I am sure folks with more diesel experience than I have will know the answer right away, but I wanted to share an experience I had and what the solution turned out to be. In traveling across the bay to anchor for a day of swimming, I noticed that the RPMs were dropping off intermittently. I was cruising at around 1800 RPMs, and suddenly they would drop off to 1500 (or lower) and then pop back up to 1800. It happened a couple of times on the way to anchoring (and in retrospect I should have just turned around) but I had guests on the boat who wanted to go for a swim so we anchored. I also just assumed the throttle cable was slipping (had that happen in my older boat) and that I could tighten it up when we got back. Later, while taking up the anchor to return hom, the RPMs began swinging wildly down and back up and then she stalled. I couldn't get her re-started and had to be towed back to my mooring. After replacing the primary and secondary fuel filters, she seemed ok for a day but then starting having the problem again. It turned out that this connector (the one on the red wire, see pictures) hadn't been plugged in correctly a couple of years ago when the previous owner (or his marina) changed the fuel pump. The male connector hadn't inserted properly and was just resting against the female connector. Apparently, the vibrations had finally caused the plug to start intermittently making contact, so the fuel pump was intermittently stopping. Once my mechanic re-seated the connector, no more problems. Just thought it might be useful to share this experience (and maybe save someone the cost of a mechanic).
Attachments
-
44.3 KB Views: 390
-
46.9 KB Views: 374