Author Topic: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute  (Read 92357 times)

Keweetoo

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #50 on: March 18 2019, 17:58 »
Hello all,
This is my first posting but I have been an avid reader for the last two years since acquiring our B 35E 1999. Many thanks to all who have provided plenty of help and tips to a new owner on this forum. I thought it would be useful to detail a failure issue I encountered in taking on a new to us boat, even though she had been well maintained by previous owner.

Coolant loss into sump - MD2030 Engine
Occurred this year following my decision to check the exhaust elbow and also clean the heat exchanger as part of annual service. Drained the coolant and removed the heat exchanger, cleaned and replaced. Removed exhaust elbow and noted port about 25% reduced with carbon. Soaked overnight in brick acid, washed and cleaned with small wire brush. Noted that the exhaust port facing on the heat exchanger housing also carbonised and cleaned with wire brush. Reassembled everything with new gasket and refilled with  new coolant. Ran engine for a short while to check heat exchanger rubbers etc for leaks and all OK. On next visit to boat ran through usual checks prior to starting engine and found coolant very low and engine oil about 2 cm above top of max mark on dipstick. Using an oil remover pump quickly established where the coolant had gone!

Engine strip down required and with help from marine engineer we established the exhaust port on the heat exchanger housing was so corroded the metal had breached through allowing coolant into the exhaust manifold which found its way into the sump. I had failed to note how extensive the corrosion was and probably my cleaning efforts were sufficient to breach the already very thin metal. My engineer reckons the exhaust pipe to the wet muffler is a fraction too short and the angle a little shallow allowing sea water to run back to the exhaust when the boat pitching and the effect of salt water and hot exhaust gasses on the port over time lead to the corrosion. New section of exhaust fitted which is a better angle down to the the compartment floor and along to the muffler. Whilst an expensive repair at least it happened whilst on the pontoon and not at a critical moment at sea and now have a fully rebuilt engine with new heat exchanger housing/elbow etc. I attach photo of the old exhaust port  - the bottom hole should not be there
 - should be nice and flush! Also picture of new exhaust pipe - the old one (original factory fitting?) did not go right to the bottom of the compartment before turning to the muffler.
 I know there are several posts about checking the exhaust elbow but my experience suggests it is also important to check the exhaust manifold side for corrosion as well.
Best regards
Mike

canuck

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #51 on: April 18 2019, 23:52 »
2017 Bavaria 37 cruiser

1b - leaking windows. The long windows on the cabin sides (about 1500mm long) are plastic and the expansion is too much for the sealant to hold especially on windows facing the sun in the marina, which alternate between very hot during the day and very cold at night. THe sealant has failed at both the front edge and the joint between the front and back parts of the window.  Multiple repairs by the dealer have been unsuccessful.  The window should have been made of glass to avoid the expansion problem.
2c - the handle of the main 1/1/4" "bronze" sea cock for the toilet discharge just broke off in my hands after 26 months. The shaft appears to have been made of brass and not bronze, so it de-zincified.  The rest of the valve looks new.  Result - water comes in through the handle, requiring an emergency haul out !  Not impressed. Underwater valves replaced with the reinforced plastic Hansen valves.
10 l - The companion way hinges are basically some type of screw into the wood frame which come loose as a result of me leaning on the door when operating the cabin top winches.  The problem is that you can get the doors off without hacksawing off a st. steel pin that holds the door from being lifted off the hinge pins.   Will need to find a new type of hinge that is more robust.

Also - my latest problem is that the 6" plastic screwed access lid on the diesel fuel tank leaked and spilled 10 litres of fuel into the bilges.  The lid was a bit loose, but it cant really be tightened enough without popping off.  Wonder what the fix for this is??


Impavidus

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #52 on: April 20 2019, 20:51 »
Canuck.

The door hinges are what can only be described as monkey metal. I made some for another subscriber from stainless steel 316L. Now retired and sailing the world I do not have the facility to make more. However, I posted a video that may help. the securing pins will pull out with mole grips and a strong arm. the link to the fab may help you it is here; https://youtu.be/WXPG6XaWvF8

Hope this helps.

