Westerbeke Generator, not turning over

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2savage

2savage

Senior Member
Joined
Feb 21, 2017
Messages
278
Location
USA
Vessel Name
Savage
Vessel Make
Seaton 50 expedition trawler
Couldn't start the generator a few days ago so here's what I know;

A socket on the crank would not turn it at all.

I loosened the alternator belt and tried again. Nothing.

I took out the starter motor and tried again. Solid in either rotational direction.

These are indicating the engine is ceased, but why? It ran fine the last time. Does is require serious cranking power that a socket and wrench cannot provide?
 
How long ago was it last run? The symptoms are consistent with the motor being hydro locked, and if it sat long enough, rusted in place. It could also be the generator end that’s rusted up. Will it move at all in either direction?
 
The easiest next step would be to remove the glow plugs and see if you can then bar over the engine by hand. That will release any hydro lock, if that’s all it is.

If it still won’t bar over, look for any signs of rust on the glow plug tips. Also around the generator end. Could it have gotten drenched recently?

If there are no signs of rust to guide you, I would probably see what’s involved is decoupling the engine and generator end so you can verify which is seized. It may be nothing more than a handful of bolts connecting a drive plate to the flywheel, and not required completely cracking apart the engine and generator end. But I don’t know that machine in detail, so don’t know what’s involved. I’d just hate to tear down the engine only to find the generator end is what’s seized, and vice versa.
 
I am in agreement with Twistedtree. Sounds Hydrolocked. If it won’t bar over after taking the glow plugs out, insert a dowel into the glow plug hole, if it’s wet when you pull it out then you know it was hydrolocked and now it is rusted in place. If the dowel shows no sign of water then decouple the generator.

It only takes once cylinder to hydrolock an engine.
 
With one cylinder of water, usually the engine will turn in the opposite direction unless it's locked exactly at BDC. Most likely rings are rusted to the cylinder in one or more cylinders. It can take a lot of force to break loose an engine, especially if it's more than one cylinder. Afterwards the engine will burn some oil, leave a sheen, and maybe smoke. One 4 cylinder I broke free took a 6' bar on the socket. Another I took the head off and with a piece of 4x4 on top of the piston, hit with a sledge. If it's a bigger sleeved engine you can take the piston out with the sleeve.
 
twistedtree said:
How long ago was it last run? The symptoms are consistent with the motor being hydro locked, and if it sat long enough, rusted in place. It could also be the generator end that’s rusted up. Will it move at all in either direction?
Click to expand...

It was run about a week ago and has been run regularly over the last six months.

will not move in either direction.
 
2savage said:
It was run about a week ago and has been run regularly over the last six months.

will not move in either direction.
Click to expand...


Were you exposed to any particularly bad weather? If it was run that recently, I'm thinking a hydro lock is less likely.


Perhaps the starter pinion & gear are engaged and jammed? If it's easier to pull the starter vs pulling the glow plugs, you might start there.


I like the idea of dipping a dowel through the glow plug hole to see if it picks up anything on its end. If it does, give it a little taste to see if it's salty.
 
X3, Pull the glow plugs. Its not hard. Like removing spark plugs. If it doesnt move then, well, rock the crank back and forth just a little trying to break it loose. Sounds like water in the cylinders but it should move a little. Is there an increase in the crankcase oil level on the dipstick?

BTW what model, year, and # of hours? Do you send out oil samples? If so, how was the last report?
 
Yeah break compression by pulling the glow plugs see if you can bar it over. If you have a scope camera look in the cylinder there are a few handheld ones pretty cheap now a days.
 
Your engine may have a compression relief lever which usually will leave the exhaust valves slightly cracked open. One use of the compression relief lever is to start an engine with low battery power or engines that can be manually cranked. If it's hydro locked you could try that to see if you can bar it over. The lever is usually around the valve cover or head.
 
twistedtree said:
Were you exposed to any particularly bad weather? If it was run that recently, I'm thinking a hydro lock is less likely.


Perhaps the starter pinion & gear are engaged and jammed? If it's easier to pull the starter vs pulling the glow plugs, you might start there.


I like the idea of dipping a dowel through the glow plug hole to see if it picks up anything on its end. If it does, give it a little taste to see if it's salty.
Click to expand...

I did pull the starter. No difference.

There are no decompression levers.

I'll pull the glow plugs today and get back to everyone.
 
UPDATE! So, I pulled the glow plugs and sure enough water started to flow out of the forward one (away from the generator). It kept flowing out of the hole. It tasted fresh(ish) but I'm well up the Hudson and it is brackish and sometimes almost fresh.

Next I took off the hose that goes from the heat exchanger to the exhaust. This stopped the flow from the cylinder. I capped that hose and shut off the raw water intake for safety.

