1972 3160 remanufactured engine stopped

I have had a 1972 GB Alaskan for 5 years trouble free, dependable with nothing ever happened.
in the past 3 months its been one thing after another.
I came to an end of it and had it repaired, understood and appointments to end.

I was celebrating with myself lat evening to do so I was working on my computer , started my cats up to enjoy the purrr
working on the computer watching boats go past 15 mins after I started, the dang strbd engine quit, it sounded like it ran out of fuel,
NEVER! have i had this let me down, ever!
I went to dash to check temps and all was normal,
I tried to start and knowing not to hold the start button down to long I found the engine, if I kept the button depressed and the throttle up half full it would act like it was trying to start, but when it was time to release start button it just died, I went to check to see if filters were full, the spin on and the racor glass separator, and all were fine and had diesel in,, went back up to try and start and it will not even pretend to start now ,, the other engine (port)runs perfect like this one did (starbd)

Im lost as what to do, previouly someone took the hand primer pump off and installed a dc pump on the wall(pime injector lines to get air out) (I should have not ever had air in, no reason) but it is a mix with all other valves, it has 6 tanks all able to transfer fuel one to another tank, altho I do not do that I keep fuel in the two forward only and do not mess with the valves and all the tanks, (none of them) flow fuel valves are in proper positions.

anyone can help with ideas?

I will be trying to see how this DC pump can tell me if I have air in the line,

I will open last injector and see if pump will push anything out altho I have no idea what valves to use yet. and also there is not reason air should have gotten in the line


thank yoiu,, Tom

Sounds like you ran it out of fuel.

Take lid off the Racor and check level in there. If full, not the problem. If three inches down, that is enough to starve the engine.

Thank yoiu very much for the reply I first want ot tell all I value all words donated to me.
I have adiq fuel in tanks
I really could not tell how full the racor was as the filter was hiding the level I however started lifting the filter out and it was saturated so put back in and it does ap[ear ot be a bout an inch down , a guess as I can not see, but! the racor right next ot it on the running engine I pulled that lid and the exact same thing, I could not see the leve because of the filter but started as I did to the non worker lifting filter out and it had same amount, filter saturated and prob an inch down too, but that eng works perrrrrfect, filters have been changed recently and I dont know why I would be low enough to run out,
as soon as I can Im going down to try and see how thy configuration the DC pump to feed injector lines,, thank yoiu much, still dont get why one engine same fuel amounts, would be fine,, I have 12volts on the solenoid so it is getting power

Hmmm. If you have fuel at the racor, check to see if you have fuel at the pump and if so break out an injector and see if you have fuel there. If you have fuel at the pump but not at the injector your most likely culprit is the fuel distribution block. Sorry to say they can be a bit temperamental and might need a rebuild. If you are not mechanically inclined, you will need a Cat tech to help you with that.


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Thank yoiu Iam headed over to get 5 gals of fuel from out local dock to have on hand then I am going ot go down and check just wat yoiu sugessted, I have been a lieaboard for 20 yrs and have dhad ot do all my own work so Iam mechanical but still learning I have not had to go thru the fuel systems ever, so it is foerion to me but get familiarized fast I how ever have never heard of the fuel distribution block, OH are you talking about the fuel manifold board with all the gauges that controls where the fuel goes? I have called this board the manifold and it has 11 valves I have it set for feed and return to one tank for one engine, port, same with starbrd, but has many options I used ot play with to learn it but quit and settled on using two tanks one for engine, and one other tank for gens set and furnace, is this what yoiur calling a fuel distribution block? if so the only thing that could go wrong there is a valve turned incorrect of a valve that started leaking but it is a faily dry jointed system board, I was going ot attach some photos but they need ot be posted on an htpp web site? I have lots on my FB page,, thank yoiu , Tom
I dont think it is my valve board tho,, BTW there are7 tanks this manifold valve board can service or in the boats heyday with wealthy owners and cheep fuel they used them all as they traveled the ocean up and down,

ninelivezzz said:

Thank yoiu Iam headed over to get 5 gals of fuel from out local dock to have on hand then I am going ot go down and check just wat yoiu sugessted, I have been a lieaboard for 20 yrs and have dhad ot do all my own work so Iam mechanical but still learning I have not had to go thru the fuel systems ever, so it is foerion to me but get familiarized fast I how ever have never heard of the fuel distribution block, OH are you talking about the fuel manifold board with all the gauges that controls where the fuel goes? I have called this board the manifold and it has 11 valves I have it set for feed and return to one tank for one engine, port, same with starbrd, but has many options I used ot play with to learn it but quit and settled on using two tanks one for engine, and one other tank for gens set and furnace, is this what yoiur calling a fuel distribution block? if so the only thing that could go wrong there is a valve turned incorrect of a valve that started leaking but it is a faily dry jointed system board, I was going ot attach some photos but they need ot be posted on an htpp web site? I have lots on my FB page,, thank yoiu , Tom
I dont think it is my valve board tho,, BTW there are7 tanks this manifold valve board can service or in the boats heyday with wealthy owners and cheep fuel they used them all as they traveled the ocean up and down,

Click to expand...

there are 7 tanks,,,,that why I only use 3, BTW 3 months ago when I changed all the filters all I did was to fill everything back up no need to prime the just started running perurrrfect as always

I think if you have an inch of airspace in your Racor the flow has been interrupted or you are out of fuel. If you have fuel the tank vent may be plugged. Try opening the tank filler cap, bleed your Racors (and the engine now too) and try starting again. When you replace your filters the fuel should run over the top or in my case I hold the cover down as tight as possible until the fuel runs out the t-handle hole.

what puzzles me about that is in the engine that is running great, it is at the same level filters racor, , Im on my way down to see if I can figure out how they meant this replace hand pump to DC, If I keep the boat I want to put it back to hand pump unless I find this is a snap but its still DC and not hand mechanical,, , one of the 1st things I did was to unscrew the filler cap and try to start, thnkx,,, tho,,

If you follow the fuel line from the Racor to the fuel pump and continue back to the engine, you will see it goes into a box located in the "vee" between the cylinders. Coming out of the box will be metal fuel lines going to each injector. This box contains a series of levers that open the fuel line to each injector in a precise sequence. Sometimes the levers jam and mess everything up.


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