Need Some Help from the Diesel Gurus

[FlyingCloud1937]

Originally Posted by Bash

Frigging brilliant. Seriously. The type of thing we should always check first, but sometimes never think of, especially when it's cold.

Only if it was a direct drive which I doubt, it's more likely a hydrostatic transmission...meaning even if in gear there is no connection to the prop(no load) until the RPMs are capable of creating the hydraulic pressure while in gear.

Lloyd

[FlyingCloud1937]

Originally Posted by FlyingCloud1937

Only if it was a direct drive which I doubt, it's more likely a hydrostatic transmission...meaning even if in gear there is no connection to the prop(no load) until the RPMs are capable of creating the hydraulic pressure while in gear.

Lloyd

Also note it is possible to have a Trombetta and an emergency stop cable. http://www.trombetta.com/solenoids-products.cfm

Lloyd

[daddle]

Now with the clarity of recall provided by 3 beers I think your STOP control is PUSH to STOP because your black cable is on the other side than mine was.

Pretty hard to start motor with the injector rack at STOP.

[crashkahuna]

Looks like a Universal M-12 or M2-12 or 15 around 1988, probably Hurth trans. As suggested above Torrenson marine site will have engine manuals for download. Make sure prop shaft is not turning when hand cranking.

[Stu Jackson]

I agree it's a Universal. These engines do NOT have solenoids for starting and stopping.

What could be happening is that the stop lever is in the wrong position. Given the the condition of the engine, it could be frozen in the wrong position thus no start.

This little thing is right below the throttle linkage on the forward port side of the engine. You can find it by locating the stop cable position when it gets to the engine. The Torreson website will also show you where it is. Confirm which position it should be in. This is another way of saying: make sure your stop lever is fully down. When I first fueled up my new-to-me boat, it wouldn't restart. Took me about 10 agonizing minutes to figure out I hadn't pushed the stop lever down when I shut it off.

Since we've only repeated ourselves 10 times so far, go to the Marine Diesel Engines and Engine Parts - Universal, Volvo, Westerbeke, Yanmar, MASE website NOW and find your engine. They have blowup diagrams of every part of the engine, very, very helpful.

Good luck.

[CTSailor53]

Kubota engines are indirect injection designs, and simply will not start in cold weather without functional glow plugs. You can crank and crank forever without them starting, because they do not have a high enough compression ratio to start without the glow plugs. Remove and check that the glow plugs are actually glowing.

[Ryan H]

Well Gentlemen,

Its 5:00am for the fourth night in a row, its 17 degrees and I'm crawling around the motor some more. I'm going to try to be thorough to minimize how many more nights I've got to have like this. Wandering my way around several of the web sites provided I'm fairly sure the motor is in fact an M-12, though the pictures I've seen aren't 100% exactly like my motor, I did find an M-25 that is a carbon copy other than the fact that the M-25 has a third cylinder.

Mwahahaha, Making progress already and I didn't even have to get my hands too dirty on that one!

Rummaging through an online manual does show that what I originally thought might be my gear shifter really is the emergency shut off. Before I sound too much like the idiot my nearest and dearest know me to be the cable does run to the back of the cockpit and connects to a shifter. Weird huh? when the shifter is in 'neutral' the shut off is set to half on half off, when shifted to forward its on, and when shifted into reverse its off. I got the back of the boat opened up and found the back of the shifter is directly attached to the shut off via a swing linkage, and the actual shift cable is hanging off to the side doing nothing. For what its worth when I pull up on the real shift cable the motor tried to spin the prop while turning over, which I guess means I don't have a hydro-something or other tranny.

Now, back to the task at hand! I double checked the glow plugs, both showed 1.5 ohms resistance, not trusting it I pulled off each in turn and ground the thread to the engine block and they both heated up beautifully. Glow plugs thoroughly check. Next I opened up the fuel bleeder and ran the fuel pump. Diesel geysered out like it was old faithful, definitely no air in the injector pump. Next I pulled each injector line at the cylinder and ran the pump, wasn't Niagara falls, but squirts were definitely happening.

Several posts said the motor doesn't have a starting solenoid, I'm no mechanic, however theres definitely something next to the starter that looks pretty solenoid like. The positive side gets full voltage (with my buzz box hooked to the battery it was showing 14 volts). When the ignition is turned it sends between 6 and 9 volts to the starter. Thats checking with my multimeter positive lead on the bare wire running from the 'solenoid' to the starter and my negative lead on the block itself, no way I'm snaking both my hands around the belt to test both leads at the same time while on my tip toes leaning over the engine out through the companion way while turning the key with my teeth. That said, I was able to do most of that AND take pictures!

