What did you do to your boat today

Rich_

Launch day. A bit late in the season with all the craziness of spring but fired right up. Still need a good topside wash and wax (hopefully get crew there in next few days) but at least floating. Still have one waverunner to get in, but everything else is wet

RiverRunnerNB

Been chasing a rich condition since last summer. Boat was slow to get on plane, had some black smoke in exhaust, burning fuel more quickly, and hard to start when hot. Removed and tested the engine coolant temp sensor, hoping that would be it. Test showed it was operating within limits, but I replaced anyway (not expensive), and kept it for a spare. Removed all 8 spark plugs and each one was pretty heavily sooted up. I was quite happy with that result as it should mean a global fueling issue rather than say a dead cylinder, or bad fuel injector, etc. 

I initially proceeded to soak and clean the old plugs and reuse, but then decided to buy some new ones and start fresh. Old ones cleaned up pretty well, so will keep them for spares. 
Next stop was to pull the fuel pressure regulator to check for debris clogging the screens. Apparently there was a service bulletin from Volvo Penta (P-23-7-3) sometime around 2012 addressing issues with paint inside the fuel pumps being "released" into the fuel system and clogging the fuel pressure regulator screens. The service bulletin recommends removing the screen filter and replace it with an E-clip.
This sounds promising as it could account for the issues I've been having with the boat, unless, of course, the service bulletin fix had already be completed. So, with great anticipation, I removed the fuel pressure regulator and found this:

For comparison, below is the filter screen after I cleaned it:

Looks about 80% blocked. I think this may be the root of my problem. Hoping to splash the boat in the next week, so will report back then. I ordered the E clip to complete the fix as per the bulletin, but it is not arriving till late July, so I'm running the cleaned existing filter screen until then. Kinda sucks being so late to launch, but at least we have a long boating season where I live (I wish! I live on the east coast of Canada. Our boating season is about 2-3 months long). 

    
Just a note that I have owned the boat for 2 years. No issues with fueling till last summer. Still working my way thru the boat maintenance. 

grouch0jr

Wow, looks like that needed to be done regardless. Good find.

aero3113

Good find!! ⚓️

YYZRC

Put a couple hours on the old girl this weekend. First time out, zero issues! 

TonyG13

Replaced a bunch of worn out Stayput fasteners...

TonyG13

With a few spare parts laying around made an adaptor which converts my galley table into a dockside table...

grouch0jr

Love the multipurpose table

Aqua_Aura

The boat polisher came today for day 1 of 2. The boat looks like a mirror 😲. This shows the back done as hea moving forward. 

I finished installing my victron cerbo and cerbo touchscreen. Lots of wires strung around the engine room that need to get zipties. 

grouch0jr

The finish is looking great! Are you using the smart shunts with the cerbo?

Aqua_Aura

I have Epoch lithium batteries which have Victron comms built into their BMS so the batteries are directly networked into the cerbo via rj45 cable. This gives me exacta data on the batter status. 

I can also connect to the batteries via the epoch app. 

TonyG13

My 12 year old Rinker OEM installed Lenco Auto Glide trim tab controller system finally died after a few months of intermittent working. When it died, I had no trim control, not even manual mode.

Looked to just do a swap out of the brains, leaving harnesses in place, etc., but since Lenco has been absorbed by Navico they discontinued the Auto Glide line and have introduced something called Pro Control. That system is not backwards compatible and even requires new trim tabs.

Being cheap, I was not about to spend $3K+ and a haul out.

Started researching options. New (old stock) Auto Glide controllers are virtually non-existent.

Found a video on YouTube by a boater in the same boat. (Pun intended.)

He mentioned the Mente Marine ACS RP as a plug-and-play replacement. Giving you auto and manual control out of one little drop in controller.

Did some research, emailed back and forth with the company -- great customer service -- and bought the controller for $945.

Installed and calibrated it today in less than an hour and it tests out perfectly in manual mode. Just need to get on the water to program the auto portion.

Hardest part of the whole project was removing the old Lenco wiring harness and figuring out which of their 18 wires went down to the seven (7) needed for the Mente system. There was a bit of a mess of a rats nest under the helm console that I cleaned up a bit.

Here's a few pictures of the demo/install. I'll keep everyone updated on how it works in the real world.