I blew out the remaining water in the cylinder with compressed air then squirted some WD-40 in for starters.

So, I still cannot turn over the engine by hand and will fill the cylinder with Marvel Mystery Oil which will free up the cylinder in time. But I'm still afraid I may be looking at a rebuild. What does the forum think about all this?
 
Last edited:
You pulled all the glow plugs? You caught this so soon that I think you have a chance at it running fine once all the water is removed. What does the oil look like?
 
Due to bad weather running waves at my side-mounted generator exhaust I got saltwater hydrolocking of my single cylinder 3.5 KW generator. The boat would have been in its lift except a hurricane had destroyed the lift and boathouse - so it was perforce moored in a wet slip exposed to the winds and waves. It had been a week since I had run the genny. Pulled the glow plug and spun the water out with the starter. Flushed cylinder with WD 40 and started it up after spinning the engine some more before replacing the glow plug. Warmed it up and changed the oil and changed the oil again after another warm up. Runs like a champ four years later. The oil lab hates the numbers they reported after 20 hours of running, but at a little over a quart total capacity, I'll keep changing the oil frequently until it dies. I may have been luckier than you because the starter spun it up as soon as the glow plug was out of it.
 
2savage said:
Next I took off the hose that goes from the heat exchanger to the exhaust. This stopped the flow from the cylinder. I capped that hose and shut off the raw water intake for safety.
Click to expand...

What do you think, does this mean you were siphoning water back to the genset? In any event, assessing how the water got into the genset and making changes seems an important issue.
 
Ok, so now you have two projects.

The brackish water may save you. Pull the other glow plugs to see if any other cylinders have water in them. I think you are taking the right steps to get it freed up. Fingers crossed you can get it going again before too much damage sets in.

Now you also need to solve the water intrusion problem. Is there a siphon break between the raw water pump outlet and where the water feeds into the heat exchanger and other engine parts? It sounds like there is no siphon break, or the one you have is plugged up and not venting.

Google and download Northerlights’ “Don’t Drown Me” document and read carefully. Then check against your installation. Yours won’t be the first, or last installation that drowns itself when conditions are just so.
 
The other three cylinders were dry. I'm seeing the diagnosis as to why this happened and what to do to prevent it in the future as a separate task. For now, I'm just focused on the main issue.

The Marvel Mystery oil is in and doing its thing. I freed up a Ford 289 in the past using the same method. Although it freed it up to turn over the cylinder wall was toast so I rebuilt it. But that engine had sat for many years with a valve open so I'm hoping this will not be a rebuild since the timeframe is short.
 
2savage said:
The other three cylinders were dry. I'm seeing the diagnosis as to why this happened and what to do to prevent it in the future as a separate task. For now, I'm just focused on the main issue.

The Marvel Mystery oil is in and doing its thing. I freed up a Ford 289 in the past using the same method. Although it freed it up to turn over the cylinder wall was toast so I rebuilt it. But that engine had sat for many years with a valve open so I'm hoping this will not be a rebuild since the timeframe is short.
Click to expand...



Good progress. Just know that if the anti siphon valve is stuck, the engine will fill right up again.
 
Here is the PDF TwistedTree referenced. I extracted the diagram in an attached JPG for convenience. Note the critical distances:

1. Raw Water Exhaust to top of lift muffler: >1-foot
2. Thru-hull exhaust outlet above load-waterline (does not include use of gen-sep)
3. Top of siphon break should be >1-foot above waterline
4. Top of exhaust loop <4-feet above bottom of lift muffler

Bob Senter of NL ("Lugger Bob") happens to be a long time friend of mine and advised on my recent generator install. Its deceptively difficult to get the distances to work out - some builders seem to have chronic problems with self-destruct generators. I ended up discarding a GenSep because he didn't think the install could be done properly with it on my boat (the Willard 36 sits very low in the water, a blessing and a curse). For both my engine and my generator, I ended up raising the exhaust loop through the cabin sole, hidden in a cabinet.

Many Willard 36s have been re-powered, including mine by a previous owner. I have a sneaking suspicion water ingestion is the culprit. Steve D recently wrote that just because something has worked for years is no gaurantee - true-dat. While he didn't say it, I will - just because a builder installed something like a generator, doesn't mean it was correct.

Peter

Northern Lights Install Diagram.jpg
 
Ouch hydro lock. Pump the water out spray wd40 and load it up cran it some more Change the oil as well and filter. Next is to figure out how the water got that far in. May need to modify the exhaust.

I see you got marvel oil in there. Dont laugh but my good buddy got a motor unsiezed with Coca-Cola the previous year at the quary he works at just messing around with a trashed block. A brother form anodder mudder would not need to evade the truth.
 
