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Old 09-09-2010, 10:11 PM   #4
reefdrifter
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City: Port Charlotte, Florida
Vessel Name: Reef Drifter
Vessel Model: 1983, 34 ft., Marine Trader
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 99
RE: Throttle Linkage Adjustment Question

For those interested......FYI, I spoke with Brian Smith of American Diesel today about the idle and quitting problem. The idle should be between 700 and 900 RPM for this engine. When I would bring the throttle to idle it would go down to 500 to 450 and then quit. We located the throttle linkage idle stop stud and are in the process of "breaking" it loose. It has not been adjusted for several years and is set up pretty tight. Not much room to get a wrench in behind the injector piping to loosen the lock nut and the put a long screwdriver on the end of the stud to make the adjustment. In the process of "breaking" it loose we broke half of the slotted end off the stud. (NOTHING is easy!!!!) We put a jamb nut on the stud and with a good spray of liquid wrench it will hopefully get moving tomorrow.

Another interesting thing that has been happening with this boat is that when we would return to the dock after a few hours of motoring around, the stbd. fuel tank would be almost full while the port tank would be about a quarter full. (I have site tubes) Come to find out from Brian, the American Diesel will return 10 to 15 gallons of fuel per hour back to the tank where-as the F120 Lehman that it replaced would only return 4 to 5 gallons per hour. The original Marine Trader was plumbed to return the fuel to one side and let the cross-over pipe move the fuel to the other side. Since so much fuel is being pumped back to one side only, it is filling up the tank too fast and the cross-over piping doesn't transfer the fuel to the other tank fast enough to keep them equal. The best thing it seems would be to plumb the tanks to refill equally but that wasn't done originally and may to be hard to do now. What has to happen is the fuel has to be drawn from the tank that it is being returned to and let the crossover take its time to make things equal. We are closing the supply valve from the port tank that goes to the filter half way for now and will observe the site tubes and see how equal the fuel is after a couple of hours running. Any other suggestions would be welcomed.
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