Ant.
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canuck

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #53 on: April 25 2019, 22:25 »
Hi Ant - thanks for responding about the crappy hinges. the link you pasted goes to your video about the exhaust risers, not the hinge repair.  Very interesting about the exhaust risers but with only 150 hrs on my engine, I HOPE I am a few years away from that problem. Does ,make me wonder if there is some type of flushing system that might prolong the life of the cast iron exh riser though?  Salt away??

Anyway - would you mind posting the link to the hinge repair.
Many thanks
Nigel

Impavidus

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #54 on: April 30 2019, 11:16 »
Here is the link to the hinge repair/re-make. Some other videos you may want to look at too; https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIoqACL1Uqs
 Sail safe and enjoy. Ant 
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whitcd

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #55 on: July 29 2019, 13:13 »
2015 Bavaria 41
Leaking window (surprise!). Thank you Ant for excellent instructions on how to repair.
Broken bow thuruster
Broken Garmin autohelm control unit and control head had to be replaced
Diesel and fluid leak from engine (still can't find out where it is coming from)
Jascbo tolied pump failure

Jeffatoms

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #56 on: August 11 2019, 01:47 »
Jeff & Sue
Bav 38 Ocean 1998
Zephyrus

For us, this is the perfect boat for both today and into the foreseeable future.  That said, it is 21 years old and though we have only owned Zephyrus a couple of years, we love her.
We started a similar list and budget at our purchase date broken down into EXPECTED wear & tear and maintenance vs. UNEXPECTED surprises.  That said, this thread is excellent to compare our known issues with similar designs and vintages.

Of interest is even though our boat is pretty stock plus in clean shape, we found that this year our teak decks more or less "popped" and delaminated from the under deck.  That falls into the EXPECTED category.  Our autopilot lost its mind and now wonders in cicles but again, EXPECTED.  Replaced headsail, again EXPECTED.  Lifelines are getting rusty but all right on schedule as midlife problems, same with full nav package, water heater and hydronic heater.

The UNEXPECTED category has been all engine and related saildrive issues.  We planned on a $10,000 extensive rebuild of the MD22L/120S-E at purchase date with 2000 hours on it and roughly 9500 miles on the boat.  That repair crept past $20,000 insidiously once the boat was on the hard and more or less hostage.  In hindsight a full repower would have been a far better option.  150 hours later it is inoperable.

All of these matters will be addressed as funds become available.  We simply love our boat, how it cares for us on the water, how she sails.  Most importantly she came with all of you as part of our community.  Thanks for being part of a wonderful boat and a great life experience.

Jeff & Sue

MarkTheBike

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #57 on: September 06 2019, 12:05 »
... most importantly she came with all of you as part of our community ...

+1, My thoughts exactly, Jeff & Sue. This site is the best 'optional extra' available. Should be a Factory Fit.
 :)
ATB

Mark

Salty

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #58 on: September 08 2019, 09:24 »
... most importantly she came with all of you as part of our community ...

+1, My thoughts exactly, Jeff & Sue. This site is the best 'optional extra' available. Should be a Factory Fit.
 :)

You're right on Jeff and Mark, I couldn’t agree more.

Impavidus

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #59 on: September 19 2019, 23:47 »
Guy's and Gals. Just for your info. We continue to monitor the failure survey. There is so much info here its becoming a great data base. We just seem to be so busy with our journey we have not had time to correlate all the great input. Keep adding it's a lot of info that at some point soon, hopefully we can do the numbers on. 

Sail safe. Ant & Cid xx
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Alphadug

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #60 on: December 06 2019, 17:27 »
Ant and Cid and others.

