Joy before disapointment

[allen]

My engine quit several weeks ago. I almost made it to my slip. We pushed the boat along and got in. Damaged one boat that was sticking out very slightly. It was quite windy. When I got to the slip there was water shooting out my very rusted manifold.

I called VanNess and low and behold he had a manifold (used) "only" $750 plus $90 shipping. It had issues but I addressed them. Put it on and the engine started up and there was joy. But no power from cylinder #1 and with the plug removed and running the engine there was a fountain of water. There was no longer joy but disappointment.

Head cam off and it was clear that the head gasket had been blown out by non compressible water finding it's way back home.

Head gaskets are unobtainable but I had three. I put the head on today. Torqued all the head bolts and ran it. There was joy. Ran it for 20 minutes and retorqued the head. The third bolt stripped in the block. No more joy and lots of disappointment.

Found the helicoil set for the head bolts left over from the first time I pulled the head and broke off 5 bolts in the block. Before I figured out how to drill them out clean I helicoiled two of the five.

This engine is a pain. I got a quote for a Yanmar 3 cylinder. $12,050 for the engine and 60-80 hours labor at $140 an hour. Budget $25,000 he said.

My boat is both worthless and irreplaceable. I think that makes it priceless. I have not decided what to do except I will install the helicoil and hope I don't strip out any more holes in the block. Then at least I could sail while waiting in line for a new engine, or just keep slamming my head against the wall with this old engine.

I have never paid much attention to dry vs lubricated torque specifications. I have always torqued dry. I read the manual this time and it said "Lubricate threads to assure accurate torque" so I did. It also said 35 to 40 ft lbs. I initially set to 35 (went up in 5 pound steps). The threads snapped at 30 on the re-torque. I used anti seize to lubricate. Product data sheet says it is just like oil for torque -- reduce torque by 25% if lubricated. I don't think I did anything wrong but I did lubricate threads for the first time but the manual is clear to lubricate.

Right now there is no joy. My biggest mistake was buying the manifold instead of just going for a new engine right then and there.

Allen
L-36.com

[rcvesselstyn]

Darn it Allen, your tale brings back nightmarish memories of all the old engines I've tried to keep alive. It sounds like you're over the hurdle and only yards to the finish line. You just got to keep on keeping on. As far as getting on the list for a repower, for me that would be a no-brainer, I don't have $15,000. We were faced with a similar situation on our previous boat. Over a 30-year period I had the engine out of the boat twice. And in between those rebuilds it was still always breaking down. The straw that broke the camel's back so to speak was a new fuel pump that failed. A simple fix but I was so sick of spending time working on that darn engine that the failure cascaded to the purchase of another boat with an engine I could get parts for and was a 50 years newer design. We still miss that boat. Memories of raising the kids and wonderful times. All the gear that were presents over the years; birthday tillers, Christmas stoves, anniversary cushions. We don't regret the decision to move on though. By moving to a different boat we addressed the other problems that we battled all those years. New, different problems, yes. It's a boat, they're always will be something to work on. Addressing those problems brought new joy to our sailing. I am not suggesting that this is the right solution for you. Get the engine going, and then find a way to replace it before it fails again. Sorry to hear about the setbacks. Good luck my friend.

[Scrimshaw]

I knew someone who had a similar problem with his Cal 30. He trashed the engine and put an outboard engine on the transom and was very pleased with the results.

warren fox
schrimshaw, cal34, mark III
marina del rey, CA

[Mary Mac]

Ah I know the joy/disappointment cycle well. Sorry to hear about your troubles.

When I was having problems with my transmission etc, I looked into a new engine. Beta Marine quoted me $20k, $7k of that being labor. Joe DeMers had given me Ethan's contact: [email protected]

I am curious about the bolts that sheared. Were you re-using the old ones? I'm more experienced with airplane mechanics, but were the bolts the correct metal? I have recently encountered poor quality bolts being sold as high quality ones.

Could you run a tap through the threads before trying again to make sure they are clean?

