1000 hour service

[JohnEasley]

Okay, I'm going to suck it up and risk lots of flaming by asking a really naive question. I know it's important to have a 1000 hour service on an engine. That 1000 hour service involves many things including a valve adjustment and fuel injector service. Is this normally only done at the first 1000 hours or should it be done at every 1000 interval?

You may commence rolling your eyes and laughing now.

John

 

[Prospective]

That would be every 1000 hours or sometimes manufacturers also suggest a time interval alternative. Kind of like car service... 15k service is every 15k, etc...

 

[JohnEasley]

That would be every 1000 hours or sometimes manufacturers also suggest a time interval alternative. Kind of like car service... 15k service is every 15k, etc...

Great. Thanks. I was assuming but wanted to make sure.

 

[BandB]

Okay, I'm going to suck it up and risk lots of flaming by asking a really naive question. I know it's important to have a 1000 hour service on an engine. That 1000 hour service involves many things including a valve adjustment and fuel injector service. Is this normally only done at the first 1000 hours or should it be done at every 1000 interval?

You may commence rolling your eyes and laughing now.

John

Each 1000 hours. I'd suggest you pull up the maintenance schedule of your engines. I've recently posted links to those for CAT and MAN and would be glad to do so again.

 

[JohnEasley]

Each 1000 hours. I'd suggest you pull up the maintenance schedule of your engines. I've recently posted links to those for CAT and MAN and would be glad to do so again.

Thanks. We have Volvos. I have a local mechanic who used to work for Volvo. Going to work with him to have him show me how to do the valve adjustment and injector service. The rest I’m already doing, myself.

 

[BandB]

Thanks. We have Volvos. I have a local mechanic who used to work for Volvo. Going to work with him to have him show me how to do the valve adjustment and injector service. The rest I’m already doing, myself.

And do you have their manual and maintenance schedule?

 

[JohnEasley]

And do you have their manual and maintenance schedule?

Yep! The boat came with three boxes of manuals and service records. Haven’t combed through every line of the service records yet to see if they did the 1000 hour service at 2000 hours.

 

[Pete Meisinger]

Though I am not familiar with Volvos the 1,000 hours seems a little long between valve adjustments. Watch and take notes then do it yourself, it's easy.

I don't know about injector maintenance. Pulling them is kind of a PIA. If your engine is not showing any symptoms of bad injectors I would let them go until you start to see issues.

All other maintenance items, belts, hoses, filters, clamps, fluids, etc. should be checked much more often, probably a couple hundred hours or every fall. Don't need to replace all those things but they should be given a very critical inspection. Replace as needed.

pete

 

[BandB]

Actually what I find online, not having a Volvo myself, shows checking Valve Clearance at 500 hours and then every 1500 hours. Sounds long to me too.

Now, the one concern I'd have is that I don't really know a good way to check a Volvo engine without Volvo's diagnostic tool, I believe called Vodia or something like that. Every time I've known Volvo owners to have issues, they've had a Volvo certified mechanic come out and check electronically and quickly diagnose it. Volvo says you should do an inspection every 500 hours using it.

Now, I know there will be comments that this is just Volvo trying to make you come to them. Perhaps so, but that doesn't change the fact that they have the equipment and owners do not. The other side of that is that electronic diagnosis can save a tremendous amount of time and assuming the wrong problem so make service more efficient and less costly.

 

[twistedtree]

I think the “1000 hr” service is just dock talk. Look at what the manufacturer’s service schedule is. I’ve seen plenty of engines where 1000 hrs is not a significant milestone or service job. When I was selling a previous boat the prospective buyer’s broker asked if the 1000 hr service had been done, like he had exposed a fresh skeleton. He clearly had no idea what he was talking about because all that was due at 1000 hrs was a routine oil change.

 

[JohnEasley]

Though I am not familiar with Volvos the 1,000 hours seems a little long between valve adjustments. Watch and take notes then do it yourself, it's easy.

I used to be a Volkswagen mechanic about a bazillion years ago so the concept and process of manual valve adjustments isn't something I'm unfamiliar with. Still, I'm going to have the Volvo mechanic show me his process the first time around.

I don't know about injector maintenance. Pulling them is kind of a PIA. If your engine is not showing any symptoms of bad injectors I would let them go until you start to see issues.

I'm all for not fixing something that isn't broken. I'm just thinking ahead to when we're in remote areas without access to services. Might be best to service them ahead of time. Plan B might be to pick up a few spare injectors in case one or more goes bad while we're remote.

All other maintenance items, belts, hoses, filters, clamps, fluids, etc. should be checked much more often, probably a couple hundred hours or every fall. Don't need to replace all those things but they should be given a very critical inspection. Replace as needed.

All of those items get a once-over before we pull out of the slip. Every time. And they get a critical inspection at every oil change, 150-200 hours.

 

[smitty477]

I used to be a Volkswagen mechanic about a bazillion years ago so the concept and process of manual valve adjustments isn't something I'm unfamiliar with. Still, I'm going to have the Volvo mechanic show me his process the first time around.



I'm all for not fixing something that isn't broken. I'm just thinking ahead to when we're in remote areas without access to services. Might be best to service them ahead of time. Plan B might be to pick up a few spare injectors in case one or more goes bad while we're remote.



All of those items get a once-over before we pull out of the slip. Every time. And they get a critical inspection at every oil change, 150-200 hours.

If you are also due to retorque the heads please do that before you adjust the valves.
I have found that any adjustments necessary fall off in magnitude after the first adjustment period - at least on the mains and gensets I have done the maintenance on.

 

[JohnEasley]

If you are also due to retorque the heads please do that before you adjust the valves.
I have found that any adjustments necessary fall off in magnitude after the first adjustment period - at least on the mains and gensets I have done the maintenance on.

Good tip. Thanks.

 

[bayview]

Engine makers owners manual will include maintenance schedules. Why wouldn’t you follow that?