Before starting my engine after 19 yrs........

[San Juan Sailor]

I just acquired a Mariner 32 that has been sitting on the hard for 19 years. The engine (Perkins 4-107) supposedly was running well back then. What should be done aside from the obvious changing the oil? I had a mechanic tell me that the injectors should be worked over.

[Liberty28]

Make sure the hoses are still good and it has clean fuel. Prime it and fire it up. Assuming there are no birds nesting in the cylinders, it should start. Keep an eye on the gauges until you're satisfied the engine is happy.

[donradcliffe]

Change out the raw water impeller.

You will want to turn it over for 15 seconds with the kill switch on to work some oil around before you fire it up.

After 20 years, the exhaust injection elbow may be corroded through, so keep an eye on that to make sure its not squirting salt water into the boat.

Don't worry about the injectors unless it doesn't run or runs badly. If it doesn't run, the first step would be bleeding the hell out of it to get fresh fuel in the system.

[David M]

Make sure the engine has not seized up. See if you can turn it a full 360 degrees with a wrench first. Squirt some oil down in the cylinders to help loosen things up and to reduce the chance of scoring the cylinder walls.

[Chief Engineer]

spray some PB Blaster on the injectors, nuts, fuel fittings. Allow it to sit
and do its "work". Proceed slowly. Oil down the cylinders or fogging oil down the cylinders liberally. Crank the engine many times by hand. If you feel any kind of "catch" S-T-O-P.

My late mentor in this businees had a setup where he could take the oil pressure sending unit out and put a hose in and remotely pressurize the system with clean oil....pre-lubing as it were. He would do this on major rebuilds. His was electrical but I am sure you could setup something with a small brass bilge pump.

Originally Posted by David M

Make sure the engine has not seized up. See if you can turn it a full 360 degrees with a wrench first. Squirt some oil down in the cylinders to help loosen things up and to reduce the chance of scoring the cylinder walls.