Special on the casino restaurant menu: Crow Those of you who have followed my mechanical adventures know that it’s a favorite of mine. This could well be a head gasket problem. But, first the update.
More than a couple emails and PM’s came in strongly recommending Pirate’s Cove Marina. This impression was confirmed when I called them. They were right there with the affirmative that they could handle all of the various options I’m faced with and made it clear that they were eager for my business and could send a boat right out for me.
I owed Quality Yacht Services a call. The person I spoke to seemed much more interested in the fact that I had picked up their mooring without prior permission (they are closed on weekends) than their doing anything. It turns out they don’t have a resident mechanic and Pirates Cove said they could have one on the boat minutes after my arrival.
They were as good as their word. I’d hardly had a chance to get the lines squared away when a very pleasant and competent sounding young fellow was aboard. He listened carefully to my usually lengthy description of the prior symptoms and the incident and told me some things about the fluid passages in the head that weren’t clear to me from the manual. These made the head gasket the first thing to look at.
Not long after, he was stripping down the engine. I’ve watched a lot of mechanics work. It’s a pleasure watching one who clearly knows and enjoys what he is doing. The head was off before lunch and it was time to head for the betting tables.
The head gasket looks to be in very good shape. There is just one place where a slightly shiny area of gasket between a water and low pressure oil passage could indicate a leak but it’s about as weak an indication as he has seen and not the least bit conclusive.
The visual inspection of the head and block cooling passages showed the engine to be in better shape than either of us believed possible for a 30 year old engine. There is no rust or indications of wastage anywhere that can be seen. That makes the pinhole leak / breakthrough theory very weak unless there is some localized problem that we can’t see. It looks like an engine only a few years old.
The third possibility, which I hadn’t considered, is a failure of one of the cylinder liner seals. There is no way to determine that without removing the engine and taking it nearly completely apart. You might as well do a complete rebuild while you are at it. The same principle applies to finding a possible corrosion breach deep down in the block.
This is one of those things where the diagnosis is expensive. I’m going to spend something over $1000 to have a new head gasket put in and we’ll then run the engine for a while and see what happens. If the oil stays good, I’ll be back in business with an engine I’ll have a lot more faith in after seeing how good its arteries look.
If water mixes with the oil again, the engine will have to be disassembled and removed from the boat, I’ll be out the one to two grand, and facing even bigger bills if I decide I can keep the boat. It seems a better bet at this point than trying to save this money and going right to a re-power.
After seeing how good the engine looks inside, I’ll be leaning towards a rebuild if it turns out not to be the head gasket. I’m in a motel now waiting to hear back on parts cost and availability. Pieces of the engine are scattered all over the berths with the cushions pushed up into the V berth.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
The oil / water emulsion coating the valve train:
It even completely coated the inside of the valve cover:
The stuff of cruising nightmares:
More than a couple emails and PM’s came in strongly recommending Pirate’s Cove Marina. This impression was confirmed when I called them. They were right there with the affirmative that they could handle all of the various options I’m faced with and made it clear that they were eager for my business and could send a boat right out for me.
I owed Quality Yacht Services a call. The person I spoke to seemed much more interested in the fact that I had picked up their mooring without prior permission (they are closed on weekends) than their doing anything. It turns out they don’t have a resident mechanic and Pirates Cove said they could have one on the boat minutes after my arrival.
They were as good as their word. I’d hardly had a chance to get the lines squared away when a very pleasant and competent sounding young fellow was aboard. He listened carefully to my usually lengthy description of the prior symptoms and the incident and told me some things about the fluid passages in the head that weren’t clear to me from the manual. These made the head gasket the first thing to look at.
Not long after, he was stripping down the engine. I’ve watched a lot of mechanics work. It’s a pleasure watching one who clearly knows and enjoys what he is doing. The head was off before lunch and it was time to head for the betting tables.
The head gasket looks to be in very good shape. There is just one place where a slightly shiny area of gasket between a water and low pressure oil passage could indicate a leak but it’s about as weak an indication as he has seen and not the least bit conclusive.
The visual inspection of the head and block cooling passages showed the engine to be in better shape than either of us believed possible for a 30 year old engine. There is no rust or indications of wastage anywhere that can be seen. That makes the pinhole leak / breakthrough theory very weak unless there is some localized problem that we can’t see. It looks like an engine only a few years old.
The third possibility, which I hadn’t considered, is a failure of one of the cylinder liner seals. There is no way to determine that without removing the engine and taking it nearly completely apart. You might as well do a complete rebuild while you are at it. The same principle applies to finding a possible corrosion breach deep down in the block.
This is one of those things where the diagnosis is expensive. I’m going to spend something over $1000 to have a new head gasket put in and we’ll then run the engine for a while and see what happens. If the oil stays good, I’ll be back in business with an engine I’ll have a lot more faith in after seeing how good its arteries look.
If water mixes with the oil again, the engine will have to be disassembled and removed from the boat, I’ll be out the one to two grand, and facing even bigger bills if I decide I can keep the boat. It seems a better bet at this point than trying to save this money and going right to a re-power.
After seeing how good the engine looks inside, I’ll be leaning towards a rebuild if it turns out not to be the head gasket. I’m in a motel now waiting to hear back on parts cost and availability. Pieces of the engine are scattered all over the berths with the cushions pushed up into the V berth.
We’ll see what tomorrow brings.
The oil / water emulsion coating the valve train:
It even completely coated the inside of the valve cover:
The stuff of cruising nightmares:
