Work starting on my MD11C this weekend - nervous

A quick update for those who are interested.

Heads refurbished, new valves, springs and seals.
Manifold soaked and treated and looking lovely (the engineer has a big bath of hot chemicals to help with this)
Still need an elbow
SME other spares on their way to me

Cost so far a staggering £752 including service items, spare impeller and Belzone 1111, which may not be necessary. Excluding these frivolous items the head rebuild is up to £601.54.... and we don't even know if the thing will start yet...

Happy days.
 
Swanrad2 said:
A quick update for those who are interested.

Cost so far a staggering £752 including service items, spare impeller and Belzone 1111, which may not be necessary. Excluding these frivolous items the head rebuild is up to £601.54.... and we don't even know if the thing will start yet...

Happy days.
Click to expand...

Still a long way to catch up with the money I spent on my Ford 1.6 D

Recon Cylinder Head £350 (Later found to be cracked)
2nd Recon Cylinder Head £450
Rebore, new pistons, new main bearings, new big end bearings, balance of crankshaft - flywheel - flywheel mass - drive plate, water pump, gaskets, special TTY bolts ~£800
Refurbish Injectors £100
Refurbish Injection Pump £300

~£2,000 total with all of the strip down and rebuild work done by yours truly.

Never - never - never again but don’t let be discourage you :)
 
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Jcorstorphine said:
Still a long way to catch up with the money I spent on my Ford 1.6 D

Recon Cylinder Head £350 (Later found to be cracked)
2nd Recon Cylinder Head £450
Rebore, new pistons, new main bearings, new big end bearings, balance of crankshaft - flywheel - flywheel mass - drive plate, water pump, gaskets, special TTY bolts ~£800
Refurbish Injectors £100
Refurbish Injection Pump £300

~£2,000 total with all of the strip down and rebuild work done by yours truly.

Never - never - never again but don’t let be discourage you 
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I am very pleased i decided to ditch a 22 yr old engine with 2300 hrs designed 45 yrs ago complete with string aft crankshaft seal. this is 10 yrs ago, i could have spent 1/2 the new cost on an old engine.
i guess its still running after the chap who bought it (gave me £500) & fixed it, i wasnt prepared to risk it.
 
I think this is one of those lessons you have to learn for yourself, it's a bit like smoking, just one more wont hurt - it gets you inch by inch and one by one! I think you cant overestimate the value of

1) taking an engine apart to learn how it works and to remove the fear
2) not having to take the whole lot out and replace it - as much as you buy an engine that used the same hardware in the boat, I still think other things would need to be bought.

On balance, so far, I am glad I did it - I will NEVER neglect those little details in engine maintenance again and I am no longer scared of diesels. Now that is liberating - if very difficult to explain to those who understand engines.
 
Swanrad2 said:
I think this is one of those lessons you have to learn for yourself, it's a bit like smoking, just one more wont hurt - it gets you inch by inch and one by one! I think you cant overestimate the value of

1) taking an engine apart to learn how it works and to remove the fear
2) not having to take the whole lot out and replace it - as much as you buy an engine that used the same hardware in the boat, I still think other things would need to be bought.

On balance, so far, I am glad I did it - I will NEVER neglect those little details in engine maintenance again and I am no longer scared of diesels. Now that is liberating - if very difficult to explain to those who understand engines.
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I took my Ford Consul engine to bits when i was skint about 45 yrs ago, you learn a lot, EVENTUALLY,:rolleyes:. doing it after work didnt help as i was knackered & not thinking straight.
My son would never, ever, think about even trying. He knows sod all about engines because he hasnt had to
 
Swanrad2 said:
The water circulation wasn't great anyway, I had the exhaust elbow off to help - it did. We had to run the engine for 5 minutes with very little or no water circulating and overheated it for the sake of safety, replacing the impeller soon after. After this event the amount of water decreased and when at temperature and higher than 3000 revs this turned to steam - I thought head gasket most likely under those circumstances.

The process I am contemplating is therefore take the head off and clean up where possible and replace the gaskets (mechanic friend willing to work for beer makes this doable). The boat has been sitting for nearly four years now so a coupe of bits need freeing off and cleaning up, do this. Service the engine. Start it and run acidic central heating solution through it for a few hours.

I am the definition of 'not an expert' but this seemed like a sensible order to work in?
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If it is the head gasket the sump oil will be milky where the water has mixed with it? Just check the dipstick
 
Swanrad2 said:
I think this is one of those lessons you have to learn for yourself, it's a bit like smoking, just one more wont hurt - it gets you inch by inch and one by one! I think you cant overestimate the value of

1) taking an engine apart to learn how it works and to remove the fear
2) not having to take the whole lot out and replace it - as much as you buy an engine that used the same hardware in the boat, I still think other things would need to be bought.

