KAD 44 - Smoke or Steam

You are not going to get a black residue from steam, your engines are smoking whilst under load, you need the help of volvopaul ! Or someone with more knowledge than me, are you getting full speed and revs, Neil

I have tried Volvo Paul, as he had been recommended to me before but he's based around the Solent I think which is quite a mission to Dover.

Yes, I'm getting full speed and rev's (28knts - 30knts and around 3,900) WOT and I've not noticed anything untoward other than this steam / smoke.

Surely if steam is coming from the exhaust somewhere and is mixed with the exhaust gasses I'm bound to get some residue from it?

Thanks to everyone for their comments.
 
I to would be very interested in the outcome of this as have a similar thing with KAD44s on an F36 with 150hours use
Not as bad but a few wisps when accelerating and a "hot" sort of smell.
Everything runs fine and all gauges normal
The boat had been stood in due for a while before we bought her
 
I to would be very interested in the outcome of this as have a similar thing with KAD44s on an F36 with 150hours use
Not as bad but a few wisps when accelerating and a "hot" sort of smell.
Everything runs fine and all gauges normal
The boat had been stood in due for a while before we bought her

Do you get any residue left on the transom at all?
 
I have 42's they smoke when cold on startup for about 3 minutes and you can smell the diesel. Thereafter nothing. What you have does not seem normal and I'd be looking at exhaust bellows as mentioned above as first step
 
Are the temps normal also at wot? Could it be a partly bocked exhaust elbow causing increased exhaust gase temperatures? Also broken exhaust bellow would show up like this but there would be loud exhaust noise also then (edit: ok this was already asked here)

Are you loosing coolant? Somewhere excess water/coolant could be leaking into the air or exhaust side. This could be casued by a leak in the head gasket or intercooler.
 
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Are the temps normal also at wot? Could it be a partly bocked exhaust elbow causing increased exhaust gase temperatures? Also broken exhaust bellow would show up like this but there would be loud exhaust noise also then (edit: ok this was already asked here)

Are you loosing coolant? Somewhere excess water/coolant could be leaking into the air or exhaust side. This could be casued by a leak in the head gasket or intercooler.

I haven't run it for any amount of time at WOT but when I have I've not notice any rise in temp.

No overly loud exhaust noise and coolant level hasn't dropped.

I had wondered whether there might be a problem with the raw water impeller but I'm pretty sure it's the raw water feed which is also connected to my hot water calorifier and I'm still getting hot water off the engine so it can't be that.

Cheers.
 
I haven't run it for any amount of time at WOT but when I have I've not notice any rise in temp.

No overly loud exhaust noise and coolant level hasn't dropped.

I had wondered whether there might be a problem with the raw water impeller but I'm pretty sure it's the raw water feed which is also connected to my hot water calorifier and I'm still getting hot water off the engine so it can't be that.

Cheers.

An impeller problem would show up as increased increase temps. I had KAD 42s in a prevouis boat and when renovating the raw water pump a too small cam was installed which caused rised temps above planning speeds.

It might be wort while checking the exhaust elbows as the mixer holes might be partly blocked or damaged causing distorted spray patterns. This could create hot spots in the exhaust piping.

If I remember correctly the air side of the intercooler should have a drainage plug/valve for draining condense water from the air side. Is the any signs of excess water exiting from this?
 
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An impeller problem would show up as increased increase temps. I had KAD 42s in a prevouis boat and when renovating the raw water pump a too small cam was installed which caused rised temps above planning speeds.

It might be wort while checking the exhaust elbows as the mixer holes might be partly blocked or damaged causing distorted spray patterns. This could create hot spots in the exhaust piping.

If I remember correctly the air side of the intercooler should have a drainage plug/valve for draining condense water from the air side. Is the any signs of excess water exiting from this?


I really am not very mechanically minded, give me electrics any day!

I got hold of the KAD 44 operators manual in the hope there might be some good drawings on there to give me some pointers but to no avail.

I just wouldn't know where to look for the intercooler :-(

Cheers
 
It is a quite large boxy component on the left side looking like this. On the bottom right you can see the drainage valve.

https://goo.gl/images/CxwObJ

Great thanks. Yes I think I know where that is and I will check to see whether there is any water coming out. What I will say though is I keep my bilges completely dry and I've not seen any dampness or anything in the engine bilge.

Thanks for your help.
 
Pls note that there can be condense water witch is normal. I'm not an expert or a mechanic but something tells me that if you have that much steam there must be excess water entering the air side or something is too hot. The intercoolers can fail an then you would get seawater in the air intake. Im a bit guessing here so pls also talk o a Volvo mechanic. I remember an old car of mine that had a broaken head gasket, boy what an impressive steam cloud that produced.
 
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If its to much steam the intercooler is a good place to start as I mentioned initially however your bellow is broken and it will therefore make your transom dirty with exhaust residue. When you have fixed the bellow the exhaust will travel away from the boat before it surfaces and the problem will go away.
Any engine like this will smell of exhaust, very much so when its working. However for the most part you won't smell it as you are travelling away from it, which is not what happens when the bellow is broken. It will then travel upwards behind the canopy, wirl around a bit and then maybe leave the boat.
There is always a bit of steam in the exhaust, particularly when the air is damp and cold. In part maybe from the exhaust knee where the cold water meets the hot gas but also from the air that is sucked in, it will be significantly heated and the water that's trapped in the air will want to escape which it is doing in the form of steam.
I think you are making this a bigger issue than it is. I would fix the bellow and if the exhaust bend is older than 8-10 yrs I would get a new one. If the Intercooled have not been inspected in the same time I would open that as well and have a look, if nothing else I would do it to clean pipes.
Again, normally you don't see this as the exhaust gases exits under water and togeather with the water from the prop creating masive amounts of bubbles that gets spread out and pushed far behind the boat.
 
