History and Issue:
Ran the engine on muffs today and started right up and ran normal (decent amount of smoke). After just a few minutes alarm went off (I think it was the Chk Eng) but honestly I shut it off so fast I'm not sure. I had a decent spray of water coming from the tell tale and I pulled both thermostats and tested in boiling water and both seemed to work. I haven't taken the blow off valve apart since I thought I read that it only affects operation at high RPMs. (Is that true?) I still have the VRO system active but took it to the mechanic recently for a different issue and they recommended that I remove and start pre-mixing just due to the age of the boat. So now I'm overly scared that something can be wrong with the VRO thus causing it to overheat (even though I don't have any reason to believe it's not working, nor do I know how to test if it's working). I did check and the VRO pump has four wires going to it so I think that means it's better than the 3 wire version (I think I read it has an alarm in case something goes wrong). I did touch both sides of engine below where the thermostats are located and both sides were hot to the touch.
Questions:
What else should I check for the cause of the hot engine and alarm going off? Should I pull one of the thermostats while engine is running to see if water is pouring out? Should I pull the blow off valve and inspect or is my theory of it not affecting the engine temp at low rpm correct? Should I feel the temp of water coming out of tell tale and does that mean anything? Is it possible I should be getting a stronger spray from the tell tale? Is there something I should do to check the VRO system functionality? Or just disable it? If I disable it, do I need to buy a new fuel pump of just plug the port that the oil is coming in and disconnect the 4 wire and the 2 wire coming from the oil tank and then begin pre-mixing?
I'm nervous to run it again (even for a short while) due to fear of damaging something.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve
Ran the engine on muffs today and started right up and ran normal (decent amount of smoke). After just a few minutes alarm went off (I think it was the Chk Eng) but honestly I shut it off so fast I'm not sure. I had a decent spray of water coming from the tell tale and I pulled both thermostats and tested in boiling water and both seemed to work. I haven't taken the blow off valve apart since I thought I read that it only affects operation at high RPMs. (Is that true?) I still have the VRO system active but took it to the mechanic recently for a different issue and they recommended that I remove and start pre-mixing just due to the age of the boat. So now I'm overly scared that something can be wrong with the VRO thus causing it to overheat (even though I don't have any reason to believe it's not working, nor do I know how to test if it's working). I did check and the VRO pump has four wires going to it so I think that means it's better than the 3 wire version (I think I read it has an alarm in case something goes wrong). I did touch both sides of engine below where the thermostats are located and both sides were hot to the touch.
Questions:
What else should I check for the cause of the hot engine and alarm going off? Should I pull one of the thermostats while engine is running to see if water is pouring out? Should I pull the blow off valve and inspect or is my theory of it not affecting the engine temp at low rpm correct? Should I feel the temp of water coming out of tell tale and does that mean anything? Is it possible I should be getting a stronger spray from the tell tale? Is there something I should do to check the VRO system functionality? Or just disable it? If I disable it, do I need to buy a new fuel pump of just plug the port that the oil is coming in and disconnect the 4 wire and the 2 wire coming from the oil tank and then begin pre-mixing?
I'm nervous to run it again (even for a short while) due to fear of damaging something.
Your help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks,
Steve