 

captkevin

Nice fix thanks for sharing 

grouch0jr

TonyG13 said:

My 12 year old Rinker OEM installed Lenco Auto Glide trim tab controller system finally died after a few months of intermittent working. When it died, I had no trim control, not even manual mode.

Looked to just do a swap out of the brains, leaving harnesses in place, etc., but since Lenco has been absorbed by Navico they discontinued the Auto Glide line and have introduced something called Pro Control. That system is not backwards compatible and even requires new trim tabs.
......

I've got this on my upgrade wish-list! Please provide an update on how the auto mode performs.

aero3113

I cleaned both IAC valves today. Not sure if I had an issue but my Starboard engine took longer to start the other night. Cranked longer than normal. I did try to start the next day and there was no issue so I figured it could be a sticky IAC. Both looked dirty and both cleaned up nicely. These are before and after picks of the starboard IAC. You can see how sooty the plunger and shaft was in the first pic. Second pic all clean. ⚓️

aero3113

Also, my new starboard drive reservoir had a drip. I couldn’t tell if it’s coming from the wires or it’s possible I dripped some oil and it went down the backside to the wires. I cleaned everything up and sealed the wires. We’ll see what happens.

aero3113

I also ran my generator for the first time this season. Started right up and ran for about 2 minutes then shut down with a LOC error. Tried again and got a UU error. I had this happen last year also. I bled the fuel injector and no issues after that . Ran perfect.

grouch0jr

Our boat was new to us last year, we submitted our paperwork to have it renamed with the USCG, but didn't get a chance to update the name on the boat. This weekend we finally got a vinyl guy come to apply our graphics.

aero3113

That’s great @grouch0jr ! 😂

Aqua_Aura

raybo3

That's awesome

captkevin

good stuff

RiverRunnerNB

RiverRunnerNB said:

Been chasing a rich condition since last summer. Boat was slow to get on plane, had some black smoke in exhaust, burning fuel more quickly, and hard to start when hot. Removed and tested the engine coolant temp sensor, hoping that would be it. Test showed it was operating within limits, but I replaced anyway (not expensive), and kept it for a spare. Removed all 8 spark plugs and each one was pretty heavily sooted up. I was quite happy with that result as it should mean a global fueling issue rather than say a dead cylinder, or bad fuel injector, etc. 

I initially proceeded to soak and clean the old plugs and reuse, but then decided to buy some new ones and start fresh. Old ones cleaned up pretty well, so will keep them for spares. 
Next stop was to pull the fuel pressure regulator to check for debris clogging the screens. Apparently there was a service bulletin from Volvo Penta (P-23-7-3) sometime around 2012 addressing issues with paint inside the fuel pumps being "released" into the fuel system and clogging the fuel pressure regulator screens. The service bulletin recommends removing the screen filter and replace it with an E-clip.
This sounds promising as it could account for the issues I've been having with the boat, unless, of course, the service bulletin fix had already be completed. So, with great anticipation, I removed the fuel pressure regulator and found this:

For comparison, below is the filter screen after I cleaned it:

Looks about 80% blocked. I think this may be the root of my problem. Hoping to splash the boat in the next week, so will report back then. I ordered the E clip to complete the fix as per the bulletin, but it is not arriving till late July, so I'm running the cleaned existing filter screen until then. Kinda sucks being so late to launch, but at least we have a long boating season where I live (I wish! I live on the east coast of Canada. Our boating season is about 2-3 months long). 

    
Just a note that I have owned the boat for 2 years. No issues with fueling till last summer. Still working my way thru the boat maintenance. 

Just a follow up post now that I finally splashed the boat and tested it out. 
Wow! The boat works great - starts without hesitation, cold or hot, and most importantly it jumps up on plane. Feels like I dropped a whole new engine in there. Although I did several tune up items, pretty sure 90% of the improvement was due to cleaning out the clogged fuel pressure regulator screens. 
Can hardly wait to get out for a good run now that we're ship shape. 

aero3113

Nice find @RiverRunnerNB !! ⚓️

Rich_

Actually got to use it. Last time I was actually out was 4th of July weekend. Since then we’ve been to the lake house, at soccer tournaments, been to St Thomas/John. Plan it to head out for the week Monday or Tuesday, maybe longer