engineer recommendation - Levington ?

[Mandarin331]

Ok, so first day of our holiday out of the Marina heading down the Orwell towards Harwich the engine stops. On further examination it's overheated, but plenty of water out of the exhaust, runs really rough when re-started so we sailed back to a mooring. This morning pulled back to our home berth by SYH launch as although it starts it's still running rough and squeaking.

Sadly French's can't get to us for a few days at the earliest, maybe next week so it looks like the end of our plans unless we can find someone else.

Any recommendations for a good Volvo engineer (it's a Volvo 2030) in this area?

 

[sailorman]

not sure about overheating but it does sounds like fuel starvation,have you tried bleeding the system

 

[Mandarin331]

It's definitely overheating, it ejected some of the coolant as it boiled. Fuel is not a problem. Either way we want someone competent to look at it, we're not prepared to risk a trip with a dodgy engine.

 

[Malish]

Have you looked at the oil via the dipstick? if there are hints of a grey emulsion then you have water mixed in the oil and most likely a duff head gasket

 

[Elemental]

Sounds like the heat exchanger may be borked Ours went a couple of years ago, and symptomatically was identical (including ejecting boiling water).

We're based at Shotley and the yard there replaced ours. Depending on the make, I'm afraid you may need to be prepared for a large bill too...

 

[PeterWright]

Try Lindsay Lindsay Ruffle of Seapower Marine Engineering or ask SYH office for other recommendations in the light of French Marine non availability.

Sorry about previous autospell aided insult to Lindsay.

Peter

 

[Mandarin331]

Thanks all. The oil is nice and clear. The Heat exchanger could be an issue, but its running rough cold at low revs and squealing above 1000rpm so I suspect something mechanical. Just about to take the belt off and test if its the fresh water pump.

Peter, do you have any contact details for Lindsay russel?

 

[Kurrawong_Kid]

I think he is seapower at woolverstone

 

[PeterWright]

Lindsay's contact details:
seapowermarine.com
01473 780090
07768 772359

He is indeed based at Woolverstone, but does a fair bit of work at SYH as well.

Peter

 

[Mandarin331]

Thanks, sadly he's away on a delivery trip, volspec are blocked so I think we are going to have to wait for French's later this week / next week.

We did some more fiddling, from cold we have white smoke and raw diesel coming from the exhaust, so one cylinder is not firing and everyone is shaking heads and sucking teeth.

So we're heading back home for a different holiday and preparing for a big bill. The only consolation is that we're on our home berth and it didn't fail at a critical moment.

Thanks all.

 

[Champagne Murphy]

http://akmarineservices.co.uk/

Based at Pin Mill. Not used him but heard good things

 

[MrCramp]

Try Peter Norris, based at Larkmans in Woodbridge. A good bloke, sails a boat and did work for me when I was at Levington. Mobile 07909537267.

 

[Kukri]

Try Gerald Abbott at Kings at Pin Mill - 07880 721193

Friendly and capable chap well known to SYH

 

[Mandarin331]

Thanks all, again the ECF comes up with all the help one could ask for.

Most marine engineers seem to be swamped with engine failures or on holiday, so based on discussions with Peter Norris we are taking the injectors out for a service tomorrow, and have a compression tester arriving Saturday, then we'll have a better idea where to go next. We're hoping the compression is ok and it's an injector. Next step will be to clean out the heat exchanger to find out why it overheated. Peter's hoping that the over heating simply 'fried' an injector. He's back from holiday in a couple of weeks and will check it over then.

Meanwhile we are enjoying a land based holiday touring the many wonderful places of East Anglia and planning next year's trip.

 

[Mandarin331]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions, especially Minn.

Most people we spoke to sucked their teeth and said we may as well replace the engine. Gerald Abbott did some research, came up with a practical and cost effective solution and on Thursday we re-launched with a fully repaired and re-built engine at a reasonable cost (at least compared with any other solution). Very pleased with how he managed this. We'd certainly recommend him without hesitation.

The issue turned out to be weed in the water intake and a faulty cooling temperature alarm causing a broken piston ring, so the next job is fitting an exhaust temperature alarm as belt and braces. Anyway she's now anti-fouled, with new anodes, seacocks, and ready for the season , here's to a good autumn.