volvo 2030 with chewed up impellor

wotayottie

wotayottie

Well-Known Member
Joined
1 Jul 2007
Messages
11,635
Location
swansea
Visit site
and I mean chewed up - one blade completely gone and a second torn off. any ideas on the cause - its the first time I have had impellor failure in 25 years. change them every year and do mayube 150hrs motoring pa.

and where should |I look for the missing bits? heat exchanger and exhaust elbow?
 
It has only happened to me once, when the raw water filter got bunged up slowly during five hours motoring. The missing bits were found at the heat exchanger where I believe there is something of a coarse filter.
 
duncan99210 said:
There'll be bits all the way through the raw water system - heat exchanger and elbow. When we shredded one a couple of years back, I would up nicking one of SWMBO's knitting needles to rod the bits out of the heat exchanger tubes. Time consuming and somewhat messy job......
Click to expand...
what about a dinghy pump forcing the bits out of the tubes for whence they came
 
If you have a siphon breaker on the pump discharge, look in there before you take apart the heat exchanger. I started with the HX inlet plenum, and the rubber boot split as I removed it; no bits of impeller found. Looked at the HX outlet plenum, no bits found and another split boot. Nothing in the exhaust elbow but gained several skinned knuckles on that one. As a last resort dismantled the siphon thingy and found half an impeller lobe end on, so no resistance to back flushing but blocked forward flow.

At the time, there was one HX boot available in the UK.....
 
Taking out the heat exchanger on a 2030 is pretty simple. Undo and remove the the rubber end caps and it slides out. You have to get it the right way up on the way back. Chances are all the bits will have either been too large to enter the tubes and you will find them at the forward end of the tube stack or they will have passed through the tubes. Rodding the the tubes is just an issue of a long enough knitting needle!
 
As far as the cause is concerned; I had the same problem a few years ago which was picked up by the mechanic doing a routine service. According to him several boats had suffered the same problem and it was down to a bad batch of impellors. If the one you had was old stock it might just be why it happened.
 
wotayottie said:
and I mean chewed up - one blade completely gone and a second torn off. any ideas on the cause - its the first time I have had impellor failure in 25 years. change them every year and do mayube 150hrs motoring pa.

and where should |I look for the missing bits? heat exchanger and exhaust elbow?
Click to expand...

This usualy happens when a cheapo impeller is used instead of the manufacturers recomended one. Not saying you did that but that is usually the cause.

Lesson number one= Only buy the very best impeller.

Peter
 
My boat also has the MD2030 engine. I change the impeller each year, usually just prior to season launch. My experience is that the Volvo part is slightly different to the Jabsco version (different bore IIRC) so the market is not flooded with cheap copies. A few years ago, mine lost one of its blades. I pondered a search but in the end put it down to expereince and slept easy thereafter.
 
sailorman said:
what about a dinghy pump forcing the bits out of the tubes for whence they came
Click to expand...

Easier to use the knitting needle - in fact a pair of needles, as one is not long enough to go all the way through - than to try rigging a dinghy pump to do the job. Its actually a 2 handed job - one person to push the needle(s) through, the other to catch the bits and retrieve the needle for the nect tube.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Share this page

Top