Yanmar 4JH3TE Turbo blower wash

[Irish Rover]

Guys forget the blower wash statement, If you conduct any type of cleaning on a turbo charger please take it to a specialist.
You need to understand that spraying water at a spinning turbine can cause serous damage to the turbine blade, think of the unregulated mass of water can cause blade stress.

Let me start by saying I don't mean any offense and I'm grateful to everyone who takes the time to offer advice but why would Yanmar be recommending this procedure, as part of routine maintenance, if it was potentially harmful to the engine and why should I favour your advice over the manufacturers?

 

[Irish Rover]

We sold software. "It was all running fine until you ruined our network" . I could stand no more and bought cheap servers off dell that were pile floor to ceiling in the office and gave them away with the system.

Then we went web based

Customers - who would have them!

I'm lost again. I literally have no idea what this post is about.

 

[jrudge]

Following the "mot testers ruined my car" comment.

 

[Irish Rover]

Following the "mot testers ruined my car" comment.

Yeah I saw you quoted it but frankly I still don't know what your post is about - I have admitted to being something of a technical numpty so if it's just me feel free to ignore.

 

[PeterBoater]

Guys forget the blower wash statement, If you conduct any type of cleaning on a turbo charger please take it to a specialist.
You need to understand that spraying water at a spinning turbine can cause serous damage to the turbine blade, think of the unregulated mass of water can cause blade stress.

Hardly an "unregulated mass"; the Yanmar instructions and the instructions that come with the Wynn's aerosol method specify regulated short sprays of only a few ccs at a time, with a gap between them. The various videos on youtube etc don't show the turbine blades being directly sprayed either. Although I have and have had Yanmar engines, I'm not a huge fan of Yanmar, especially their spares prices, but as Irish Rover implies, they must know more than a bit about their own products.

 

[B58]

I understand, but sometimes Yanmar add maintenance that is more associated to their commercial engines that use different fuel...MGO...etc, you can have your turbo cleaned just take it to a turbo specialist.
Look in the service manual at the procedure involved.

 

[B58]

The point was that Yanmar quote a certain amount blower wash over a measured period controlled by hand, its difficult to control the drop size?

 

[Portofino]

The fact Yanmar suggest a turbo clean in a timely manor tells me they are conscious of the agglomeration phenomenon caused by suboptimal cylinder temps .
Ie low rpm running.
So they are covering there arse in the manual .
They also ( link from another thread ) suggest run at 2800 rpm .If you do that you will not need to clean a fouled turbo on the heat side .

As mentioned and eluded to above by others it’s the bore wear that cause blow by in the first place which increases the oil mist and 5hit showering the blades on the cool inlet side ( crank breather pipe )

With another engine manufacturer for example MAN they major on EGTs and assume the builder and owner have specced the right power plant for the job so it will run at the opitmal EGT , they even provide a digital read of EGT and load .
The expectation is the owner will operate them in the zone so to speak .Made a conscious decision to buy the boat for the purposes it was designed for .
MAN recommend no not idle for over 5 mins due to sooting up , it’s in the manual .
But importantly there’s no mention of a turbo clean in the maintenance regime .

Back in around 2003 Sunseeker made a Preditor 108 ,there flag ship for a guy who took a year off to live aboard / tour the Med .Fully crewed etc .
Brief was lots of night passages while the family slept ,so to wake up at a new island etc .
Normally it would have either twin or even tripple MTU V 16 , going on 40 litres over 2000 Hp engines most with surface drives up to 45 knot for the big tripple .

But nope this guy specced a pair of John Deere’s with just enough Hp to push the 108 at displacement speeds ( stabilised btw ) + huge long range tanks .
Other wise say Manaco to Corsica would be over in less than 3 hrs .
Bed at 11 pm arrive 2 AM ,marina dead etc .
Or pace yourselves at 8/9 knots and arrive for breakfast .
Point is the engines were not running a low or ultra low rpms to go slow ,they were running at the correct rpm to keep the EGT,s in the zone north of 550 degree .
The captain did not have to throttle back into the suboptimal cylinder temp zone .
So very unlikely they needed to “. Wash the turbos “ because the Deere’s were run to the manufacturers reccmended rpm .

 

[Irish Rover]

Thanks again to everyone for their contributions. I'm learning every day. If I can get the detergent I'm definitely going to follow the Yanmar recommended procedure. It doesn't seem extreme. Just 50CC of detergent over 10 seconds followed 3 minutes later by 50 Cc of water over 10 seconds. I was planning to use a syringe to inject it in through the small hole in the housing. I'm a bit dubious about a dealer selling me a a half liter or liter and even if I can source the Yanmar 4L pack it's a bit daft as it would cover washing both engines 40 times. I wonder would Fairy liquid do the job?

 

[Portofino]

Hardly an "unregulated mass"; the Yanmar instructions and the instructions that come with the Wynn's aerosol method specify regulated short sprays of only a few ccs at a time, with a gap between them. The various videos on youtube etc don't show the turbine blades being directly sprayed either. Although I have and have had Yanmar engines, I'm not a huge fan of Yanmar, especially their spares prices, but as Irish Rover implies, they must know more than a bit about their own products.

Remember guys spraying only touches the cool airside .
What about the soot and crap baked on the hot side ?
After all its that sides ability to compress the air that directly effects the output , assuming any intercooler is within spec .
It’s slow running that 5hits up the hot side ,I’ll go further unburnt fuel possible carries on burning and baking 5hit on the blades .This is because on lowing tech engines like Yanmar they cannot get the fuel air mix at low rpms as accurate as a more modern electronic / common rail engine .Its set up to get the mix spot on at the optimal rpm ,which it does .

Ok reliable on one hand going down the route of little electrotwackery ,but the assumption is owners will run them as recommended about 2800 rpm .

They make great generator engines btw , I have a Yanmar geny engine it runs at optimal rpm every time I have zero control over it’s running speed .
So I,am pretty confidant of the bomb proof Yanmar reputation of there engines in genys .