firehoser75
Guru
- Joined
- Feb 18, 2018
- Messages
- 1,706
- Location
- Canada
- Vessel Name
- former owner of "Pilitak"
- Vessel Make
- Nordic Tug 37
Hi Lat58,
I was exactly where you are now, 3.5 years ago. Don't wait too long on the exhaust elbow issue. My elbow looked brand new on the outside (at 15 years old) and visually looked good inside as well, except it showed signs of carbon build up (not unusual for an exhaust elbow) and my hose visually looked OK. However, the Borel exhaust alarm I had installed a few months before sounded repeatedly. I could not find the problem, but strongly suspected the elbow. Finally I sent all of my cooling components (aftercooler, fuel cooler, gear oil cooler, heat exchanger, and elbow) into the shop for cleaning, inspection and testing. When fully cleaned, it became apparent that my elbow was "rotted through" in several (small) places, and this was causing the hose overheat. The overheat was only on a small spot on the exhaust hose, all other engine temps (as measured with an IR gun) were very good. Without that alarm, I would not have known about this problem as ALL other temps were very good. You can see many photos of turbos on Tony's site where this exact problem was left too long (probably because it was undetected). He calls those elbows "Doomed to Fail". The alarm I talked about cost about $100 and was easy to install. Saltwater leaking back into the turbo will not only cause damage to the turbo, but in more serious cases can damage the engine as well compounding the problems and costs can escalate greatly.
This info is on sbmar as well, but per Baker, don't "overfill" your oil pan. Per Tony, prefill your oil filter with clean oil and put 13 quarts of oil into the pan. Mark the stick, and keep it at that level. This is actually the "low oil" mark (if the stick is correctly marked and that may not be the case) and for marine applications you don't want more oil in the pan than that (according to Tony, and I trust him). He explains the reasoning in his info.
Sounds like you are well on your way, but (and I know money does not grow on trees) I would not put off the exhaust elbow too long (reasons above and on Tony's site).
As Ski stated, every few trips run up the RPM's to burn out the carbon (Tony agrees with that as well) and don't idle at dock to "cool down" either. The slow run in and docking should be enough of a cool down. Diesels don't like idling for long periods under no load.
Enjoy your new (to you) Tug.
Tom
I was exactly where you are now, 3.5 years ago. Don't wait too long on the exhaust elbow issue. My elbow looked brand new on the outside (at 15 years old) and visually looked good inside as well, except it showed signs of carbon build up (not unusual for an exhaust elbow) and my hose visually looked OK. However, the Borel exhaust alarm I had installed a few months before sounded repeatedly. I could not find the problem, but strongly suspected the elbow. Finally I sent all of my cooling components (aftercooler, fuel cooler, gear oil cooler, heat exchanger, and elbow) into the shop for cleaning, inspection and testing. When fully cleaned, it became apparent that my elbow was "rotted through" in several (small) places, and this was causing the hose overheat. The overheat was only on a small spot on the exhaust hose, all other engine temps (as measured with an IR gun) were very good. Without that alarm, I would not have known about this problem as ALL other temps were very good. You can see many photos of turbos on Tony's site where this exact problem was left too long (probably because it was undetected). He calls those elbows "Doomed to Fail". The alarm I talked about cost about $100 and was easy to install. Saltwater leaking back into the turbo will not only cause damage to the turbo, but in more serious cases can damage the engine as well compounding the problems and costs can escalate greatly.
This info is on sbmar as well, but per Baker, don't "overfill" your oil pan. Per Tony, prefill your oil filter with clean oil and put 13 quarts of oil into the pan. Mark the stick, and keep it at that level. This is actually the "low oil" mark (if the stick is correctly marked and that may not be the case) and for marine applications you don't want more oil in the pan than that (according to Tony, and I trust him). He explains the reasoning in his info.
Sounds like you are well on your way, but (and I know money does not grow on trees) I would not put off the exhaust elbow too long (reasons above and on Tony's site).
As Ski stated, every few trips run up the RPM's to burn out the carbon (Tony agrees with that as well) and don't idle at dock to "cool down" either. The slow run in and docking should be enough of a cool down. Diesels don't like idling for long periods under no load.
Enjoy your new (to you) Tug.
Tom
