Alarming

[Blackfeather]

First time out for 3 months yesterday and after 20 minutes the port engine alarm starts buzzing and the oil light is flashing. Triffic, thanks God.

I checked the guages - nothing untoward. Oil pressure guage shows around 60 at idle and increases in line with starboard guage when revved up. Checked dipstick which was fine. No smoke, no increase in temperature, no noise.

The engines are KAD 300s with EDC.

The only thing I could think of was that there was a lot of condensation around the flybridge instruments and I wondered if this might have shorted the alarm in some way.

Does anyone know if it easy to check that the pressure is Ok or can it only be done by a V***o man with a special (and v expensive ) instrument.

Any ideas/suggestions gratefully received.

 

[jimmy_the_builder]

You should be able to use the edc warning lights to tell you what the problem is - I don't have the details to hand (they are in the manual), but there's a procedure where you can count the number of flashes of the warning light, and this gives you an error code. Might be a bit of rtfm I'm afraid. Shout if you haven't got the manuals, I'm just on my way down to the boat and I'll happily look up the relevant section if it helps.

Cheers
Jimmy

 

[Blackfeather]

Thanks agin Jimmy. You're obviously right, I should RTFM.

 

[Dipper]

Is it possible to easily swap the gauges (or leads) around to see if the faults follow the gauge or stay with the same engine?

 

[Nickcf]

I think the dashboard instruments and alarms are completely separate from the EDC system.
Don't think the EDC actually monitors oil pressure (although couldn't find the KAD electrical diagram). If it does it would certainly have shut down the engine if the EDC had registered a loss of pressure.

I suspect the problem is with the pressure sensor or wiring to the alarm panel. Try replugging all the leads to make sure the contacts are good or swap port and starboard as suggested earlier.