This morning I removed the no. 2 head and things do not look good.
I went ashore at 9.30 AM to gird my loins with 4 fresh movies and an 8-pack of cold Pacifico Clara beers for either celebration or a wake in the afternoon. I ran into Bob Carroll at The Dock restaurant and we had a chat about the situation. He had read of my problem with getting a 24mm socket and handed over one that he had found in his boat.
Back at the boat I got to work. I uncoupled the hoses from the mixer then removed the it. The I removed the fuel pipes from both heads. Then I got to work on the no. 2 head nuts with a 24mm ring wrench. Once the 4 nuts were off I lifted the head with little problem.
The photos help to tell the story. The first 4 photos show the head and the cylinder immediately after I removed the head. There were pits of rust all over the head, and the cylinder wall was coated in a sort of a grit. The surface of the piston was heavily coated with grit. This gray grit was particularly thick along the rim between the piston and the cylinder wall. I gathered some of this grit, laid it on a paper towel, and photographed it. I might add that the engine is seized hard. I have flooded the cylinder with WD40 and will have a go at freeing it in a few hours. The rust was not too deep but was definitely taking hold. My guess is that the salt water problem has been recent, perhaps from that hard from from San Evaristo to La Paz with the no. 1. head broken.
The last photo shows the head after it had been cleaned. Using a magnifying glass I could see no cracks. There was an awful lot of oil around part of the cylinder gasket and I wonder if that could have been leaking.
I won't got that last 10% and pronounce the engine dead until I hear from Mark. In the meantime, I have coated everything with oil as he advised on the remote chance that we can do a Lazarus act.
1 comment:
OH dear! We are at the point of desperate times requiring desperate. measures. You will probably get that stuck piston freed up. and it is a very tough engine. so put it back together and try it ??? might run OK, but that probably wont do anything for your confidence level. Knowing you I think that will be the primary issue.....
There was not much water in there, and yes that's a heavy build up of aluminum oxide on the piston crown.
Scrape it off once you get the piston to the top. don't let it fall into the ring groove. do the solvent test I spoke of on all the valves.
Theory on #2 is # 1 intake was splashing sea water back into the intake on the compression stroke, and getting injested into #2 intake Your mechanic should have noticed that the carbon layer was washed out of the #2 exh port.Would not have been rust at that point. # 2 head should have been removed and cleaned up. [hindsight always 20/20] I believe original failure due to over heat. Alarm may not have activated, do to loss of sea water,leaving the probe dry. Clogged raw water intake port, or debris in the Sabb sea water pump check valves. Regards - shoreline marine diesel.
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