This is probably a wasted effort but I'll ask anyway. I'll try to make a long story short I reluctantly took a repair job where a couple different people had worked on this boat but for some reason they never completed the job. Some how the owner found out about me and asked if I would finish putting the engine back together.
From what I heard there was low compression on two cylinders and the heads were pulled and sent to the machine shop and the head gaskets replaced. When I got it the engine was all buttoned up except for the manifolds needed to be installed along with all the wiring and the Plenum needed to be put back on. It took me awhile to figure out where and how the wiring was routed but I finally got it together. A couple of the brackets were in the wrong place and some of the nuts and bolts were missing and one of the manifold pipe plugs was broken. I got all that straightened out and everything was in place all I had to do was start it up and set the timing. I hooked up my scan tool and put it in service mode and started the engine. I didn't want to start but it finally started but just barely ran enough to almost get the base timing set. After several tries I let it alone for the day.
On the next try it wouldn't start at all and it seemed to be out of gas. I checked the W/S fuel filter and it hardly had any gas in it so I filled it and loosened the line at the vapor separator and cranked the engine and finally got fuel there and it seemed to have good pressure so I figured everything was good. When I got it running it was still barely running but did run long enough to set base timing and it seemed to be starting to straighten out so I gave it a little gas and there was a gurgling noise then a loud ticking or knocking noise so I shut it down. I called the owner to give him an update and he tole me the motor always made a lot of noise on the port side and someone had told him it was the flapper in the exhaust doing it. The noise to me didn't sound like it was a flapper but rather something in the valve train but he was insistent that the flapper made a lot of noise. I started the engine again and for a moment it was still was making this unusual noise then it quit and the engine cleared up a little and idled fairly good. I gave it some gas to see if it would clear up and when I did one of the guys in back of the boat said WTF is all this stuff coming out of the port exhaust shut it off. We got out of the boat to have a look see and there were bunches of little small pieces of cloth like material everywhere. After looking at it close we decided that it looked like it had come from one of those red shop towels some shops use. That dang thing had somehow ate the whole thing. I have no clue where or how it got inside the engine as I don't even use these type towels.
I know it wasn't inside the plenum because I cleaned out the inside good before I put it on. I also looked inside the intake before putting it on and didn't see anything there either. I didn't however dig around to much in the manifolds before I put them on and was wondering if it could have sucked a rag into the top of the motor if a rag had somehow got stuffed into one of the passages in the manifold where I didn't see it.
I guess it's possible that someone could have stuffed a rag deep enough into the intake where it wouldn't be seen by just a general look when installing the plenum. My next question is what's the chances of the valve train surviving after eating something like this. I haven't started it back up because I'm waiting on new plenum gaskets so I can put that back on to re-fire the engine. I didn't sound all that bad when I shut it off the last time.
From what I heard there was low compression on two cylinders and the heads were pulled and sent to the machine shop and the head gaskets replaced. When I got it the engine was all buttoned up except for the manifolds needed to be installed along with all the wiring and the Plenum needed to be put back on. It took me awhile to figure out where and how the wiring was routed but I finally got it together. A couple of the brackets were in the wrong place and some of the nuts and bolts were missing and one of the manifold pipe plugs was broken. I got all that straightened out and everything was in place all I had to do was start it up and set the timing. I hooked up my scan tool and put it in service mode and started the engine. I didn't want to start but it finally started but just barely ran enough to almost get the base timing set. After several tries I let it alone for the day.
On the next try it wouldn't start at all and it seemed to be out of gas. I checked the W/S fuel filter and it hardly had any gas in it so I filled it and loosened the line at the vapor separator and cranked the engine and finally got fuel there and it seemed to have good pressure so I figured everything was good. When I got it running it was still barely running but did run long enough to set base timing and it seemed to be starting to straighten out so I gave it a little gas and there was a gurgling noise then a loud ticking or knocking noise so I shut it down. I called the owner to give him an update and he tole me the motor always made a lot of noise on the port side and someone had told him it was the flapper in the exhaust doing it. The noise to me didn't sound like it was a flapper but rather something in the valve train but he was insistent that the flapper made a lot of noise. I started the engine again and for a moment it was still was making this unusual noise then it quit and the engine cleared up a little and idled fairly good. I gave it some gas to see if it would clear up and when I did one of the guys in back of the boat said WTF is all this stuff coming out of the port exhaust shut it off. We got out of the boat to have a look see and there were bunches of little small pieces of cloth like material everywhere. After looking at it close we decided that it looked like it had come from one of those red shop towels some shops use. That dang thing had somehow ate the whole thing. I have no clue where or how it got inside the engine as I don't even use these type towels.
I know it wasn't inside the plenum because I cleaned out the inside good before I put it on. I also looked inside the intake before putting it on and didn't see anything there either. I didn't however dig around to much in the manifolds before I put them on and was wondering if it could have sucked a rag into the top of the motor if a rag had somehow got stuffed into one of the passages in the manifold where I didn't see it.
I guess it's possible that someone could have stuffed a rag deep enough into the intake where it wouldn't be seen by just a general look when installing the plenum. My next question is what's the chances of the valve train surviving after eating something like this. I haven't started it back up because I'm waiting on new plenum gaskets so I can put that back on to re-fire the engine. I didn't sound all that bad when I shut it off the last time.
