"Lot's of overheating topi
"Lot's of overheating topics, I've spent almost the whole day reading through them so think I have a better handle on how to proceed. I wanted to document on here what has happened already and what I plan to do, along with updates on the outcome. Hopefully someone will take pity on me and follow along with suggestions
I just moved from a 30' sailboat to a Tiara 3100. It's a 1996 with Crusader 454XL's. The boat was at a broker for well over a year, and was under contract a month or so ago when we first looked at it. The buyer ended up pulling out of the deal after the starboard engine overheated on the sea-trial. The broker replaced impellers and risers on both engines after that.
I had an engine survey done along with the hull survey. The engine survey checked out good with compression tests in the 140-145 range across all cylinders on both engines. The oil analysis also came back normal. The engines run up to about 4400 WOT. Based on this info we purchased the boat on Saturday.
I decided to drive the boat home, via the Intercoastal Waterway (Florida) about 70 miles. About 2 hours into it the engine rpms dropped to idle and the check engine light came on. At this point the temp gauges were reading about 170-175 on both engines and the overheat light on the dash was NOT on. We idled for just a little bit, watching the temp gauge and it stayed in that 170 range. I tried to throttle back up, and again the rpm limit kicked back in.
We anchored and lifted the hatch to see if anything was visibly wrong. I couldn't see anything. Took a swim to cool off, and decided to idle to a marina if possible to have a mechanic check. While idling temps still seemed fine so decided to try and throttle up again. This time we were able to increase to cruise at 3100rpm, and made it the rest of the way home without incident.
Yesterday (Sunday) I took the family out on a very short cruise, just 10 minutes or so of running to an island near us. We anchored and swam for a couple hours. On the way back the starboard temp gauge started acting erratic. It would swing wildly back and forth and then peg at max temp. No warning lights or rpm limiter this time, but I idled back to the slip anyway just to be safe.
I'm going to go by Lowes tonight and get a temp gun and check the temps against the gauge. I had asked the surveyor if he did this and he said he had (I was not present for the engine survey but was present for the hull survey).
Also on the first couple of hours of our trip home Saturday I heard what I thought was belt squealing so I'm also going to check that.
I found some documentation on the boat that described a similar problem in 2006. The work order mentioned the throttle limiter kicking in at 1800rpms, and that they replaced impellers and risers on both engines.
So it seems now this has happened a couple times in a couple years and the 'fix' has always been to replace risers and what-not. I'm hoping with the help of this forum I can finally get to the bottom of the problem.
Thanks,
Bryan"
"Lot's of overheating topics, I've spent almost the whole day reading through them so think I have a better handle on how to proceed. I wanted to document on here what has happened already and what I plan to do, along with updates on the outcome. Hopefully someone will take pity on me and follow along with suggestions
I just moved from a 30' sailboat to a Tiara 3100. It's a 1996 with Crusader 454XL's. The boat was at a broker for well over a year, and was under contract a month or so ago when we first looked at it. The buyer ended up pulling out of the deal after the starboard engine overheated on the sea-trial. The broker replaced impellers and risers on both engines after that.
I had an engine survey done along with the hull survey. The engine survey checked out good with compression tests in the 140-145 range across all cylinders on both engines. The oil analysis also came back normal. The engines run up to about 4400 WOT. Based on this info we purchased the boat on Saturday.
I decided to drive the boat home, via the Intercoastal Waterway (Florida) about 70 miles. About 2 hours into it the engine rpms dropped to idle and the check engine light came on. At this point the temp gauges were reading about 170-175 on both engines and the overheat light on the dash was NOT on. We idled for just a little bit, watching the temp gauge and it stayed in that 170 range. I tried to throttle back up, and again the rpm limit kicked back in.
We anchored and lifted the hatch to see if anything was visibly wrong. I couldn't see anything. Took a swim to cool off, and decided to idle to a marina if possible to have a mechanic check. While idling temps still seemed fine so decided to try and throttle up again. This time we were able to increase to cruise at 3100rpm, and made it the rest of the way home without incident.
Yesterday (Sunday) I took the family out on a very short cruise, just 10 minutes or so of running to an island near us. We anchored and swam for a couple hours. On the way back the starboard temp gauge started acting erratic. It would swing wildly back and forth and then peg at max temp. No warning lights or rpm limiter this time, but I idled back to the slip anyway just to be safe.
I'm going to go by Lowes tonight and get a temp gun and check the temps against the gauge. I had asked the surveyor if he did this and he said he had (I was not present for the engine survey but was present for the hull survey).
Also on the first couple of hours of our trip home Saturday I heard what I thought was belt squealing so I'm also going to check that.
I found some documentation on the boat that described a similar problem in 2006. The work order mentioned the throttle limiter kicking in at 1800rpms, and that they replaced impellers and risers on both engines.
So it seems now this has happened a couple times in a couple years and the 'fix' has always been to replace risers and what-not. I'm hoping with the help of this forum I can finally get to the bottom of the problem.
Thanks,
Bryan"