On balance, so far, I am glad I did it - I will NEVER neglect those little details in engine maintenance again and I am no longer scared of diesels. Now that is liberating - if very difficult to explain to those who understand engines.
Click to expand...

Before the saga with my Ford 1.6D, I had to do a full strip down on a knackered MD2B in my previous boat. For some reason, the engine electrics never had the correct oil pressure switch fitted / connected and when I started the engine after the rebuild, I did not realise that there was no oil pressure and the engine almost seized.

After that I fitted a mechanical pressure gauge. If you are really worried, you can prime the oil pump by taking off the plate on the oil pump. On the MD2B, that is not too easy as it is behind the flywheel and I think the MDIIC its in the same place.

I ended up using a vacuum pump to suck the oil up into the galleries. The other way is to crank the engine with the de-compressors open and the fuel shut off until you see either oil pressure or open the pipe that goes to the rockers to check for oil flow.

Very best of luck.

JC
 
PabloPicasso said:
If it is the head gasket the sump oil will be milky where the water has mixed with it? Just check the dipstick
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There are oil, water, cylinder gas, and ambient spaces all to be kept separate from one another.
Water in oil is only one failure mode! The head gasket can still have failed in other ways that would compromise running.
 
Thanks for advice so far.

The small chip of the exhaust manifold may be repairable by welding, but the consensus seems to be that it might crack the whole thing as cast iron needs to be heated until cherry red to weld, and there are so many contaminants in engine parts of this age and this bit of engines in particular it is very likely to do so.

I am going to use Belzona 1111 to repair the block - a 'chemical metal' it comes highly recommended. So give it a go.
 
Belzona was used on my MD11C t build up the cylinder block to liner lower seal rim. the engineering firm swears by it it can be machined and drilled and threaded according to them. Seems like magic stuff
 
In the interest of continuity, thought I would report back to those interested. The heads rebuilt, re sprayed and shiny with new valves and springs on them were put back on this weekend together with a new exhaust elbow and manifold (second hand for the latter). The diesel was old and tired so she wouldn't fire.

New diesel onboard and she went for 30 seconds, the stopped. No way of knong at this point if we had water or not as it didnt run long enough to make it all the way through. Cost to get to this point, not far short of £1,000. Breakdown available for anyone THAT interested.

There is no fuel now getting through to the injector pump (unlikely to be an air lock as we did the blessing routine twice)
The most likely culprits - rubbish in the diesel (unlikely as she ran after the diesel was replaced with clean and new).
Stuck in engine stop button (cable was stuck beforehand and didnt appear to work on the actuator)
She revved a bit high before we cracked the injectors on the first starts after which she wouldn't start again so possibly new injector pump
Governer issue (throttle stuck on closed maybe?)

We have waved a little white flag at this point and are preparing to call in the specialist as fiddling with injector pumps can end badly I believe (heard two stories of engines revving themselves to death with stuck governers after badly aligned injector pump replacement).

Incidentally the original water inlet seacock handle came off in my hand (one of the old red fire hose type taps). Anyone know if the handle can be replaced or if the seacock will be a specialist fitting because the strainer fits directly into it, or is it a standard 1/4" sea cock?

The other job of the weekend of re-laminating and beefing up two of the bulkheads went brilliantly - engines!!!!!!!
 
Swanrad2 said:
We have waved a little white flag at this point and are preparing to call in the specialist as fiddling with injector pumps can end badly I believe (heard two stories of engines revving themselves to death with stuck governers after badly aligned injector pump replacement). s!!!!!!!
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IF you removed the fuel pump then take it off again and check the fork on the governor lever is fitted around the wee brass ball on the pump rack pin. If sitting to one side the engine might go to full speed and run away and if fitted to the other side it could be shut off and no way of resetting the rack. Simpleessss


You did replace the brass ball????????????????
 
Bilgediver said:
IF you removed the fuel pump then take it off again and check the fork on the governor lever is fitted around the wee brass ball on the pump rack pin. If sitting to one side the engine might go to full speed and run away and if fitted to the other side it could be shut off and no way of resetting the rack. Simpleessss


You did replace the brass ball????????????????
Click to expand...

Being brutally frank, I have absolutely no idea what any of that means! Literally not a word, like a Rabby Burns poem, backwards and in Greek. I guess that's why I am calling in the pro's, know your limitations - thanks though :)
 
If anyone is still reading, I will pass on the engineers comments today. Should of been fairly obvious really, but in my keenness to get to combustion I didn't do it. The next stage suggested by him, empty the fuel tank - while we are at it either refurb the tank or replace it, change the tap on the old one as they are useless. Replace all the filters, give the engine another service. Try again-it must be the fuel, if we do this and it doesn't work then call him again. There is, at that point, a reason to involve his skills - for now, I think he was politely suggesting what we need to do can be done by us far more cheaply.

He did tweet the stop button (seemed to move) and the throttle, seemed OK.

Good man - lives and works in Beaumaris.
 
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