Westerbeke 44B exhaust coming back through intake, running rough

[a64pilot]

Sounds like you know what your doing, if your going to lap the valves that will tell of course, the fine line around the seat if it's continuous and you pass the alcohol test, your in.
However I bet if you did nothing the one valve with the aluminum mesh from the air filter would leak, and if it kissed the piston, and from your video I do not think it did, it could be bent, but of course if your lapping the valves, you know right off if its bent even a tiny bit.
When a piston kisses a valve it leaves a crescent moon shape on the piton head. I have floated a many a valve and seen that many times.
Not trying to spend your money, but might want to have the injectors cleaned now that they are out too. Two of my 500 hour, 30 yr old injectors were streakers. I had all four tips replaced.
You'll like the Copper coat, I used to use silver paint until I found it. Hang the gasket in a wire so you can spray both sides without touching it, the Copper coat is tenacious glue, you only want to touch the sides of the gasket once it's on.
If I can get them for the engine I'm working on I like the Felpro blue head gaskets as they do not require retorqueing, and I've never seen one blown.
The Felpro blue gaskets go on dry, no Copper coat.

[Compass790]

Originally Posted by sailah

I can't make heads or tails of why that filter clogged like it did. That's a factory Westerbeke filter. The previous one was in there for years and I changed it just because. The only thing I could imagine it was is the old insulation that was crumbling. I've been slowly removing it with shop vac yearly. The good insulation is all Sounddown and has the foil facing. Guess it's time to actually remove all of the bad stuff and get those 12x12 tiles.

I am very careful about fuel and my polisher runs 100% of the time the engine is running. Pump is rated for 72 GPH, I run 2 filters on it, 10 & 5 micron





I'm cheap but there's no value to me to running the risk on a used head gasket. I bought a full factory Mitsubishi gasket set on ebay from the UK for $120 shipped. Westerbeke wants $169 for just the head gasket.



I agree, I know how to use a meter and I trust my Fluke. It just seemed odd that all 4 were bad. I found a cross reference to NGK Y114T that I found on Amazon prime for $9. My engine has always started well so maybe it was doing it with no preheat.

I had a 12V lab power supply on the boat I used with high resistance Nichrome wire to cut the caulking holding down the hatches to rebed. Which worked awesome BTW. I set the power supply to 13V and got nothing. My power supply has a built in ammeter and it showed no current so I think my confidence is high that they were all bad.



Yeah I'm not sure what I'm going to do. I like the idea of filtration and see no reason why I can't engineer a better solution than their filter setup. My thought driving to work this morning was to weld up a new elbow & flange and run a larger cone foam filter like the racers run on their cars. That way it would be visible.

But I don't think I'll be trusting the same filter setup.

I ordered up some cork plugs from McMaster Carr to plug all the holes in the deck. Plan to scrape the gasket off and get ready for reassembly after I check all the valves and the rest of the head.

Yea I have a cone dual density foam filter that you can easily see when it's getting a bit cruddy as it has no cover. Has large wound spring inside that wouldnt break up like your flat wire mesh screen. Engine does not have an air filter as standard, just has a muffler to quieten intake roar but filter seems to do the same. I can understand you dont want to risk re-using head gasket, no surprise to me when I look at your engine room. Cleanest I've seen!

[sailah]

Originally Posted by a64pilot

Sounds like you know what your doing, if your going to lap the valves that will tell of course, the fine line around the seat if it's continuous and you pass the alcohol test, your in.
However I bet if you did nothing the one valve with the aluminum mesh from the air filter would leak, and if it kissed the piston, and from your video I do not think it did, it could be bent, but of course if your lapping the valves, you know right off if its bent even a tiny bit.
When a piston kisses a valve it leaves a crescent moon shape on the piton head. I have floated a many a valve and seen that many times.
Not trying to spend your money, but might want to have the injectors cleaned now that they are out too. Two of my 500 hour, 30 yr old injectors were streakers. I had all four tips replaced.
You'll like the Copper coat, I used to use silver paint until I found it. Hang the gasket in a wire so you can spray both sides without touching it, the Copper coat is tenacious glue, you only want to touch the sides of the gasket once it's on.
If I can get them for the engine I'm working on I like the Felpro blue head gaskets as they do not require retorqueing, and I've never seen one blown.
The Felpro blue gaskets go on dry, no Copper coat.

I was all set to check the head myself by rubbing on a granite surface plate but decided to check with a local machine shop.

*ring* *ring*

"Hi I have a Mitsubishi 4 cyl diesel from my boat that I would like to have the head cleaned and checked"

"That a Westerbeke?"

