine. On a gas engine it looks like part of the engine
and is driven by a belt. On a diesel, it will look like a separate
part. Both have cast iron impellers which do not need servicing,
although the drive belts do, so don't forget those. These are rarely
a problem on closed cooling systems. For open cooling systems, beware
of shaft bearing and seal failures. Inspect the shaft behind
the pulley. If you see any sign of leaks, particularly in sea water,
pull both pumps immediately and have the seals and gaskets replaced.
This is not very expensive and will save big $$$ later on. When
the bearing is going bad, it will often squeak and sound like a
belt. Beware of squeaks; they are trying to tell you something.
Closed Cooling Systems Also
referred to fresh water cooling, closed systems utilize a sort of
radiator called a heat exchanger. Basically, your engine is cooled
by a mixture of engine coolant chemical (ethylene glycol) and water.
This goes through the closed side of the heat exchanger. On the
other side, where the air would be on a car radiator, the outside
water flows over the cooling tubes to cool the engine coolant that
is flowing through them. The excess heat is exchanged from the closed
side to the open side, hence the term heat exchanger.
Needless to say, with sea water flowing through
one side of the system, all sorts of scale and other bad things
can attach themselves to both sides of the cooling tube bundles
in the heat exchanger. This build up of crud begins to act like
an insulator and will gradually retard the heat exchanging process.
It begins to look like the photo above. I don't think I need to
tell you what the result of that will be. Ergo, heat exchangers
need to be cleaned occasionally, at least every two years, depending
on the nature of the water you're boat is floating in. For example,
if you kept your boat on Biscayne Bay, crud develops so fast in
that water that you need to do it annually.
The heat exchanger is contained in that big tank
with the cap on it that you put the coolant into. Now you may have
noticed that what you put in there doesn't always stay in there.
Damn stuff seems to have a way of escaping, and if it's escaping
fast you need to find out why equally fast. Otherwise, Big Bill
may come a knocking at your door. Could be several reasons, benign
or malignant. Usually it's because you have a leak somewhere to
the outside of the system. We're going to hope and pray that it's
not to the inside of the system because that would
mean that the coolant is going somewhere inside the engine where
it is not supposed to be. And that is really Big Bill Country.
So what you're going to do here is check over the
outside of the system to see if you can find where that nasty stuff
is going to. That's easy because it usually leaves little piles
of crud at every point that it is leaking out. Don't ask me what
that stuff is because I have no idea. In any case, what you are
going to do is to check all the gasket surfaces around the heat
exchanger, water pump, manifolds and hose connections. When you
find them, you are going to get them repaired because they will
not just go away, but only get worse. It's a good idea to go to
Sears and get one of those little mirrors on a telescoping shaft.
It will help you see in all those places that are hard to get to.
Makes the job a lot easier.
Okay,
so by now you've got the picture that leaks are serious business,
just like leaks in your roof. The longer you wait to fix it, the
more it's going to cost. If you wait too long, it will probably
mean the cost of an engine.
Engine Coolant If you are opening
up the cooling system and just pouring liquids in there without
regard to proportions, please stop doing that. Too much coolant,
like ordinary anti freeze, can cause the inside of the cooling system
to gum up. This is not good, so take a look at your engine manual,
find out the correct ratio of coolant to water and again write it
down on the front of the manual. When you need to add coolant, you
must premix it before adding it. That means you need measuring cup,
bucket and funnel or something like that. Good idea to get some
dedicated stuff at the beginning so your not wasting time trying
to figure out how to do it without the right stuff. If you have
diesel engines, everything I've said here is doubly important.
Oil Changes For diesels oil changes
every 100 hours is the norm. The reason for this frequency
is because of the carbon build up that ends up in the oil, not because
the oil goes bad. This will transfer to the piston ring grooves
and eventually cause the rings to stick, and when that happens you
are going to be one very unhappy camper. So follow the 100 hour
rule. I've heard some people say they do it every 50 hours, but
that is unnecessary, unless perhaps you have a worn out engine.
Oil change frequency for gas engines on the basis
of operating hours is much less critical. As the oil accumulates
combustion by products, it will gradually darken, eventually becoming
black. By this point it will have become highly acidic, and that
acid is going to cause internal damage. Therefore you want to change
oil before it becomes black, like about at the point where it goes
from medium to dark amber, or somewhat before it gets really black.
