Volvo KAD 32 any tips?

[Volvo KAD 32 tfft]

Hi Fellas,
After 3 years of uncertainty and many hundreds of pounds later i finaly gave up on the Mercruiser petrol and joined the realms of Volvo diesel.
Ahh Blissto! with less than 300 hrs it is absolute bliss to have an engine that starts first time every time,
no choke, no flooding, no winding the engine over for ages,
I can go out without ruining my day by thinking, is this thing going to start, ooh its great! and power steering too.
So i want to look after it, and now having to start all over again and find my way round it,
Are there any pencil anodes in the heat exchanger?or elsewhere on the engine?
What about flushing through the raw water side after use? makes sense?
The guy at Volvo said no dont bother, but he may only be thinking of service charges further down the line,
It wont be easy to flush as I am on a swinging mooring, does anybody have any ideas.
Thanks for reading my post and any tips or advice about my new engine would be very welcome.

 

[Peanuts]

Hi

Glad to see you have seen the light, the KAD32 is a great engine and up to now mine have been as sweet as a nut (1200 Hrs).

Do you intend to service them yourself? Out of interest what boat do you have?

You will (should) get many posts about this engine, together with the cross over of part numbers for your local car shop for the belts, and that leads me to the one thing to check, the tension of the primary belt, it does all the work and likes to be tensioned correctly but that is not a problem to do.

Enjoy your boating and look after that engine. I expect we will be talking again.

Steve

 

[PaulGooch]

I came across this list of compatible parts for the KAD32 and kept it. I don't have on, so can't verify if it's correct, but here it is anyway :

Volvo KAD32

Power steering Belt - Volvo No. 973487
Car shop - 6375MC or MBF1013

Alternator Belt - Volvo No. 977542
Car shop - 6469MC or MMB987

Primary Belt - Volvo No. 861564
Car shop - 7PK925 78359 or MMR7925

Compressor Belt - Volvo No.3581460
Car shop - 68376 6PK1138 or MMR61150

Air Filter - Volvo No.463505
Car shop - Champion U531 (As used in 240 1.7DL.GL B17A 1979 onwards)

FRAM Filters
air CA4365,
oil PH 2861B ,
diesel P5770

 

[neale]

With regards to flushing the raw water side, most don't bother. I have a KAD32 and fitted one of Volvo's Neutra Salt systems to it. Basically it adds a salt neutralising solution to the raw water side just before you turn the motor off. Not as good as a proper flush with fresh water bit a good and easy compromise.

See here: Neutra-salt

 

[STEVEDUNSTABLE]

Hi Fellas,
After 3 years of uncertainty and many hundreds of pounds later i finaly gave up on the Mercruiser petrol and joined the realms of Volvo diesel.
Ahh Blissto! with less than 300 hrs it is absolute bliss to have an engine that starts first time every time,
no choke, no flooding, no winding the engine over for ages,
I can go out without ruining my day by thinking, is this thing going to start, ooh its great! and power steering too.
So i want to look after it, and now having to start all over again and find my way round it,
Are there any pencil anodes in the heat exchanger?or elsewhere on the engine?
What about flushing through the raw water side after use? makes sense?
The guy at Volvo said no dont bother, but he may only be thinking of service charges further down the line,
It wont be easy to flush as I am on a swinging mooring, does anybody have any ideas.
Thanks for reading my post and any tips or advice about my new engine would be very welcome.

welcome to the forum.........ive had my s24 from new 9yrs now. its kad 32 has never let me down (todate)!!!.. im a trailersailer and yes i do flush EVERY TIME by dropping the leg in a 45gal loft tank (£9.99 wicks at the time) with some cooking oil added ( nice n slimmy n sticky)....there is no anodes on the engine its self only on the leg itself..mine are original !!!!! and are only 25% gone.....all that said if for some reason you do liftit you can only do it good to flush...dont forget to check the oil in the supercharger and change when you do a general service...enjoy your boating...(if your really bored ,look at my website below)

 

[CX54WEK]

We have had our boat with KAD32 for going on for 2 years. The engine has never missed a beat in the 450 hours we have completed so far.

Make sure the oil and filters are changed on a regular basis (the manual suggests 100 hours) and change the supercharger oil on schedule and you should have few problems.

We use ours mainly on rivers so it can get a little smokey, but a good blast at cruising speed (25 knots) soon has her running smoke free again. The one thing we have found is that being on the river the raw water intake can be prone to blocking which in turn ruins the impellor, so we always carry a spare or two as well as spare filters and belts.

 

[[2068]]

Stick to the service schedule in the owners handbook and you won't have many problems, other than belts, which I change every other year regardless, and the small flat auxiliary drive belt every year (if this fails, then ). Anti-freeze goes in every other year along with bellows on the outdrive. Outdrive oil is every season.

Listen out for squeaky belt tensioners, check air pipes are secure, exhaust pipe not corroded, bit of WD40 on the connector to the black electrical box, shouldn't be (m)any oil leaks.

They are good engines.

 

[wongaero]

Ah yes, and beware the raw-water strainer! If the strainer or its lid aren't fully seated and sea-water seeps out then it'll run to the bilge, passing through the alternator on the way and prompting an embarrassing conversation with the volvo agent ( no sir, it's dead sir...)

 

[peterandjeanette]

The only problem I had with mine was during a very hot summer several years ago in a Sealine F33.

We had a fast run from Dover, past Ramsgate, up the Thames, through London and just approaching Kew bridge and the starboard engine just cut out. The one that drives the power steering too!

Eventually discovered that on top of the engine is a small black box with a little black button sticking out of it. This is some sort of electrical cut out that pops out during overheating. ( I should have switched on the engine rooms fans ) There was no problem whilst we were travelling at speed - the air was circulating ok, but when we slowed for the river there was insufficient air being forced in.

Pushed the button back in - switched on the fans - and away we went again.

Great engines

 

[Peanuts]

Do you intend to service them yourself? Out of interest what boat do you have?

No, I asked you that question, you are supposed to answer it, that is if you want to.

 

[Volvo KAD 32 tfft]

technical difficulties

Hi,we seem to have encountered tech probs, only half of my reply was posted?

hey ho lets try again,

yes I will be carryring out the servicing myself, the boat is a Sunseeker Mexico 24.

we launched today on the "slipway of terror" at Exmouth. all went well and the engine is a dream, like new,
we reached 31 knots with more in store and then my cap blew off, so shut down retrived my cap and had a lovely cruise up the estuary,
not a motorhead but had to give it a whirl, and unlikely to be doing that speed again
sedate cruising and fishing for me!
thank you to all those that posted advice and tips and for the warm welcome to the forum, will stay in touch, Bill

 

[CX54WEK]

Hi,we seem to have encountered tech probs, only half of my reply was posted?

hey ho lets try again,

yes I will be carryring out the servicing myself, the boat is a Sunseeker Mexico 24.

we launched today on the "slipway of terror" at Exmouth. all went well and the engine is a dream, like new,
we reached 31 knots with more in store and then my cap blew off, so shut down retrived my cap and had a lovely cruise up the estuary,
not a motorhead but had to give it a whirl, and unlikely to be doing that speed again
sedate cruising and fishing for me!
thank you to all those that posted advice and tips and for the warm welcome to the forum, will stay in touch, Bill

If you will only be doing sedate cruising you may well notice it starts to get smokey. When it starts to get smokey give it a good couple of hours hard work blasting around and it will stop smoking again.