"Uh yeah, how'd you know that?"

"Because I do all the machine work for Westerbeke and Hansen Engineering"



So for $65 he's going to tank it, check for flatness and vacuum check all the valves. He said based on what I told him it was highly unlikely he's need to surface it but would do that if necessary for $75.

I would have spent $20 for the speedball roller and prussian blue anyways. I would have liked to show some pics of what that looks like but this shop sounds like they are exactly what I need.

I very much like doing things myself but just the pain to clean it is worth the inspection fee for me. I do have a hot tank at work we use to clean parts from the CNC but I don't know what the solvent is in it etc.

I also took your advice and found Boston Injection that will inspect and ultrasonic clean my injector nozzles for short money.

In the odd case that someone finds this thread 10 years down the road, the factory mitsubishi injector nozzles are PN MM435-94101. Lots of sources for around $50 over the pond. I may pick up a spare set.

Making progress!!

I did pull all the valves in preparation for bringing into the shop



A preliminary inspection with a precision straightedge showed that the head was dead flat. I couldn't get a 0.001" feeler to pull nor see any light from a flashlight on the backside.



I found most of the air filter remnants in that valve. It was actually the entire piece so that makes me feel better. The valve seat looked in good shape but the vacuum test from the shop will tell the tale.

[sailah]

To somewhat close the loop, and hopefully the head this time. ..

I had the head inspected by a pro machinist shop. They said 2 valves weren't sealing so they recut and lapped those in. Picking it up tomorrow.

I also sent off the injectors to Boston injection for inspection. He said it wasn't even worth cleaning he'd rebuild to new with new nozzles for $60/ea. So I went that route. He called me today to tell me they were done and that 2/4 were bad and he was surprised I wasn't seeing the signs. So thanks to whoever suggested that was worth the piece of mind.

Plan to scrape the remaining gasket from the block and get it ready to reassemble. When I removed head some paint chips I noticed fell down the pushrod valleys. Can't do anything about it now other than change the oil I guess.

I bought a bunch of lab corks in various sizes as well as as some test plugs for the bores. I figured the gasket scraps will be going everywhere and I'd like to try and keep them out of engine and coolant passages. Any other hot tips on that?

Hopefully it all goes smoothly, was a major project I did not need with everything else I need to do.

Thanks for all the help

[sailah]

Got the engine back together in 2 late nights. Fired right up.

The injected elbow had a lot of corrosion on the mating face and I needed to get this engine back together pronto. I have a week long sales trip to NYC and the day I get back the boat is scheduled to get launched. I tried building up the surface with weld but the inclusions and contamination were too much. The plan was to build it up then machine it flat and if that failed, I'd cut the old flange off and weld in a new flange back where the cast aluminum was clean. Which is what happened. Just happened to have a 3" aluminum rod, made the flange, parted it off and welded it back together.

Welding cast material is always a challenge due to contamination, this was probably one of the harder jobs I've done. Plowed some heat into the casting with a rosebud and just took my time. Ended up coming out decent I didn't get a finished shot for some reason but I'll take one installed. Saved about $250 on a new one and the time was the most important thing. I suspect the weld will last for a few years and I'll have to buy a new one.

Fired it up, runs perfect. Ran it all the way up through the range and no issues.

Thanks to all for your advice and counsel.

Peter

[Kita]

Looks like a fine job! As a welder myslef,cast sucks......hard to get penetration,grind, preheat,I have put stuff in the oven,with aluminum maybe even add some helium whatever you got to do..got in trouble once by putting a part in the oven that had a small amount of rubber & stunk the place up!

[SVTatia]

Good job Sailha, well done.

Just a quick tip if you have to paint any parts - I have used this paint and it is pretty much the same as the $$ Westy charge us, also available everywhere...

High temperature engine Paint - VHT – High Temperature Ford Red - SP152

VHT Paints Ford red high temperature Engine Enamel SP152 - Read Reviews on VHT Paints #SP152

[sailah]

Originally Posted by SVTatia

Good job Sailha, well done.

Just a quick tip if you have to paint any parts - I have used this paint and it is pretty much the same as the $$ Westy charge us, also available everywhere...

High temperature engine Paint - VHT – High Temperature Ford Red - SP152

VHT Paints Ford red high temperature Engine Enamel SP152 - Read Reviews on VHT Paints #SP152

Thanks for that tip. I was looking for the right touchup paint to hit the injectors and a couple bare spots. Cleaned up nicely after all the work done but could use a few shots. I'll grab some next time I see an auto parts store.