I have posted a few times to the forum with various issues/queries and am amazed by the quick response times. Thanks all. Anyway, to the question at hand. We have a 2015 V42, second owners. Love the boat. In our short time with Vivia we have found the following issues. The factory installed house bank were Exide Start-Stop batteries, at the recycler now. The freezer, supposedly replaced under warranty, died within a couple of weeks. The fridge lasted one season and has died. We suspect the quick connect fittings on the fridge as our old boat, a Beneteau, had a 20 year old fridge of the same brand that never had a problem. Very hard to shift gears but this may be due to the interface to the fancy dock control joystick. Autopilot does the crazy right turn thing, will replace the pot this off season. Bow and (probably) stern thruster are improperly installed (factory job). Engine steams a bit at cruising RPM but doesn't seem to be overheating. Wiring seems excessively complicated (I'm an electrician) even with the factory wiring diagrams that another member provided, can't make any sense of them. They're in German which doesn't help. I think that's about it, not bad really.

Doug

Impavidus

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #61 on: December 08 2019, 14:24 »
Doug. I would check the raw water flow on your engine as you should not have steam. There are 3 places that the water gets restricted in our experience. First place is the leg intake. Usually at top end of the the leg just before the waterway exits the leg into the shut off valve. Weed gets drawn in and sticks in the bend. It's hard to get out as you cannot get to the bend fully from either side.  You can push a copper wire up the leg from the bottom turning it as you do so till it gets to the bend hooking the weed. Do this a few times and back flush from the inside with a hose. The second place is heat exchanger matrix. These get calcium buildup in the matrix that needs cleaning out every few years. the third is the exhaust elbow at the injection point. These get clogged pretty quickly just at the point where the water goes into the elbow.  As Keweetoo has posted this can end up terminal for your engine. Take a look at these videos we did on YT that show how it can be really bad without you realising and one of the first symptoms can be a bit of steam..... Hope this helps. Regards, Ant.


Video links.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n2xlr6FIzcc

https://youtu.be/WXPG6XaWvF8
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Salty

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #62 on: December 10 2019, 22:24 »
Further to Ant’s reply above, you can also get mussels and their shells blocking the waterway within the saildrive leg, so it’s a good idea during your lay up ashore period to fill the saildrive waterway with vinegar and leave it in there for a couple of days. This will soften and help to dissolve the barnacle shells and kill off any squatters that have taken up residence, but you will need to block up the waterway inlets in the saildrive or the vinegar will just run straight out of the bottom. See the photos below for the kit I used to block the saildrive waterways. The wood pads had some closed cell foam rubber stuck to them to make a seal, while the small bolt had a rubber grommet around it to form a seal which could be adjusted for a watertight fit.

Also, on my older Bavaria, a 36 from 2002, the sea water filter was, and still is, of a pretty poor design which allowed mussel shells to get past and through the cooling water pump to the entrance to the heat exhanger where they stopped and began to block the heat exchanger tubes. On top of that, the previous owner had not attempted to find the odd pieces of impeller blades that were occasionally lost, and these too were lodged at the entrance to the heat exchanger. I reckoned at the time that some 70 to 80% or more of the heat exchanger tubes were blocked by barnacle shells and pieces of the rubber impeller blades that had been lost during the time prior to me buying the boat. In consequence, and with insufficient cooling water actually going through the heat exchanger, I too had noticed steam in the exhaust outflow, but wasn’t sure if it was steam or white smoke until one day when the engine temperature alarm began to make a noise. Since then, and after removing all of the shell and rubber from the entrance to the heat exchanger, I have fitted an engine exhaust temperature alarm with display at the binnacle where I can watch the temperature.

Kibo

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #63 on: January 14 2020, 23:50 »
A topic for consideration Impavidus...

Lewmar Autopilot clutch failure. See post entitled "Lewmar autopilot clutch blowing fuses" and others relating to this topic.

Ian
SV Kibo, 2014 Bavaria Vision 46

cegri

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #64 on: January 28 2020, 10:09 »
Lewmar Autopilot clutch failure. See post entitled "Lewmar autopilot clutch blowing fuses" and others relating to this topic.

+1

I just purchased a spare clutch from https://www.sgtransmission.com/
(Did not install it yet.)

Pax JJD

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - 1i Fresh water pump
« Reply #65 on: June 28 2020, 15:35 »
item 1i Domestic Freshwater pump leak

I have found that the water pump on my B32 occasionally runs continuously and drains the fresh water into the bilges. The source of the problem has always been the pump screw fixings on the under side of the pump need to be tweaked up and the problem is solved.
 

