white smoke yanmar 4jhe.

[Stu Jackson]

"I only have a racor fuel/water separator and the engine mounted fuel filter."

That's all most of us have.

I'm with jack on this one, ole buddy! Get off your typewriter and get out on your boat! We all tole ya'll what to do already...

 

[kloudie1]

You probably hit on something with the return line theory.. and I don’t know why, it’s that I’ve not messed with an engine whose return line was not flowing.. and it does sound like your vent line is plugged.. I do agree with Jack that you’ve probably siphoned (mmmm, Love the smell of diesel in the morning) through the lines and cleared them, go ahead and run it.. If it runs OK, and is not carrying water, it will not hurt the engine, ya may want to put in a cetane number improvement additive just to be safe...I agree with Dave that ya shouldn’t, but I wouldn’t worry about miniscule contact with diesel produced after about 2003.. The stuff is really clean and the specifications today exclude the bad stuff that used to be kind of dumped in there by the refiners.. JUST DONT SWALLOW! (I was the maintenance engineer on a major diesel producing unit for a few years) .. I am not recommending mouth siphoning, I am saying if ya don’t swallow the diesel or inhale it, there is a very low risk of it hurting you.

 

[jackhartjr]

I have said it before...me and some friends mess around with saving old Greyhound and Trailways buses. We have been know to take on that has sat in a field or barn for 25 or more years, change the filters and tires and batteries...and crank 'em up!
A couple of times we had to stop a few miles down the road, change both filters and away we go.
The point is this; it has been running...and I understand without cutting off. Run that sucker, the fuel tank will be clean after a tank or two.
Someone chime in if I am wrong...however I don't see that you can hurt one of these with bad fuel...it will run...or not!??
Jack

 

[luvitt]

cool. im gonna run off the tank today. I have several spare filters onboard.

 

[jibes138]

A wonderful siphon for pretty cheap

I siphon fuel all the time. No, not out of everyone's car in the parking lots :dance:. Rather for the small amount of diesel I use I fill a five gallon jug then to avoid a spill into the marine environment, and to avoid picking up water and dirt on the bottom of the jug I just put the jug on my cockpit seat and use a siphon to run it into my tank. Keep the siphon hose about 4 inches above the bottom and the flow is so slow any crud stays on the bottom. No I do not start the siphon flow by mouth. Get yourself one of the hoses from a fuel tank with the bulb to pressurize the line. I use that for the siphon. Put one end in the fuel, align the arrow for flow direction, a couple pumps and the siphon starts up. Work great, make sure the tank side of the hose is below the jug to keep the flow going. To stop the flow pull the tube out of the jug let it drain into the tank, wipe it off with a rag, throw the tube in a plastic bag for storage and cap the tanks. For the ten bucks for the hose it seems pretty cheap versus mouthfuls of hydrocarbons. I'd hate to light up a cigar after a mouthful of gas.:naughty:

 

[zeehag]

geez--if is raw water cooled, it wont warm up tooo much--prolly not over 140---go for it run the engine and do what everyone has said already lol...have fun --yanmar is a goood engine and sometimes there is white smoke without problem and sometime there is steam with problem and sometimes there is brownish smoke and sometimes there is black oily smoke and sometimes........find out by going and doing and seeing if it fixes self or overheats or what the thing does----not enough info in thios thread to figger out what is wrong or not wrong with the engine...have fun...work the engine......learn from others and do it yerself and play and sail and use the boat......fair winds....ps--if ye are so nervous about using it, hire someone to fix--a 600 hour overhaul will cost ye about 3600 dollars in full with the works.....

 

[luvitt]

how do u know when its time to change the racor? does the bowl fill w water?

 

[Don S/V ILLusion]

how do u know when its time to change the racor? does the bowl fill w water?

Some folks have a vacuum gauge which indicates when the filter starts to clog. Absent that, it's just a guess as to when you need to change it, consequently, the conventional wisdom is to do so annually.

If there is water collecting in the clear bowl, it is obvious and can be easily drained. Changing the filter has little to do with water collection which should be addressed by finding and eliminating the source of water, e.g., condensation, leak in fill cap due to bad O-ring, etc...

Most engines have varying amounts of smoke or steam when cold; it's time to start being concerned when you notice it coming from a thoroughly warmed up engine.

 

[luvitt]

Well, its been pretty rough in the marina today. the boat is rockin good in the slip. so i decided to drain some more fuel. I dont think i wanna burn it. In a 16 oz cup, there is about a teaspoon off doodoo at the bottom. and some beads of water. i have examined 3 cups so far. I think it will clog instantly. whats the point of trying to burn it. back to the drawing board.

 

[TimCup]

ride, sally, ride...

you can pay someone to polish your fuel, or you can run the engine, and your filters will polish it for you!! Instead of suckin' on hoses, add another filter if you need to make yourself feel better.

I'd run that tank all the way to the bottom. Do you have any kind of inspection plate you can remove to see, or reach into tank? It might be worth having one if you have access. You can run it out, clean up the inside with diapers, and refill.

Will that make it perfect inside the tank? Of course not. That's why we have filters. Their entire raison d'tre is to sacrifice itself for the engine, like the secret service for the president (is that too political, Phil?).

A 40 foot Hunter is too nice to be working on all the time. Go have some fun already!!


cup

 

[Allan Frey]

Getting back to the white smoke...
there is another reason for "white smoke". If the humidity is quite high (high dew point), the exhaust can create what is essentially fog which looks like white smoke coming from the exhaust thru hull. In physics terms, combustion creates fine particulates which, in essence, become condensation nuclei. Very high moisture in the air condenses on the particulates creating fog (white smoke). It is a normal phenomenon.

Allan

 

[luvitt]

Getting back to the white smoke...
there is another reason for "white smoke". If the humidity is quite high (high dew point), the exhaust can create what is essentially fog which looks like white smoke coming from the exhaust thru hull. In physics terms, combustion creates fine particulates which, in essence, become condensation nuclei. Very high moisture in the air condenses on the particulates creating fog (white smoke). It is a normal phenomenon.

Allan

it is quite humid here in Charleston. you can cut it.

although, I do believe it is smoke. i think steam would dissipate pretty quickly, this stuff will float across the whole marina.

 

[txtowman]

pump out the the tank put in fresh fuel and run it like ya' stole it. you will find the answer real quick. be sure to have towing arrangements before hand. boat u s offers unlimited towing at a great rate. a diesel that has sat 2 years will smoke 4 up to 50 hours unless its being run hard. ya' gotta blow the snot out of its nose so to speak.

 

[zeehag]

Getting back to the white smoke...
there is another reason for "white smoke". If the humidity is quite high (high dew point), the exhaust can create what is essentially fog which looks like white smoke coming from the exhaust thru hull. In physics terms, combustion creates fine particulates which, in essence, become condensation nuclei. Very high moisture in the air condenses on the particulates creating fog (white smoke). It is a normal phenomenon.

Allan

i like this answer....