As long as it has some translucent quality, and is not completely
opaque, it's okay. Marine engines are not prone to sludging up.
In the north, you may not use the boat enough that it does become
very dark. In that case, you should do an oil change before layup.
You do NOT want to lay up an engine full of old
oil. No, no, no. The reason is acidity that can attack metal parts,
particularly bearings. Up north you may be able to go all season
without an oil change, but do change it before layup time.
Filters: Please don't go out and buy discount oil
filters. They ain't worth a diddly. What that guy says in
the oil filter commercial really is true. I recommend that
you use only name brand or OEM filters like Fram, AC Delco, etc.
The good ones always cost more.
Oh, yes, one more thing. Lately I keep seeing people
overfilling their engines. Apparently they think this is a good
idea. It's not. Don't do it. Bad things will happen. Fill only to
the level marked on the dipstick. Do not overfill transmissions
either.
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| This is a sludged up intercooler from
an engine that had had no maintenance for six years. When
analyzed, the sludge contained a 40% salt concentration that
came into the engine room through the vents. |
Check Oil Hoses On gas engines
you will have a transmission oil cooler and possibly an engine oil
cooler. There will be hoses connecting these coolers to points on
the engine or gear box. Here's where that little mirror really helps.
These hoses don't last forever either, and in many cases they get
damaged due to vibration where they are cutting against abrasive
or sharp surfaces. You need to check over the hoses and make sure
that this is not happening. If so, you need to add some protective
chaffing collars to prevent this. Also look for badly corroded end
fittings and replace them.
Rusty Engines Your engines
should not be developing a lot of rust on them. If they are, something
is wrong and you need to correct the cause. Water getting into the
engine compartment is one of the major causes of serious engine
damage, and it's often due to poor design of the boat.
The main reasons why engines get rusty are (1)
spray coming in through engine room vents, (2) water leaking down
through decks above and, (3) evaporating water in the bilge. I'll
take them one at a time here.
Engine Room Vents A lot of boats
bring in spray through these vents and it's most pernicious with
salt water. You need to look around the area of the vents and see
if everything is getting all corroded in the general area. If you
do, there's water coming in. The best way to stop it is devise
a filter using something like high quality air condition filters
of the spun fabric sort. This will trap most of the salt.
Salt spray in engine rooms is a major cause of reduced engine life.
Leaks These occur in all sorts
of ways so I can't tell you what to look for, except that leaks
always reveal their presence in some form or another. Most
of the time it has to do with the gutters around that hatches and
the drainage system that doesn't work too well, or the drains
get plugged up. I don't need to tell you that you shouldn't have
water dripping down on you engines, though I just did. You'll
end up paying one way or the other, so why not fix it?
Wet Bilges Standing water in the
engine compartment will result in a high humidity environment
that will cause everything in there to corrode. Thing to
do is get the water out and keep it out, whatever that takes.
This is particularly troublesome in stern drive and open
cockpit boats where the machinery is under an exposed deck.
Gas Risers and Manifolds These
are the two parts of the exhaust system that need frequent attention,
whether it's gas or diesel. Both these components get very hot,
and because of that they have to be water cooled. In fact, They
get so hot that even on closed system cooled boats, these components
are often raw water cooled, particularly on gas engines.
With gas engines, you need to consider cast iron
risers just like the muffler on a car. They're only going to last
so many years -- like about four -- until they have to be replaced.
The really bad news is that when risers begin to fail, they leak
water to the inside of the engine. Check out the
photo below. Here's what happens: When you stop the engine, the
cooling jackets remain full of water. When corrosion eventually
makes a hole in the water jacket, the water will then leak into
the manifold and eventually get into the valves and cylinders. The
leaking usually goes on undetected for a long time until serious
internal damage eventually stops the engine, at which time Big Bill
has announced his presence. And I don't mean Monica Lewinsky's lover.
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This is what exhaust risers look like
on the inside after the owner has waited too long to replace
them. Notice that the corrosion has gone right through the
casting into the exhaust passage as evidence by the corrosion
scale on the inside. This is the infamous Mercruiser riser
that has wrecked so many engines because its poorly designed.
Note the casting thickness between water jacket and exhaust
passage. |
Here's what to do. By the time a gas engine is
3 years old, the risers should be removed and inspected internally.
