Well I didn't expect that to happen!

Bubblegtt

Well-Known Member
Joined
13 Aug 2009
Messages
384
Location
Titchmarsh Marina
www.motacar.com
We moved our boat from Brightlingsea to it's new home at Titchmarsh Marina, Walton-on-the -Naze. Well that was the plan anyway.....weather was rubbish, cold and misty, but as soon as we had enough water under us, we cast off and left Brightlingsea. We were in convoy with my work colleague in his boat, which developed a minor problem with his engine bay full of water - eek!

I had noticed that he was no longer next to us in the mist and after a quick phone call, we raced back flat out to find him pumping out the engine bay. The circular cover to the raw water filter had sprung a leak. It was at this point that I heard this annoying buzzing sound.......the starboard engine alarm on our boat was sounding and a warning in the display!

The oil pressure looked fine, the water temps looked fine, so while my son took the helm, I went into the engine bay, but couldn't see anything wrong. We worked out with the manual how to silence the alarm and then carried on with our passage to Titchmarsh.

Then the starboard engine alarm went on again, it lost power and ran very badly. We continued on and the the same thing happened to the port engine. The starboard engine kept dying, which would then lose us the power steering. With constant restarting over the next hour, we managed to limp along at just 7 knots to the marina.

Just as we were trying to berth into our slot, the starboard engine died and we lost steering again, not what you want in a crowded marina! We finely managed to get the boat tied up and retired to the Harbour Lights restuarant.

I have ripped out the fuel filters and will strip them down at work tomorrow, hoping that it is a fairly simple fuel blockage. Oh and even thought the filters were inside 2 plastic bags in the boot of the X-Trail, they managed to piss diesel everywhere, so I had to strip out and clean the boot when we got home!

I treat the tanks with Marine 16 every time I fill up, so I hope its just normal **** in the filters and not diesel bug. The filters were changed by the previous owner 11 months ago. The engines are D4 260's and run from separate fuel tanks in the Prestige 34S.

I believe that the fault codes have been stored in the EVC, is this a dealer job to read them?

What a kerfuffle!
 
I don't suppose it was your diesel waxing up with the cold? They probably put additives in the stuff all year round nowadays, but when I were a lad in v parky weather you'd see crystals form on/in diesel which'd see it block filters.

I had a 25 litre can (complete with faulty lid) of the pink stuff fall over in the back of a Dihatsu Fourtrak some years back. Luckily the carpets came out - mind you, it stank for bleedin months afterwards.
 
It's not a dealer job to read the evc fault codes. You can diy. The LED on the little dahsboard panel flashes 3 groups of flashes, which you count. Say "3-7-2". You can then look up that code in the manual (or online). Good luck
 
Cleaned out the filters this morning and there was an amount, though not huge, of black deposits in them. One filter showed signs of being sucked in on itself, so must have been very restrictive to the fuel flow.

When I get time to get back onboard, I will refit them and check the fault codes if I can.
 
I don't suppose it was your diesel waxing up with the cold? They probably put additives in the stuff all year round nowadays, but when I were a lad in v parky weather you'd see crystals form on/in diesel which'd see it block filters.

I had a 25 litre can (complete with faulty lid) of the pink stuff fall over in the back of a Dihatsu Fourtrak some years back. Luckily the carpets came out - mind you, it stank for bleedin months afterwards.

Sorry to hear that, but glad it's not just me: I bought a drum of industrial bleach (10% not the poxy 2.5% domestic stuff) to kill algae in our pool in France, which of course had a faulty lid and tipped over in the back of my old rangie a couple of years ago. Mostly contained on the rubber matting, but not quite all.
 
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