No re-start Diesel Blues

[rollo_cd26]

Westerbeke W10-two: after winter, filters replaced, fuel tank cleaned, new fuel, new impeller, new glow plugs, boat on the hard. Engine is self bleeder type with 259 hours on the clock (in 22yrs!). Started weirdly 1st time with high rpm, shut-off immediately. Allowed 4-5 hours to purge air and tried several restart attempts, then finally started and ran @1100 -1300 rpm for 1 hour, normal temp and pressure. Shut-off and restarted several times, good to go! Retried last weekend, engine spins but no start, not even a cough. Checked glow plug voltage and batteries, all good. There is no exhaust fumes or any smoke coming out. What is wrong? Air in injector pump? How do I check/remedy? Engine never failed to start before.

[Ray Garcia]

You could be getting air slowly into the line somewhere. Re-check all your fittings. Can you manually bleed the system? I would give it a try at each fitting to rule out any air ingestion. I have a manual fuel pump lever on my Yanmar which I use to bleed the system. I am not sure about your Westerbeke.

Let us know your result.

[Klem]

The most likely cause related to these types of symptoms is an air leak somewhere in the fuel system. A very small leak can cause an unbelievable headache when trying to get the engine started. If the leak is between your tank and the lift pump, it can actually keep the engine from priming in some cases because the lift pump becomes air bound. If the leak is between the lift pump and the injection pump, once you get fuel to the lift pump, it will start but you will have a lot of volume to fill with fuel. You will also have a similarly large volume to fill if the return line is leaking.

Unfortunately, finding an air leak can be frustrating because there will often be no visual evidence. A first good step is always to look for wetness on the outside of any of the hoses and for dry-cracking. Since you changed the fuel filter, that is a likely culprit. I can't remember how the filter goes on that specific engine but often you can get an air leak by getting a piece of debris on the gasket or having 2 O-rings where you should only have one. After that, the best thing to do is to go connection by connection and manually bleed the engine and observe.

As you get more experience with this, the dead giveaway that it is an air leak is that the engine gets harder to start with time since it last ran and is independent of other factors.

Good luck.

[rollo_cd26]

Replaced a battery this weekend and tried to locate any air leaks, still no-start. Engine turns, no exhaust to indicate any combustion. I found no fuel spilling out at the connections to the injectors when I disconnected these and tried to start. I bled the filters through the fuel filter bleed screw, plenty of fuel there. Also loosened a small coupling in the lines returning from the injectors, fuel there too. I can hear fuel returning to the tank while trying to start,. Does this Indicate the blockage is upstream at the injector pump.

[river-rat]

Even though most diesel problems are fuel, fuel and fuel, low compression may be at fault. I had a similar problem with a Westerbeke in a remote location, where the piston rings had "frozen" after too much running under light load. A compression test (may need a diesel mechanic with a suitable tester) should reveal this kind of problem. The cylinder walls may be glazed and require reworking.

[Boyd]

Since the engine was running before you did something, suspect the something you did.

From your description, I think an air leak is the likely cause. Letting the engine sit a while let the air leak drain down some part of the system. Here are a couple of things to check that I learned the hard way.

I assume you have a good battery and she is cranking fast enough.

Recheck the seating of the two engine mounted filters. These could cause an air leak and defeat the self priming feature found on most Westerbekes. Its easy to over look removing the old gaskets and if you manage to get the new in on top of the old they dont seal. This is especially true for the little filter just ahead of the injector pump. Improper seating of the filters them selves can also cause a leak. Yes its usually a tough place to work.

I once had a no start situation with my engine after I changed out the primary filter, I failed to get either the vent screw or the plunger tighened enough, causing a little air leak. The O ring on the vent is particularly delicate. I have a Racor filter.

Westerbeke engines are self priming only up to the injector pumps. If you have air in the lines between the injector pump and the injectors that may not purge. Bleed each injector thouroughly while the engine is cranking. You may need to run a bit of fuel out at each fitting.

After you have gone through the fuel side and convinced yourself that there are no leaks, but still fail to start, try spraying WD40 into the intake manifold while you crank. If she kicks over you know its still a lack of fuel issue. Dont do this a lot as you can flood the engine or wash off the cylinders. For unknown reasons a diesel will run on WD40 sprayed into the intake manifold. If it wont fire this way you may have a compression issue.

If you suspect lack of compression take off the air cleaner or whatever you have on the intake manifold and turn the engine over by hand slowly with the fuel shut off. If you have leaking intake valves, you will hear them hiss. Its pretty distinct from normal engine noises. You can to the same to the exhaust but its almost too much work to get stuff off the exhaust manifold. Sometimes you can hear the exhaust valves leak from the intake manifold, but its hard to do. If a valve is leaking its most likely the exhaust valve at the rear most cylinder.

A common sign of low compression is a heavy black soot film on the water during a no or slow start situation. This manifests itself as a black soot pool behind the boat. Often times you can hear one cylinder hit and not the others. Since you had a good start already its unlikely a compression problem just occured. A very small amount of light black soot is not necessarily a problem.

Check the preheaters with an ohm meter for correct resistance. If one is burned out the resistance will be infinite. New parts sometimes fail. Wiggle the wires to check for intermittent contacts.

After all that fails you probably should invest in a compression test.