An expert can tell whether they're going to fail soon, or have some
life left in them. Take special note that how long risers last can
be highly variable, and without inspecting them there's really no
way of knowing. Secondly, pay attention to the gasket joints. Because
of the high temperatures, these tend to weep a bit, so a bit of
corrosion is not abnormal. But if there's a lot of corrosion
around the gasket joints, they need to be pulled and inspected.
Avoid doing this at your own peril. For more details on this, see
the Exhaust Risers article.
Gas engines, of course, produce high emissions of carbon
monoxide, the invisible, silent killer. If water is leaking
out of the exhaust system, so are exhaust fumes. It's your life,
so take it from there. Consider all leaks as potentially deadly.
Intercoolers The intercooler
lies between the turbocharger and the air intake manifold. Because
the turbo is operated by hot exhaust gases, the air needs to be
cooled before it enters the engine. Intercoolers are one of the
most neglected items on our maintenance list.
You should think of the intercooler like the air
filter on your air conditioner. It gets dirty and needs to be cleaned
occasionally, particularly if you don't have a good filtration system
on your engine. shown above is a picture of an intercooler that
hadn't been cleaned for six years.
Failure to maintain the intercoolers results in
some very serious consequences indeed, starting with severe performance
reductions. As dirt builds up, this restricts cooling ability and
air flow. The net result is to reduce power and increase operating
temperatures, which further reduces power. The most common symptom
of dirty intercoolers is engine smoking at low speed. In 12 month
operating climates, intercoolers should be cleaned once every two
years, or around 300 operating hours.
Diesel Exhaust Systems With
these engines, exhaust systems are more variable in design, and
so are the problems that plague them. I could write a whole book
on this subject. Since it would surely not be a best seller, I'm
not going to do that. Suffice to say that the same basic problems
with gas exhaust systems apply to diesels. Leaks and age are the
enemy. If there are apparent leaks on the outside, be assured that
it's leaking on the inside as well.
In the past, the major part of, if not all, the
exhaust riser systems have been water cooled. This resulted in
a tremendous failure rate with ensuing catastrophic engine damage.
In the last decade or so boat builders have changed over to dry
insulated systems to avoid this problem. Warranty claims apparently
became a bit too much for them. Permanently installed insulation
is called lagging, the removable type are usually
referred to as blankets.
Engines vibrate. A lot. Because of vibration, insulation
degrades over time and looses it insulating ability. Exhaust riser
temperatures typically run 600 - 800 degrees, not enough to set
wood and plastic on fire. I think you're getting my point already,
right? NOTHING, EVER should be in contact or close
proximity to hot exhaust risers. That means wires, hoses, cables
or anything else of any kind. If there are things in contact with
the riser system, you MUST move them immediately or risk a
fire. So, too, if the insulation is old and falling apart. If you
are avoiding replacing old insulation because it costs a lot, then
your real problem is that you can't afford to own the boat and hopefully
the fire department will send you a bill and the insurance company
denies your claim when your boat goes up in smoke. Insurance is
a form of socialism, which is why it costs so much. Everyone gets
the pleasure of paying for people who don't maintain their boats.
Diesel exhaust leaks contains various forms of
acidic sulfur. Even exhaust leaks so small that you can hardly detect
them can create a poisonous atmosphere in the engine room that causes
all metals to start to corrode. Traces of black soot will usually
highlight the leak, and if you see these, get them repaired immediately.
Don't wait for the leaks to become profuse, as it inevitably will.
LEAKS DO NOT GO AWAY. Ever. Should your engine room become blackened
with soot, it cannot ever be removed short of spending a whole lot
of money in the four digit range.
Air You need to breathe
and so do your engines. In fact, you should think of engines as
air pumps, because that's what they are. Take the cubic inch displacement
of an engine and it will move half that amount of air with every
revolution. A pair of 454 gas engines is moving 788 cubic feet of
air every minute, which is quite a lot. Anything that restricts
air flow to your engines is serious business, starting with keeping
the filters clean, to whether or not the vents are allowing enough
air into the engine space. This huge volume of air is one of the
reasons that the engines are capable of pulling spray in through
the vents. It is a little known fact that poor engine room ventilation
is a common cause of poor engine performance. There's a tight line
to be walked here in keeping a balance between getting enough air
and keeping the water out.
