Diesel Injector Cleaner - Good or Bad?

[Millenniumsteve]

Hi everyone, another newbie here with a question. I have just bought an older Targa 33 with twin AQAD41a engines, as everyone knows really nice and smoky on startup . The starboard engine stops smoking after a short while but even after a few hours run out there is still a small amount of smoke coming from the port engine. The engines were serviced by marine engineers last June by the previous owner but he did not use it after that due to health reasons, the survey did not pick up any major issues with engines. I have been told that I could have some dirty injectors in the port engine and should use Wynns Injector cleaner in the diesel as this will help.
I really don't want to cause any issues as apart from the smoke everything runs well (at the moment )
My question (finally) is will this help & should I do it? Thanks.

Forgot to say it's river based at Farndon and has been river based for the last 10 years so I'm not able to really open it up, at least not until later this year when I can get it onto open water.

 

[Halo]

Diesel system cleaning solutions are used widely and may help. If you can give details of the smoke in terms of colour and density etc then folk on this forum can advise.

 

[Halo]

PS Most engines thrive on hard work and decline if not used. After cleaning then use her as you can pending your trip to open water.

 

[oldgit]

"I have been told that ...."

Low hanging fruit first....................
The 41A has always had reputation for being a tad smokey from cold.
It later evolved into the the 41B with cylinder head and piston modifications ? in an attempt to cure the problem.
Curiously some 41A do not suffer greatly.
Aware of a pair of 41B in a Fairline Corniche which make enough smoke to make a Destroyer envious on first starting up.

Doubt that any expensive magic fuel " Goo" will make much difference for long, if at all.
How many hours ?
If it makes you feel better then pull the injectors, 6 of em and a pain to remove and refit, somebody will have to test them and will charge you for the work, , personally would go for a decent long run out first and get both those engines all hot and bothered.
You can always run one engine at a time to increase the load .
Note if they individually give the same MAX revs at WOT (secluded spot when nobody around ) this will indicate if one of the engines is not giving its best.
Are all the filters clean ? .
Airfilters , bit of discolouration is fine but dirty black, and they need replacing . £20.00 from ebay.
Vital the fuel filters both primary and secondary as clean as a whistle ? £15.00 from ebay.
Your local motor factor can probably beat those prices.
Is the diesel clean.
Recently helped bring back a couple of boats both powered by twin 41B neither of which had been used for some considerable time (in one case 6 years ) , both left a faintly visible trail of smoke from one engine on the way back.
After a change of all the air/fuel filters and a fill of new fuel and couple of decent runs the smoke had gone or certainly not enough to be detectable.
Have fun.

 

[Iliade]

If the smoke is blue, suspect the injectors. If it is black suspect the breathing. Look at air inlet through to exhaust outlet. This would be my primary area of interest since the boat has been river based.

You might get away with an Italian tune up - can you back one engine off to allow greater power use from the other?

Does it smoke when not under load?

[posts crossed]

 

[Momac]

After lots of river speed hours there will almost certainly be a little smoke. Dont worry about it.
Put in an injector cleaner fuel treatment. What harm can it do?
I have usually used a fuel additive of one sort or another.

 

[Millenniumsteve]

Thank you all for your useful suggestions. I ordered a full service kit yesterday should be here today will change everything over on Friday and spend the weekend doing as many miles as I can to see if it does improve. I don't really want to start pulling the injectors but will if I need to (I'm okay with most jobs on engines). I will try suggestions given like running on one engine etc. Engine hours are around 1300 but its a 33 year old so average of less than 40 hours per year, I think I will be doing a lot more than that over the next couple of months, lots of time (retired early ) and lots of places that I want to visit.
Once again thank you for all your suggestions. I'll do an update next week on the outcome. Cheers, Steve.

 

[Mister E]

Pefill the new fuel filters with injector cleaner, then run the engine at higher revs.
The stuff does work.

 

[Millenniumsteve]

Pefill the new fuel filters with injector cleaner, then run the engine at higher revs.
The stuff does work.

Thanks, I'll do that as well.

 

[Spirit (of Glenans)]

Some owners fit a finer pitched pair of props for use on inland waterways, so as to get the engines up to decent revs without building up too much boatspeed, changing over to coarser ones when intending to go onto a larger body of water.