No worries, its a long story but reading it isn't nearly as painful as living it. Despite everything attempted, playing with what I guess I will now call the stop lever, glowing the plugs, covering the air intake, WD40 down the intake, blowing its hair with a hair drier, etc. etc. etc, it still seems to turn slowly, and the lights are still dimming even when I'm hooked up directly to a running car with a 90 amp alternator, two size 25 deep cycle 120 amp hour batteries, plus a starting battery with a cold crank rating of around 800 (not crawling back there again to check the number, but thereabouts). Finally my multimeter is reading next to no voltage drop or resistance at any cable along the whole electrical path.

WHEW!!!!!! Now I'll post some pictures. the 14 volt reading is the solenoid, the 8 volt is the starter which was actually fluctuating from 6 to 9 (I'm somewhat hoping that'll be the key to all this) got a geyser shot of the bleeder valve as well as the injector lines and finally a picture of my weird shifter line holder thats secretly a stop shifter....

Any ideas left?

[daddle]

1. The injector bleeding test should have indicated which way to put the STOP control.

2. That lever setup it weird. The STOP control is the one that can be hidden on a locker to be pulled or pushed manually when needed. The gearbox should be on the lever.

3. The solenoid that folks mentioned above is a STOP solenoid on the injector pump that does the same thing as your black STOP cable. Your model of Universal does not normally have a STOP solenoid as an option.

4. 6 to 9 volts is not enough for the starter. 10.5 to 11 would be nice. The engine needs to spin like a healthy automobile engine does. Good news: the starter motor is probably okay. Because you have confirmed the battery is okay you have either bad wiring (VERY common on boats) or a bad STARTER solenoid.

Check ALL the wiring. Including the engine negative (ground) wires to the battery. Everything is suspect - even pretty crimps and the shiny bits.

[Ryan H]

Bah, on a motor that ugly I'd hate to toss out the few shiny bits I've got. I'll recheck all the electrical tomorrow(er, later today). Might be worth it just to smear all the connection points with vasoleane just to be sure.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Ryan H

the 14 volt reading is the solenoid, the 8 volt is the starter which was actually fluctuating from 6 to 9 (I'm somewhat hoping that'll be the key to all this) got a geyser shot of the bleeder valve

Bingo
This voltage is too low to spin the diesel properly.

Originally Posted by Ryan H

Finally my multimeter is reading next to no voltage drop or resistance at any cable along the whole electrical path.

I still don't think you are measuring this correctly. There is obviously a drop of 6v in the starting system.
The dim lights suggest there is also a large voltage drop in the glow plug circuit.

In a good healthy system you should be measuring 0.3- 0.5v voltage drop in glow plug circuit. My guess is that you have much more.
The most common reason for measuring "next to no voltage drop" (less than 0.3v) is measuring it incorrectly.

Don't put your body near the rotating parts you can easily extend the multimeter leads. The small wires with alligator clips are invaluable.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Ryan H

Might be worth it just to smear all the connection points with vasoleane just to be sure.

Vaseline is an insulator it won't help your problem.

[Ryan H]

Nah, but think of how smooth my hands would be. Scratch the vaseline and let's pretend I said dielectric grease.

[noelex 77]

Originally Posted by Ryan H

Nah, but think of how smooth my hands would be. Scratch the vaseline and let's pretend I said dielectric grease.

Dielectric grease is also non conducting. The idea is to seal the electrical joint to reduce corrosion but it does not help if the joint has poor electrical conduction to begin with.

I am no going to touch the many and varied uses of Vaseline on the human body.

[daddle]

Vaseline no good. It dries out.

My practice on a boat when there is an electrical problem is to rip the whole mess out. Pull all the start primary and ground wires put of that mess - from the battery terminals to the engine. Renew, rebuild, refresh everything.

Who knows, from what I have seen the PO may have spliced it 10 times with lamp cord. The nonsense in boats, even boats that post on CF, is astonishing.

[cszosler]

Hi there,
I'd witnes similar problem.Heavy duty cables- no resistance by multimeter. WHat was the problem- cables were made of not tined coper, sea water siped inside isolation and ate away most of the wire strands. Multimeter reading was OK for its low amps, but when
high amps were required resistance was to much. Sory I had not read every post on this. Who first sugested new cables was right.