Advice for all volvo TAMD61 owners

[ivorandrews]

During a trip across lyme bay (between portland bill and torquay) In a boat powered by Volvo TAMD 61A's we noticed very black exhaust smoke and a large amount of heat and noise from the engine bay.
After shutting down the engines and allowing time for everything to cool, we inspected the engine area which was thick with black deposits. The cause of this was the failure of a part which conects the rubber exhaust hosing to the turbocharger on the engine.
On a second trip our other engine suffered the same problem just outside portsmouth harbour, this time allowing the hot exhaust gasses to blast on to a timber joist which supported the saloon floor and carried the engines electrics, Causing them to catch fire. Fortunately our automatic halon fire extinguishers did their job down in the engines as well as choking our crew on the aft deck.
Although a considerable amount of damage was done by this relatively small fire we were still lucky, Others may not be so fortunate!

I suggest that if you own one of these engines you check that these modifications have been done as i have suffered the effects of all these faults.

1) At parts which receive stress where the exhaust exit's the turbocharger and enters the rubber hosing, get the metal welded as it is then stronger than the original cast volvo part.
Also for this reason, if you have suffered this problem yourself, dont buy a new official volvo part, get your old one re-welded, it Will be stronger!

2) Make sure that you have the stronger valves fitted, In another boat we had a valve fall apart in the head of the engine, this was then passed through the exhaust, throught the turbo, taking turbine blades with it! The result was an engine re-build.

Hopefully if you have not had these modifications carried out you are now aware of them and can aviod some serious bills!

 

[Guest]

This is an age old 61/71 series problem although to be fair more to the 61 as it suffered bad vibration problems when first introduced, by the late 80s early 90s it was changed various ways, an engine that has run for more than 200 hours is usually ok and no valve problem will usually occur, if it has then vp may contribute to the parts bill as long as you use an agent for the labour.
As for the elbows this is usuall on an old engine as sea water corrodes the weld, the proper way to do this is to fit the later elbow and separate flange, not cheap but eliminates any further failure, and certainly cheaper than a fire and new headlining etc.
Another way is to fit Halyard marines new stainless ones, you get a flange and joining clamp plus as many angled pieces as you like and it works out cheaper than VP ones, I am doing some soon on a Broom 42 60c engine.

Paul js.

 

[Gludy]

The valves on my engines had been replaced with the newer one by a previous owner and one of those cast elbows had gone and been welded. The consequences of the other one going are worrying, so I am considering doing something about it, if onl;y for piece of mind.
The volvo elbows are about £700 each ( an absurd price for a part that fails duw to an obvious design fault) - is the Halyard stainless steel a better solution?

Or will just taking the one off and having reinforced welding done be a really adequate solution?




Paul