Thats really low hours on an engine that old.

Hope this helps.

Boyd
s/v Tern
CD30 MkII
Fort Lauderdale, Fla.

[rollo_cd26]

Things are worse. This all started with cleaning the diesel tank, and changing filters. My engine will not run. I have loosened every coupling all the way to the injection pump and proved fuel flow, bled the system repeatedly, and tried multiple restarts. No luck. I have no fuel pressure from the injector pump to the injector couplings. Hansen Marine has offered several remedies, both to no avail. Now appears that the injector pump is stuck closed/off or seized up. Also, multiple restart attempts have fused the pre-heat solenoid. With the key turned off, I left the battery selector at "ALL" for several hours and found the engine too hot to touch! The glow plugs (new) had been on for all that time and heating the engine and run down the batteries! Lucky the boat is on the hard. It looks like I will have to replace the solenoid, pull the injector pump and take it to a fuel injection service to clean and overhaul as a start. All was fine last fall with old fuel and 4 yr old filters. Too much maintenance!

[Klem]

Did you try the WD40 check mentioned above? It will tell you whether you have good compression or not. If you have good compression, it is almost certainly a fuel problem. Just to make sure, there isn't a compression release that is activated is there?

Chasing down fuel problems can be rather frustrating. Start by making sure that the engine shutdown is in the correct position at the engine. This is an often overlooked reason for failure to start. You mentioned getting fuel but not pressurized fuel. If there were any air bubbles at all, that can explain your no start condition. The injectors are opened by a pressure pulse from the injection pump causing the injector line pressure to exceed the popoff pressure of the injector. This works because fuel is incompressible but any air at all will compress and it won't reach popoff pressure. It sounds like you have done a lot of work bleeding the system but it is still possible that air is your problem. It could also be that there is something plugging up part of your injection pump since it occurred right after cleaning something.

Injection pumps and lift pumps do occasionally fail and it is a possibility that you are experiencing this problem. It does not sound like this to me but it isn't out of the question.

One other little thing to check, the engine is getting air to the intake right? I once helped out a friend diagnose a no-start condition and discovered that the PO had installed a guillotine valve on the air intake to stop a runaway and the valve had tripped.

Good luck.

[rollo_cd26]

I tried the WD40. No luck. I have checked and rechecked the idle stop switch and the fuel shutoff. Nada. Last it ran the compression was good. HAnsen marine thinks the iinjector plunger or rack is stuck closed. I have a diesel mech coming by this weeekend,

[Klem]

If the engine won't even fire on WD-40, that suggests that you should be looking into whether the engine has good compression. Initially, it sounded like you had a fuel problem because the problem started at the same time as some fuel system work.

If you in fact have low compression, the possible causes are slow cranking, ring leakage and valve leakage. Slow cranking lowers compression because there is more time for gas to leak past your rings and more time for the gas to be cooled by the cylinder walls. Are you sure that the engine is cranking quickly?

Good luck, hopefully the mechanic doesn't find anything too serious.

[Neil Gordon]

Is it possible the decompression lever has been released?

[rollo_cd26]

I looked into slow cranking and bought a new battery, and I am mindful to not drag it down with multiple starting efforts. Actually I have ceased trying to start the engine until my friend the mechanic arrives. What decompression lever? The schematics for the Westerbeke W10-Two do not note such a lever. Hanson Marine has not mention it either. I mentioned some time ago that the engine has ~260 hours on the instrument panel clock over 23 years. That is a very low number for it's age. From my understanding of the boat's history it was new on Lake Champlain in 1988, spent winters in a boat house, and was sailed in the summer only. I kinda believe that, the hull is perfect - no blemishes. My brother owned it for 5 years of which 4 were spent in storage on a trailer. The engine last ran fine on May 6, 2011.

[rollo_cd26]

The engine last ran fine on May 6, 2011.

Update 6/22/2011

Well here I am after many sessions of bleeding and re-bleeding the fuel system and lots of cranky no-starts, I finally got a real diesel mechanic to look at the W10-Two and he pronounced the injector pumps failing to deliver fuel at adequate pressure to the injectors. Added evidence is that the reservoir of crankcase oil is growing - fuel in the oil. We pulled the pump and I have located a fuel injector service to take a look at it. Also reading "Marine Diesel Engines" by Nigel Calder has put me on to the fact that our engines sit for long periods and need special care. Mine is a good example, despite cleaning the tank and filling with fresh fuel before laying up for the winter, something made the pump quit. More later.

[rollo_cd26]

Finally, after 4 months, problem solved and engine running!! The problem all along was the injector pump fuel rack which controls open/close and amount sent to the injectors was stuck closed by a small amount of rust! My friend the mechanic (works for beer) identified no pressure at the injectors and pointed to the pump. I took it to a local injector service and they found the problem immediately. That was wo months ago. It has been too hot to work on the boat until now. Almost ready for a splash right when things need to wind down.

[drysuit2]

Rollo,

I suspect you bought your CD26 to go sailing, and not become an expert diesel mechanic.
I just want you to know that my heart breaks every time I read one of your posts describing a problem.
I don’t know how you do it; I would have scuttled my craft if I was in your position by now.
God I hope you can get these bugs worked out and go sailing before you lose your sanity.