You wouldn't have known that the problem went beyond the manifold. Perhaps you can re-sell it.

Good luck and I hope you get back to the joy ASAP.

[allen]

The bolts were new and I ran a thread chaser or restorer on all the holes. The bolt did not fail, it was the threads in the block. I have previously helicoiled a couple of treads in the block so will do that again.

I did some testing on lubricated vs dry torque. With 30 weight oil I get a 20% increase in other words, it only takes 25 ft-lbs to move the bolt to where 30 ft-lbs put it unlubricated. However with the anti seize it only took 15 ft-lbs to get the bolt tight. I conclude that using anti seize as a bad idea and greatly over stressed the threads. The hole that stripped is the only one not drilled into the water jacket so it was blind tapped and likely had fewer threads. That is speculation on my part but is likely what caused the problem.

VanNess says he uses liquid Permatex to lubricate the threads. Mine comes tomorrow and I will test it.

I am encouraged to have an explanation that revolves around I am stupid then that the engine is crap.

I will keep you informed.

[Capn ken]

Have you thought about switching to an Atomic 4 ! A group called the eh Orion will guide you. Yes, it's a gasoline engine much cheaper and easier to work on than a Yammo and much cheaper. You can buy everything brand new for much less money. Good luck in your endeavors. I love my atomic four.

[rcvesselstyn]

That's impressive that you ran the test Allen. The vast majority of the time I've always dry torqued. With a few exceptions of a drop of thin oil to prevent galling. I never would have guessed the anti-seize would make such a huge difference. You've probably saved me from stripping threads out of my next project.

[Mary Mac]

Interesting. Perhaps the lubrication pooled at the bottom of the hole and caused the bolt to bottom out? I assume you used only a tiny bit on the bottom threads, though. New bolts could be mismatched threads to the block? Keep us posted and good luck!

[allen]

VanNess says he uses liquid Permatex so he guesses it is wet. My jar came today. The instructions say apply and wait a "few" minutes. I hate instructions like that. Anyway, I coated a bolt and waited 5 minutes. This is not an accurate experiment as coating 15 bolts and slowly tightening them takes time. Result was it took 35 ft-lbs to get the bolt to where it was at 30 ft-lbs dry. Not much of a lubricant!.

So what should I do? Bolt depot says for 3/8-16 grade 8 bolts use 33 ft-lbs "slightly lubricated". I hate instructions like that.
Another site says 44 ft-lbs dry or 22 ft-lbs lubricated!
Another says 40 lubricated and 27 with anti seize. I can relate to that.
Another says 45 dry and 35 lubricated.
Fastenel says 43.6 dry and 32.7 lubricated. Resolution exceeds the accuracy by a long way here.

The engine manual (from my website -- did you know I have almost 1,000 free manuals there?) says 35-40 lubricated.

Summarizing the recommendations I see 43 to 45 for dry, 33 to 40 lubricated (throwing out the outlier).

By the way, I went to retorque the bolt treated with Permatex. 45 ft-lbs and the thing didn't budge. I guess it was glued in place. I won't be using that. I will probably do 35 ft-lbs with just a very slight amount of 40 weight non-detergent engine oil as that is likely what they used in the day. I just need to make sure I get all the anti seize out of the block.

Allen
L-36.com

[allen]

The engine is running. Joy at last. I carefully inspected every one of the 15 threaded holes in the block and ended up heli-coiling 5 more so now 7 are heli-coiled and 8 are not. One was so bad that when I went to drill it out the first drill just dropped down without having to drill anything. That was the 3/8 drill and the bolts are 3/8. How that could have held torque is beyond me. I drilled it out to "X" and tapped it and inserted the heli-coil.

The head went on fine, we were just very careful. I used a thin layer of 40 weight oil to lubricate it. We ran it for about half an hour and retorqued. No issues. I may end up with a new engine or if this one lasts long enough for technology to advance, a motor. I would really like to go electric but I go back and forth on the idea. Anyone here switched to electric?