Rebuilt Perkins 4-108 Nightmare

[johnar]

Hello All,

This motor is driving me nuts and into the poor house.

On My 5th I ordered a rebuilt Perkins 4-108 from a place out of Philly, After it got here I paid a guy from around the marina to pull the old and ask him to change over a few parts due to the rebuilt either did not come with or had different.

This guy had the both motors 19 days and had yet to do anything but get the gear box changed, after trying to work things out I went and got the motors.

When I placed the rebuilt motor on the ground here at the boat I could see for some reason he had taken the fuel pump off and the lines, he had some of the old lines now on it and some of the new.

I spent 6 hours checking all the nuts and bolts and finished changing what needed to be done, starter, Alt, oil lines, oil cooler.

I then had a crane come in to place the motor in this all went great.

After I had all the wiring done tops off oil and water, so on the motor would not start just turned over.

What I had found was a number of problems frist off was a great number of fuel leaks almost every line, I worked on a number of them but then came a time I could not get them to stop due to the way he changed the bends in the lines or things would not seat right.

I called in a guy from Jax boat Doc to come work on the motor, he was able to fix almost every leak and found that the first guy had the fuel lines on the wrong injectors.

We now had the motor running but with a very bad compression leak at the number one injector, that no matter what we did would not go away and this leak was so bad it filled the boat with smoke in no time.

I called L&J who is a Perkins dealer here in Jacksonville and ask to have a service call made. the man came and spent 17 minutes here all he did was remove the cover of the pump and said to me the pump is out of time as for the injector leak the head was stripped out for the studds. This gets strange now the Perkins service man left with out saying a word just left.

After he left I ajusted the pump as far as it would go but still unable to get all the way to the right mark. But it is very close.

I then worked on fixing the injector leak after tryin for 2 days I called the people that sold me the motor and they ship me a new head with new injector and head kit, It took me 13 hours to change it over but it did fix the leak.

so last night i deside after running the boat at the dock both in gear and not for over 6 hours I took the boat out, she ran very nice for awhile.

I had some white smoke but not too bad, the motor started to act strange when I would try to change speed at all the motor would fall on its face or die. I turn the boat around and started heading for the dock the motor just got worse died a number of times but i was able to get back ok.

oh buy the way I got a bill from L&J for $225.00 for that 17 minute service call, I will be calling them in the morning.

so at this point the motor will start (alittle hard) idle great even run nice under a load at the dock unless you change the RPMs, I did see there is a small fuel leak still at the line lift pump to the injector pump. I will work on that tonight.

I am really at a loss as to what I should do to get this motor running were i trust it.

There is no one around my marinea i trust to work on it and I am unable to figure it out myself.

Please give me some advice.

Dutch

[anjou]

Moral of the story is. Do the job yourself, even if you have never done it before and dont know what your doing. Use your eyes and brain, look, study, make notes, mark for reference etc.

Its not rocket science unless your a so called 'expert'.
'Ex' is something that was
'Spurt' is a drip under pressure.

You can do better than that.

[johnar]

Thank you,

this is were the problem is at, I may be able to do some work on a diesel I really have never worked on them so I am not able to troubleshoot them.

Right now the only thing I can think of to try is remove the injector pump myself take it to L&J and have them bench set the injector pump I also seen a new set of fuel lines on ebay for $100. I would have L&J install the pump after they set it and put the new lines on.

The only other thing I can think of is to have Jobber.inc who I got the motor from send me my old injector pump back and use it, as I know it was a good pump.

[Chief Engineer]

It is "parts changers" like that that make our job difficult at times.

[anjou]

If you havent already got one, get the workshop manual with all the data including torque settings, timing marks etc. If your not sure when stripping down, take pics.

A picture paints a thousand words

[johnar]

I have the shop manual and by now I kinda know this motor by heart as for how the parts go.

It is the second time I changed a head one a Perkins 4-108.


Dutch

[sandspur]

If you have a leak at the lift pump it is most likely sucking air under load & will cause power loose, white smoke, stalling & hard starting, fix this first & retest

[Chief Engineer]

"What I had found was a number of problems frist off was a great number of fuel leaks almost every line, I worked on a number of them but then came a time I could not get them to stop due to the way he changed the bends in the lines or things would not seat right.

I called in a guy from Jax boat Doc to come work on the motor, he was able to fix almost every leak and found that the first guy had the fuel lines on the wrong injectors."

Sur' sign this guy didn't know what the ^%*$% he was doing.

You don't "rebend" steel injector lines.

[Chief Engineer]

A service call for a "look see"?

[johnar]

lol Oh no the service call was made to have them fix it. not look at it and take off. This is what was so strange and why I will contact them in the morning. With L&J being a Perkins dealer I have faith they will make it right and ajust the bill or something, Like I said above maybe they could bench test and set the injector pump free, I don't know.

I fully agree on not rebending a line just like you do not reuse a gasket.

The fuel lines have a strange fitting not like a normal compression fitting, if had the normal fittings i would just make new lines myself. Back in my working days I had to run lines all the time, I still have all my shop tools to work with.

I better make this more clear before some one questions normal fittings. To me a normal fitting would have a oval flare the lines of a perkins has a flat flare.


Dutch

[Chief Engineer]

I am sure you will keep us posted.......

[johnar]

After sleeping on it I beleive I figured out my troubles.

The motor wont run right.

Dutch

see I am good at troubleshooting

[YourOldNemesis]

I don't know why you're messing about with the pump when you have a fuel leak. If you know you have a fuel leak, figure out where it's coming from and fix it. Once you've done that, see how it runs.

[beneteau-500]

fly me over am in need of a holiday away from some nagging people who are on board with me now

[capt_douglas]

As soon as I saw this: "... After it got here I paid a guy from around the marina to pull the old and ask him to change over a few parts due to the rebuilt either did not come with or had different...." I knew things weren't going to go well.

While I sympathize with your plight, when my 4-108 had breathing problems I found a Perkins mechanic that worked after hours and hired him to do some of the difficult stuff. He took longer than I wanted but charged about half the hourly rate. In the end everything worked, I learned a lot by quietly watching and passing tools, water, and parts, and I felt more confident about the longevity of the engine.