Diesel engine problems. Stuff you need to know!

[Impavidus]

Folks we have just finished making a video for our channel. It's a big issue with Volvo engines and others that you may not know about. We thought we should share it with our fellow Bavaria owners as it affects engines of 800 engine hours or more and it creeps up on you without you knowing. This is the biggest cause of engine failure that is terminal that we have seen in 35+ years of sailing with Volvo and other engines.

Please take a look and save yourself some stress!

Yngmar can you put this in the right place?

https://youtu.be/WXPG6XaWvF8
 
Ant & Cid xx
 

[Craig]

This is brilliant and spot on.

I did a similar job on my exhaust elbow a few years ago and replaced with the stainless steel elbow from an American supplier. ( about 1/2 the price of a genuine Volvo part)

Does anyone know how long the stainless steel elbow is likely to last compared with the standard Volvo part?

Craig
" Shirley Valentine"
Gold Coast
Australia

[Salty]

This is brilliant and spot on.

I did a similar job on my exhaust elbow a few years ago and replaced with the stainless steel elbow from an American supplier. ( about 1/2 the price of a genuine Volvo part)

Craig
" Shirley Valentine"
Gold Coast
Australia

Me too, mine was changed on my MD2020D (B36/2002) a couple of years ago. Unfortunately the original engine hour counter had failed prior to 2010 when I bought the boat, so I’ve no idea how many hours the engine has run.
One thing though I found with the stainless injection bend was that the water hose connection, while being of the same length as that on the original cast iron bend, because of differences in the actual outside diameter of the bend the water injection connection needed to be made slightly longer to allow the hose to connect properly without it being stretched. This was reported back to the supplier, so hopefully they will now have modified the fitting.

[Symphony]

I think it is worth pointing out that this problem is mainly due to the way most of us use our engines. Short runs at low rpm followed by long periods of inactivity. On the other hand if the engine is run for long periods at high loads this does not happen. My last boat was used as a charter boat in the Ionian for the first 7 years. Typically because of the light winds the engine did high hours (and long periods of running) at 2400 rpm (Volvo 2030). In that period it did well over 3000 hours on the original exhaust elbow and it was still on there when I sold it at 13 years old and 3600 hours.

Will be interested to hear how the SS elbow works out as I now have a D1 30 which is subject to the more common low load usage pattern so no doubt i will need to replace the elbow AT AOME TIME.

[Lyra]

My boat (with MD2030D) was purchased with already 3000 hours (like Symphony's boat, an Ionian ex-charter). The elbow was probably never replaced and after about a year  it began to exhibit difficult starting - but I managed to figure out a certain starting "routine" and did not give it much thought. Then, about another year later, it began to lose power - simply could not rev up.
This is when I looked into the issue and found the badly clogged elbow, which was replaced to a new one.
Several years later It again got difficult to start the engine - this time I cleaned the elbow immediately and things went back to normal.

So, my experience is that the first signal to an elbow blockage is difficult starting which is accompanied by a "blob" of soot on the water near the exhaust. If there is no problem with fuel then these engines should start very easily and no soot.

I think that on my next cleaning cycle I will replace to SS - keypart.com is selling an SS elbow at about the same price as the original cast iron.

[Clivert]

All marine diesels should be run hard from time to time.
Fishing boats idle for some hours on the fishing grounds but motor hard back to port.
One reason is to get top prices but it also blows the cr#p out of the system.