SorinCT

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #66 on: July 13 2020, 13:07 »
I had trouble starting the MD2030 engine recently so decided to take a look at the electromotor. Looks like bendix gear worn and for good measure replacing brushes. If anybody needs, part numbers for Bosch electronotor, bendix.
https://hc-cargo.co.uk/catalog/p/230828--drive

bruce jamer

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #67 on: August 15 2020, 23:26 »
Hi Ant,
Thanks for taking this on.
For my 2008 Bavaria 34 C have had the following:

1C-just one stanchion has leaked to date
5L-original exhaust elbow failed due to blockage and extensive corrosion
9S-holding tank level shows 75% when empty
9U-multiple failures of stern boarding gate linear actuators, it is now raised and lowered manually

Kind regards,
Bruce

isprljani7w

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #68 on: September 06 2021, 11:13 »
Woow this is amazing one

Gresty

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #69 on: February 04 2022, 15:30 »
Bavaria cruiser 37, 2018

1k. metal pipe to water heater badly attached (from new!) Repaired under warranty by Bavaria dealer who reinserted the boiler rotated 90 deg from upright so that it did not work.

New topic: boiler heater problems: boiler giving intermittent hot heater. Repaired myself by rotating boiler to correct upright position. 

New topic: rain water leaking from deck into stair gangway (from new) Repaired by packing rectangular deck fitting above with marine grease around the edges.

New topic: cooker (CAN Italian make). Push button igniter not working from new. Dealer avoided dealing with to and am seeking a matching alternative. CAN do not rely to my requests to suply a spare.

New topic: Radio: VHF fitted by dealer did not work. Fault was they forgot to connect the antenna. 

New topic: bathing platform: manual platform becoming progressively stiffer to raise as yet no solutions offered to fix.

Petef

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #70 on: June 22 2022, 10:41 »
Great list and I will add my two pence worth later. I've recently purchased a Bavaria 34 Cruiser (Built 2007 as a 2008 Model for the Southampton/London boat shows). I notice there is no mention of Rudder or Steering specific problems (that I could see other than salt water ingress).

Petef

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #71 on: July 02 2022, 16:03 »
Also Deck and deck hardware (unless its water ingress).

Boat is a recent Purchase.

I've changed the Volvo Folding prop (you could wiggle the blades side to side, plus they were very pitted) for a Flex o Fold.

Rudder felt like it had a wobble freely turned (surveyor suggested tightening the top bearing, which I've done. Yet to take it out for trial.

The teak decking is lifting, wouldn't be so bad but the previous owner just screwed it down with non stainless screws which are rusting away and where not rusting, are a devil to remove as the heads are rounding.

Front Cabin door doesn't close properly surveyor and I have checked the bulkhead and all seems ok.

Rear cabin door handle faulty, I think its the spring to bring the handle back in position.

Exhaust elbow corroded (sea water restriction and blockage of heat exchanger  by impeller bits and gunge. Removed the impeller bits and soaked the tubes in a litre of white vinegar (cost 56p) then cleared stubborn bits with curtain wire)

Exhaust pipe from elbow to silencer coming apart, replaced with new pipe.

Managed to loose a socket whilst working on the engine as I didn't realise there was a gap, unable to retrieve but prevented further loss by packing the gap with rags.

hxppmwf

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #72 on: August 06 2022, 22:33 »
2015 C46

8. l  prop fell off, no reason
9. s, m

Smeaks

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #73 on: March 24 2023, 13:07 »
Odysseus
Bav 38

The only issue I have  had is the blue strip on the coatchroof fading.

 That's all.

Use some facella polishing compound on it and it polishes up like new.

Baddox

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Re: Breakdown and failure survey - please contribute
« Reply #74 on: June 07 2024, 19:39 »
I filled our boat's fresh water tank when we bought it in 2016, then came back a week later to find all the water in the bildge.  8 years later the same thing has just happened again.  Both cases were caused by a leaking o-ring, one on the fresh water pump outlet and the other on an in-line filter between the tank and pump.