If you have diesel engines but do not have a good
set of air filters such as the Walker AirSeps, you should have them
installed.
Engine Mounts People are
always bitching about leaky stuffing boxes, and how they repack
them, only to have them start leaking again. So they go out and
pay a huge amount of money for the so-called packless glands. (For
you newbies, stuffing boxes and packing glands are the same thing)
This is unnecessary because most often the cause of the endless
leaking stuffing boxes was worn out engine mounts. Engines put tremendous
strain on mounts which like everything else don't last forever.
When they're worn out they sag, meaning that the shaft is going
out of alignment, and the engine is moving around and that's why
the stuffing box is leaking. If you buy packless glands, the moving
shaft will ruin those too. So what you got to do is bite the bullet
and replace the engine mounts. See my detailed essay on Engine/Shaft
Alignment Problems located in the Engines section.
Fuel Systems Maintaining the fuel
system for diesel engines is ultra critical for one single reason:
the very high tolerances of the fuel injection pump and injectors
will not tolerate dirt or water. Most diesels will have two sets
of filters, the primary and secondary. You should have secondary
filters (the primaries are the ones on the engine) with visual sight
bowls such as Racor or Dahl (two of the best) so you can see when
the filters are becoming fouled. When that happens, you need to
take action to correct the cause, not the symptom.
Algae, bacteria or whatever that gunk is that grows
inside a tank of diesel oil is the result of water contamination.
Most likely it came with the fuel you bought, but it is also possible
that water is leaking into your tank through (1) improperly installed
tank vents, or (2) a fuel filler cap on deck that is leaking. I
see a lot of the later. If you have a momentary problem, it's likely
the result of purchasing contaminated fuel. If it's chronic, then
it's likely that water is getting into your system, in which case
you have to find the cause and stop it. Don't always assume
that you are getting bad fuel; check the vents and fillers. I often
find fillers on decks that get submerged when it rains, so how could
it possibly not leak? Otherwise, your fuel system should pose
few, if any, problems for you.
| If you are having trouble with chronic
water contamination, the first thing to do is check your deck
filler cap and the O-ring to make sure that it is sealing
properly. |
Gas engines are more tolerant of water contamination,
but what happens is that water being heavier than gasoline, stays
at the bottom of the tank so when you run down the fuel level, suddenly
you start picking up all the water and the engines crap out suddenly.
Soooo . . . . if you don't have Racor filters, it's a good idea
to get some because those canister things aren't going to do the
job. The first time it happens, leaving you stranded out in the
boonies, your day ruined and your wife on the warpath, you'll suddenly
come to realize that the price of these filters is not so bad after
all.
Old fuel: the gasoline produced these days has
an absurdly limited shelf life. No lead, no life. By the time the
fuel is two months old, it will have degraded substantially, resulting
not only a significant power loss, but it will crud up your engine
as well. Hard engine starting is a common symptom of aged gas. The
best way to deal with this problem is to not fill your tanks up
unless you intend to use the fuel. And if you have good filters,
you need not worry about condensation.
Chaffing Your engines have a lot
of wiring and hoses hanging off them. Over time, this wiring and
hoses vibrate and chafe against other components and, if not caught
in time, the little damage can result in serious damage. For this
reason it is important to at least go over all hoses and wiring
circuits, inspect them for signs of damage, and add chaffing protection
to prevent further damage. By all means, make sure there are no
wires or hoses touching any part of the exhaust system, including
the manifolds.
Well, that about covers it, and what we didn't
cover here should be in your engine manual. I've got a number of
manuals sitting on my shelf here, and I can tell you that most of
them are very good. Do what it says and you'll get the most bang
for your buck.
Getting organized is the best solution for dealing with maintenance
issues. Make a list, reduce the procedure to a habit and things
will get done quickly and efficiently. Only in this way can you
take a stitch in time to save nine and keep Big Bill at bay. Preferably
at the bottom of the bay.
And if all this seems like just too much malarkey
to go through, sell the damn boat and join the country club. That's
a whole lot cheaper. Or join a yacht club and invite yourself out
on other people's boats like I do . . . .
Related Articles:
Exhaust Risers
Engine/Shaft Alignment Problems
Posted December 6,
1998
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