Engine Problems and Solutions

Engine Problems and Solutions …   Saturday 15th Sept 2012

It's fun to be back in East Greenwich after our shakedown cruise. After dinner at "Twisted" last night, pizza with olives and anchovies for me (yummy) … a "lovely big salad" for Gloria (not what I call dinner!), we found a cool coffee house / bar where we had cappuccinos and lemoncella tart, which was great. Anyway, the main purpose for coming back here is to address any issues that came up during the previous 5 weeks and prepare to head south at the end of the month. We do have a long list of things to do or to buy, none of which are a big surprise. The thing that Gloria didn't mention in her last blog is that after weeks of trouble free motoring we started having engine problems again. A couple of days ago we noticed that the boat would run all day at 2000 revs but when we tried to increase to 2500 revs the engine would speed up then quickly fall back. This happened a number of times and was clearly evident this morning when we went for a "test drive" after cleaning the boat. So this afternoon we set to changing the fuel filters. This is a pretty straight forward job, but with the very real potential to introduce air in to the lines and cause the engine either to not start or cut out, so we approached the job with some trepidation. Fortunately, the previous owner was very meticulous and we have plenty of spare parts on board that he had bought in. We started with the two fuel separators, located in a utility area under the settee and finished with the fuel filter on the engine. Only one separator is used at any one time and if you have problems you flip a lever to engage the other. However, we had already switched from one to the other back in August when we had the previous problems but had not replaced the used one. The whole process went well, although we did seem to create a lot of diesel coated waste (spill cloths and paper towels) but we managed to contain it all in plastic bags. The great news is that the engine started fine and showed no signs of any air in the lines. Even better is that when we went out for  a test run there were no problems holding higher revs. It looks like we sorted the problem and we feel really good about learning another necessary skill for the live aboard sailor.

A view of our 75 HP Yanmar turbo-diesel ... with it's new fuel filter!

The fuel separators - the first stage in removing any water or debris