Mysterious system fault warning

[Unhooked]

I just had the system fault warning coming up on my Volvo penta (perkins) d1-20. But she's starting nicely, no bad Sounds and all seem to be working well. Any thoughts on this? I suspect that the warning occured after crew member accidebtly turned of the engine with ignition Button instead if stop Button. We don't know if that's the Case, but it's hypothesis at least.
Any way to check this system fault warning myself?

Sent from my SGP321 using Cruisers Sailing Forum mobile app

[GordMay]

See pages 23 & 25 of the Manual
➥ http://www.liveantares.com/pdf/Manua...al-reduced.pdf

[DougR]

As indicated in the owners manual attached by Gordon May, the "system fault" warning in the Volvo Penta D1/D2 electrical system is designed to inform the owner that there is a fault in the system wiring. This could be something as simple as one of the harness Deutch connectors coming loose, or perhaps a chafed or broken wire. You should check all the wiring connectors and wires on the engine and the harnesses from the engine to the button panel and tachometer.

If everything checks good and the system fault clears itself, you should be good to go.

DougR

[Jim Cate]

Hey, I bet that the thing is programmed to come on at random times for no good reason. Think of the revenue stream this generates for Volvo and their minions!

Jim

[DougR]

The black box is programmed to do lots of neat things, but auto-start isn't one of them.

From other recent posts here it appears that Yanmar has a near monopoly on "auto-start" ....

DougR

[colemj]

Originally Posted by DougR

From other recent posts here it appears that Yanmar has a near monopoly on "auto-start" ....

I know of two Volvo's that started themselves. Both times were wiring shorts.

Mark

[Battuta]

Hi. I saw your post about a strange system fault on your Volvo D1-20, and I've had exactly the same thing for the last 3 days on my boat (2009 Bavaria 31). Engine is running well, and no obvious wire breaks or chafes, and I've disconnected and reconnected all the cable plugs but the fault alarm is continuing...

Did you end up solving what caused your problem?

Anyone else out there have any suggestions for how I can fix this?

[Unhooked]

Hi, yes I've solved it thanks to a really good Volvo dealer in Martinique. Frank Ågren is the super guru on Volvos.

When the ignition is turned on, there's a system check of the preheating plugs, if they don't respond there's an alarm. When the engine is started the warning goes away but when the engine is stopped, the system runs another check and since they don't respond there's a new warning.

Other common fault is the engine management box, which I understand is much more common. Maybe also my box is damaged but for now I'm happy to have changed the plugs and got away with the alarm. You can check if the work yourself by removing them, plug them into wires in a serie, and plug that in to a battery.

Good luck!

[Battuta]

Hi Unhooked,

Thanks so much for this helpful information. After a lot of troubleshooting, it appears that the root cause of my problem was the same as yours...glow plugs!

Last week I had a very difficult engine start that made it clear, as did some subsequent testing with a multimeter, that the glow plugs were not functioning and were not being supplied any power. I initially thought the problem was with the "black box" CPU for the EVC system (an $850 item), as it has a non-serviceable relay in it that sends power to the plugs. Turns out though that the EVC unit actually tests the circuit on start-up, and if it detects an open circuit, it triggers the vague "system fault" alarm (and presumably will not then send power to the plugs when the button is depressed even after the alarm is silenced). How though, you might ask, could all 3 glow plugs burn out simultaneously to lead to this situation? Well the answer, I think, is that they did not. Rather they likely failed sequentially over months or even years (and I had noticed the cold weather starts were getting more difficult), but only when the 3rd and final one burned out did the mysterious alarm go off. One way to test this theory is simply to ground the current bar (supplying the positive power) to the glow plugs when a system fault alarm goes off, and when I did this the alarm silenced (as the open circuit was eliminated). And so with this presumptive diagnosis in mind I went ahead and pulled all the glow plugs and discovered that they all had infinite resistance on ohmmeter testing, and none of them lit up when hooked directly to 12v power.

So 3 new glow plugs have been ordered, and the problem is hopefully solved! If things STILL aren't working after this, I may need to replace that EVC black box after all, but hopefully not.

Needless to say, even the electrical workshop manual for the Volvo EVC system does not explicitly explain the possibility of what I've described above. Gotta love all that fancy electronics - it's wonderful until something goes wrong and then the troubleshooting can be quite problematic to say the least!

Thanks again for your help with this.

-RA