Major Generator Problems (Formerly Pink vs. Green Coolant for Kohler Genset?)

[Hud3]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

Extra points to those who can read our signal

Hmmm. Where's your CF burgee?

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by Hud3

Hmmm. Where's your CF burgee?

Never got one.

[Dockhead]

We got the heat exchanger apart - completely blocked by seaweed and impeller debris. It seemed not to be corroded or split. So it got a thorough scrub, then back together and back on.

I had to go to London on business, but my young crewman got the fresh water side filled up and left it overnight. No apparent loss in the morning. Started up the genset, and seemed to run fine. He charged my batteries before shutting it down and leaving.

I'm not ready to declare victory quite yet but -- so far so good!! Got all my fingers and toes crossed. Here's hoping that it really holds up when I go down tomorrow and put some load on it.

[DeepFrz]

I noticed in another thread that you mentioned the Kohler isn't working yet and you are awaiting parts. What has gone wrong?

[Dockhead]

So here's the postscript --

There was not really anything wrong with the Kohler genset. So all this drama and angst was for bugger-all.

I will recap the story in case it might help someone else.

My genset shut down due to high temperature a couple of months ago. It turned out that the seawater strainer was packed with seaweed. Cleaned it out, and the genset ran again. IF I HAD LEFT IT AT THAT, I WOULD HAVE SAVED A HEAP OF TROUBLE. Everything which happened after was self-inflicted.

I decided to check the impeller, and pulled off the sea water pump cover. It looked ok, so I put it back together again and cranked it up. Oops! Forgot to open the seacock, so now the impeller is disintegrated. It took all kinds of agony to get the sea water side of the cooling system working again. Meanwhile, I opened the fresh water side to find, to my horror, brown sludge. It seemed to me that the water was going down, and I thought I saw bubbles. So I was sure that I had a breach in the fresh water side - probably exhaust manifold.

But I finally got the sea water side completely cleaned out (took two rounds of surgery on the heat exchanger) and working right, and lo and behold, it's now working fine again. Fresh water is not going down.

The brown sludge must be from green and pink antifreeze getting mixed somehow.

Just now I made the symbolic gesture of putting the sound enclosure back together -- a demonstration to myself that I'm not wrenching on it anymore.

During this time I had so little confidence that I would get it running again that I actually bought a Honda suitcase generator. So now I have a backup.

Panic and overreaction! I htink I need to dig out my copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcyce Maintenance and read it through again.

[barnakiel]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

(...) Panic and overreaction! I htink I need to dig out my copy of Zen and the Art of Motorcyce Maintenance and read it through again.

THX for the post script!

You are not the only one to suffer this type of maintenance adventure.

The other day I nearly started opening the transmission here ... while the trouble was ... the prop fouled beyond any measure.

Eh, sailing life ;-)

Cheers,
b.

[Vasco]

A worrying mind does strange things. Reminds me of times of breakdowns underway when I have done all sorts of unnecessary and weird things when I should have sat down and thought it through carefully. But no, gotta fix it fast!

Case in point, chugging down the ICW alternator belt went. I did not know it was a belt at the time and quickly shut down the engine. In my haste to switch off the start battery and conserve power I inadvertently turned off the negative ground. (Beneteaus have a strange battery switch system). Spent the next half hour trying to figure out why I had lost the whole electrical system. Thought I had blown something for sure. After finding my stupid mistake I replaced the belt.

Luckily we had a following breeze so my wife sailed the boat down the ICW for an hour and a half on the jib while I replaced the belt. I would have anchored except that the windlass motor was shot and I wasn't looking forward to hauling my 45# hook and chain up by hand.

[twistedtree]

It's all just as well. You really should change the impeller once a year, or at least every other year, plus replace any zincs, adn not to mention periodic replacement of the coolant. Now you have done it all and can rest easy for a while.

[DeepFrz]

Thanks for the postscript.

[sww914]

If I had started this thread with this important question, I'd be doing some research on coolants right now because there's a lot of crap here beyond just the crap colored coolant.
I actually know about this subject but at this point there is so much speculation and misinformation that anything added will just confuse.