burgundyben
Well-Known Member
I often read on here that people are more wary of low hours than of high, so here's what happened...
I bought a project boat, it came with a pair of Cummins, 5.9bt, 1997, run about 400 hours in a different boat, removed and sold to this boat, they were on pallets, in the tent the boat was in, fairly damp and grotty environment and had been sat for about 5 years. No coolant in them, had been drained down.
I hand cranked them over, not stuck. Assessed the risk (ignored it!) and bought the boat.
I decided not to do too much, but get them in, get them running, under load, and then see where I was. Forever the optimist!
I changed oil, filters, belts, flushed out the pump and injector lines, new impellors, did the mounting brackets etc and got them in.
They started and apparently ran ok. At idle just fine. As soon as underload, within a minute at 1500rpm they both chucked several litres of coolant out of the header tank in a matter of a few seconds. Stbd one took a little longer, port one did it within seconds.
Diagnosis was a pain, but once found an easy fix.
Rust and crud had blocked the coolant flow out of the exhaust manifold, it was full of coolant, but no flow.
According to the manual, for storage, a fresh 50/50 mix of water and glycol should poured in. I'm sure if that had happened they would have been just fine.
So there you go, don't follow the manual, poor storage and you'll suffer!
An engine in commercial service on a maintenance contract running 1000's of hours a year ought to be a safe bet.
I bought a project boat, it came with a pair of Cummins, 5.9bt, 1997, run about 400 hours in a different boat, removed and sold to this boat, they were on pallets, in the tent the boat was in, fairly damp and grotty environment and had been sat for about 5 years. No coolant in them, had been drained down.
I hand cranked them over, not stuck. Assessed the risk (ignored it!) and bought the boat.
I decided not to do too much, but get them in, get them running, under load, and then see where I was. Forever the optimist!
I changed oil, filters, belts, flushed out the pump and injector lines, new impellors, did the mounting brackets etc and got them in.
They started and apparently ran ok. At idle just fine. As soon as underload, within a minute at 1500rpm they both chucked several litres of coolant out of the header tank in a matter of a few seconds. Stbd one took a little longer, port one did it within seconds.
Diagnosis was a pain, but once found an easy fix.
Rust and crud had blocked the coolant flow out of the exhaust manifold, it was full of coolant, but no flow.
According to the manual, for storage, a fresh 50/50 mix of water and glycol should poured in. I'm sure if that had happened they would have been just fine.
So there you go, don't follow the manual, poor storage and you'll suffer!
An engine in commercial service on a maintenance contract running 1000's of hours a year ought to be a safe bet.