If its to much steam the intercooler is a good place to start as I mentioned initially however your bellow is broken and it will therefore make your transom dirty with exhaust residue. When you have fixed the bellow the exhaust will travel away from the boat before it surfaces and the problem will go away.
Any engine like this will smell of exhaust, very much so when its working. However for the most part you won't smell it as you are travelling away from it, which is not what happens when the bellow is broken. It will then travel upwards behind the canopy, wirl around a bit and then maybe leave the boat.
There is always a bit of steam in the exhaust, particularly when the air is damp and cold. In part maybe from the exhaust knee where the cold water meets the hot gas but also from the air that is sucked in, it will be significantly heated and the water that's trapped in the air will want to escape which it is doing in the form of steam.
I think you are making this a bigger issue than it is. I would fix the bellow and if the exhaust bend is older than 8-10 yrs I would get a new one. If the Intercooled have not been inspected in the same time I would open that as well and have a look, if nothing else I would do it to clean pipes.
Again, normally you don't see this as the exhaust gases exits under water and togeather with the water from the prop creating masive amounts of bubbles that gets spread out and pushed far behind the boat.

Great, thanks very much for the pointers and I'm glad it is simple. As mentioned in an earlier post I'm really not mechanically minded and fairly new to this, but quick to learn if I have something to go by so will do some online research about how to look at the exhaust bellow and exhaust bend and hopefully will be able to sort.

Once again thanks for taking the time to provide some advice.
 
The exhaust bellow can be changed without pulling the leg... However it can be a tough one though to get the bellow on the transom and tighten the inner clamp.... It is much easier once the drive is off. You can study this online manual .. go to page 25 and read forward.
http://www.marinesurveyorontario.com/volvo penta workshop manual.pdf
I know you have a DPE leg but is is pretty much same as the 290 DP.
If you decide to pull the leg I suggest you change also to U/J bellow at the same time... It shall be changed after 2-3 years (same with the exhaust bellow) anyway. If your exhaust bellow is cracked most likely your U/J bellow is not young either....

Hope you can fix it-
 
The exhaust bellow can be changed without pulling the leg... However it can be a tough one though to get the bellow on the transom and tighten the inner clamp.... It is much easier once the drive is off. You can study this online manual .. go to page 25 and read forward.
http://www.marinesurveyorontario.com/volvo penta workshop manual.pdf
I know you have a DPE leg but is is pretty much same as the 290 DP.
If you decide to pull the leg I suggest you change also to U/J bellow at the same time... It shall be changed after 2-3 years (same with the exhaust bellow) anyway. If your exhaust bellow is cracked most likely your U/J bellow is not young either....

Hope you can fix it-

Thank you very much for this ?
 
The exhaust bellow can be changed without pulling the leg... However it can be a tough one though to get the bellow on the transom and tighten the inner clamp.... It is much easier once the drive is off. You can study this online manual .. go to page 25 and read forward.
http://www.marinesurveyorontario.com/volvo penta workshop manual.pdf
I know you have a DPE leg but is is pretty much same as the 290 DP.
If you decide to pull the leg I suggest you change also to U/J bellow at the same time... It shall be changed after 2-3 years (same with the exhaust bellow) anyway. If your exhaust bellow is cracked most likely your U/J bellow is not young either....

Hope you can fix it-

Just one more question...

Just had a good look at the relevant section so now at least I understand where the exhaust bellow is and have looked at some oth bits online but one thing I can't figure out.

Obviously one end of the bellow attaches to the engine side of things on one end and on page 28 it looks like the other end attached to the outdrive. So my question is, where does the exhaust actually exit? Presumably somewhere in the drive leg?

The reason I'm asking is When looking at the drive in the water, the housing at the top of the drive that I can see is also covered in black exhaust crap as well.

Cheers
 
Great thanks. Yes I think I know where that is and I will check to see whether there is any water coming out. What I will say though is I keep my bilges completely dry and I've not seen any dampness or anything in the engine bilge.

Thanks for your help.

Finally managed to do some more investigation on the boat and to answer this question, I had a look at the bleed valve on the underneath of the aftercooler. Definitely no water pouring out but it was damp with a few drops of sort of oily / greasy water.

Is that what I should expect?

Cheers
 
Finally managed to do some more investigation on the boat and to answer this question, I had a look at the bleed valve on the underneath of the aftercooler. Definitely no water pouring out but it was damp with a few drops of sort of oily / greasy water.

Is that what I should expect?

Cheers

It looks like the intercooler is not the problem (stand humble to be corrected but this is waht came out of mine as well). How did you actually exclude a loose exhaust bellow. It can look like it is in place when stationary but at speed it might become detatched from the "neck" by the exhaust pressure. If you do not have any overheat, you do not loose coolant and oil levels are stable the serious stuff can be excluded i think. Have you checked that your raw water pump is not leaking and spraying water mist in the engine room. This should show up as salt deposits and later rust on the front of your engine. Also as mentioned before you should check the condition of the rawater-exhaust mixer. On my KAD 42s the head gasket was always leaking despite replacement. This however shoved up as green bilage water.
 
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