Last edited:
mvweebles said:
Here is the PDF TwistedTree referenced. I extracted the diagram in an attached JPG for convenience. Note the critical distances:

1. Raw Water Exhaust to top of lift muffler: >1-foot
2. Thru-hull exhaust outlet above load-waterline (does not include use of gen-sep)
3. Top of siphon break should be >1-foot above waterline
4. Top of exhaust loop <4-feet above bottom of lift muffler

Bob Senter of NL ("Lugger Bob") happens to be a long time friend of mine and advised on my recent generator install. Its deceptively difficult to get the distances to work out - some builders seem to have chronic problems with self-destruct generators. I ended up discarding a GenSep because he didn't think the install could be done properly with it on my boat (the Willard 36 sits very low in the water, a blessing and a curse). For both my engine and my generator, I ended up raising the exhaust loop through the cabin sole, hidden in a cabinet.

Many Willard 36s have been re-powered, including mine by a previous owner. I have a sneaking suspicion water ingestion is the culprit. Steve D recently wrote that just because something has worked for years is no gaurantee - true-dat. While he didn't say it, I will - just because a builder installed something like a generator, doesn't mean it was correct.

Peter

View attachment 131280
Click to expand...
Peter, the bottom picture is that showing a wrong installation? How could it be corrected? Some boats may have hulls deeper in the water
 
Soo-Valley said:
Peter, the bottom picture is that showing a wrong installation? How could it be corrected? Some boats may have hulls deeper in the water
Click to expand...
I cropped a third diagram - attached has all three permutations of engine install. If the engine is really deep in the hull, additional precautions are needed - the exhaust runs dry/hot until over the waterline level. Just a guess, but this is probably how the OPs generator should have been installed.

Good catch Soo-Valley.

Peter

Screenshot_20220818-200449_Kindle.jpg
 
Last edited:
mvweebles said:
I cropped a third diagram - attached has all three permutations of engine install. If the engine is really deep in the hull, additional precautions are needed - the exhaust runs dry/hot until over the waterline level. Just a guess, but this is probably how the OPs generator should have been installed.

Good catch Soo-Valley.

Peter

View attachment 131287
Click to expand...
There you go. A quick stop and a following wave can easily run up into the exhaust, and when engine is off find the cylinder with an exhaust valve open.
Boat is on hard and I noticed the flapper on the Gen exhaust was not closed all the way. Gen is above water line, but still, no need to invite an upflow. Fixed
 
Thanks MVWEEBLES for those diagrams. When it comes to diagnosing the 'why', I suspect that the anti-siphon valve jammed closed allowing water to return to the cylinder. I'll replace it as a precaution and examine the one I remove for function (or non-function!).

The Marvel Mystery Oil has had some time to do its thing so today I'm going to use a two foot long socket bar with a tubular breaker bar extension to give a bit more leverage. If I still am not able to get any rotation I'm going to let it sit for a week. I'm going to the UK on Tuesday for a family wedding so the boat will be buttoned up in my absence.
 
If this is the same unit as I have (8K about 1987), suffered the same problem, the exhaust manifold is water cooled, and has internal paper gaskets (if you can believe that) that fail.

The exchanger is above the head, runs down into the engine, I had a leak internally, in cyl no 1 as well. Cost a fortune because I thought the head was cracked, sent it off much money, not cracked, eventually found the cooler leak.
 
2savage said:
Couldn't start the generator a few days ago so here's what I know;

A socket on the crank would not turn it at all.

I loosened the alternator belt and tried again. Nothing.

I took out the starter motor and tried again. Solid in either rotational direction.

These are indicating the engine is ceased, but why? It ran fine the last time. Does is require serious cranking power that a socket and wrench cannot provide?
Click to expand...
I am assuming yours is diesel. I got burned on a diagnosis on a Westerbeke GAS model a few years back. It would start and run but not well and it seemed like fuel delivery. The boat was new to the owner and the gen had 18 hrs on it from brand new. I assumed the engine mechanics were fine and that the carb was the problem. NEVER assume. It turns out that these Westerbekes were prone to water getting in through the exhaust. The thing had hydrolocked and bent a connecting rod, throwing the piston/valve timing off and lowering intake manifold vacuum which affected the carb function. I met a mfr rep at a boat show and just started talking to him and he gave me the answer. I got luckiy on that end but was stupid by assuming the engine mechanics had to be fine with only 18 hours on it. I know this is not an answer for you, just a cautionary tale to NEVER assume anything.
 
Yes, diesel.

I've just got back from the UK and will see how the Marvel oil has worked over the last week. Fingers crossed!! If still no movement it looks like cylinder head off is next.
 
Well, not good news. Still no movement so off comes the cylinder head. I'm dreading what I see in there!

Does anyone have a ballpark figure for a rebuild? Its a 12.5kw four cylinder model.
 
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