Maintenance All Articles

Maintenance All Articles

Trouble-shooting an overheating boat engine By \| Posted April 2011 Question: I have a 1990 Carver Yacht with two 375-hp Caterpillar 3208 diesels. The starboard engine works fine, but at 2000 rpm the port engine overheats. Once the temperature... Read Article	Garmin’s Tip of the month - March 2011 By \| Posted March 2011 To keep plug-in-type low-voltage chargers for electronics sorted so you don’t inadvertently use an incompatible charger on a pricey piece of equipment, put a dot of nail polish on... Read Article
Bilge Pump Early-Warning System By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted March 2011 Just the other day, I received in the mail a device called a BW8 Bilge Pump Activity Monitor from British manufacturer Celectron. Manufacturers occasionally send me products in... Read Article	Seasonal Storage For Fuel Tanks By \| Posted March 2011 Question: When I took your one-day Introductory Diesel Maintenance Course several years ago, I forgot to ask one question: What is the best way to lay up a fuel tank for... Read Article
Aluminum in engine oil By \| Posted February 2011 Question: I just did my first oil analysis on my Cummins 6BTA diesel, and the results seem somewhat disconcerting. According to the report, there was aluminum in the oil at... Read Article	Dinghy Replacement By Capt. Bill Pike Photos by Jeffe... \| Posted February 2011 Recently, I underwent a profoundly meaningful conversion experience and, like a whole passel of converts before me, I’m hot in the heels to share it with the world. The... Read Article
The Ultimate Upgrade By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted January 2011 Disaster struck at seven o’clock on a wintry North Florida morning. Tim Martin and his buddies were idling along in Martin’s seasoned battlewagon, 30 miles offshore,... Read Article	Caterpillar 3208 low rpm By \| Posted January 2011 Question: I have a 1989 Sea Ray with 375-hp Caterpillar 3208 diesels. Last year I overheated one of them and blew a head gasket. Overheating had been a problem for some... Read Article
Onan genset spewing black smoke By \| Posted December 2010 Question: I have a 4-kW Marine Onan genset with 600 hours on it. If I let it run for a lengthy period it produces so much black smoke that a residue discolors the hull around the... Read Article	Checking and changing your galvanic isolator By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted December 2010 Now and again, I serendipitously stumble across an onboard problem well before it snowballs into something expensive. For example, I was recently talking with my industrial-... Read Article
Noisy Engines By \| Posted November 2010 Question: I have a pair of Detroit Diesel 6-71 TIBs in my 1990 Ocean 48 Super Sport. I love both the boat and the motors, but the Detroits have always been loud at the exhaust end... Read Article	Garmin’s Tip of the Month - November 2010 By \| Posted November 2010 To loosen a sticking oil filter that you can’t get to unscrew with a standard filter wrench; simply attach a hose clamp around the filter’s base, close and tighten it, and, after... Read Article
Labor of Love By Alyssa Haak Photos by Darle... \| Posted October 2010 The 30-foot Carver Santego was for sale and up on the hard. From a distance she looked gray and tan instead of her original white with navy and black trim with... Read Article	Twin Engine Temperature Disparity By \| Posted October 2010 Question: I have a 1994 Mainship 31 with a pair of 315-hp Yanmar diesels with 2,000 hours on them. While running at full throttle (about 33 knots) for five minutes, the starboard... Read Article
Algae On My Racor By \| Posted September 2010 Question: While performing routine maintenance on my Caterpillar C7, I was surprised to find a substance about the size of a quarter at the top of my Racor—it looked like... Read Article	Shaft Brush Boogie By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted September 2010 A cheap and easy way to prevent costly prop damage. Read Article
PMY TRIES... Nautic Air By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted July 2010 It was an interesting suggestion, really. Some weeks before, Heath Schuman of Nautic Air had UPS’d me an experimental version of his portable NA20 air purifier to temporarily try... Read Article	Battery Blasphemy? By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted April 2010 All batteries have terminals and cable connectors that need to be periodically cleaned, preferably with a battery brush. I’m guessing I’m in the same boat as a few... Read Article
Walker Engineering By Capt. Patrick S... \| Posted April 2010 Walker Engineering has been making diesels breathe better for more than two decades.I used to crew on a 43-foot sportfisherman that was powered with twin 625-hp Detroit Diesel 6V-... Read Article	Vinyl Fever By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted March 2010 It was astonishing, really—the near-total absence of useful information on the Internet concerning the renovation and/or replacement of marine vinyl cushions. Sure, there were... Read Article
Yacht Restoration By MiMi Yeh \| Posted November 2009 Any boatyard can refurbish an elderly vessel, but where do old yachts get new lives using traditional techniques? The answer is the Newport, Rhode Island-based International Yacht... Read Article	Professor Diesel By \| Posted November 2009 Q. I have a 2003 Sea Ray Sundancer 420 and am moving from the New York City area to Florida soon. Do I need to do anything different in Florida in terms of boat maintenance? I am... Read Article
Back to Basics By Capt. Grant Rafter Photos by Jeffe... \| Posted October 2009 Fort Lauderdale's International Yacht Training offers a true hands-on dieselengine course with small class sizes.Instructor Hartley MacDonald lectures to his students during an in... Read Article	Nautic Air Module - Got Allergies? By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted October 2009 As an unabashed booster for boats and boating, I’m a tad amazed to find myself admitting that we boaters have a wholly invisible but smelly problem: onboard air quality. Consider... Read Article
Jabsco Oil Changer By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted August 2009 When my buddy Bruce said he had a like-new Jabsco Porta Quick oil changer he’d give me for free, I was happy. When I discovered the unit sells for $209.99, I was ecstatic.The... Read Article	Toss the Sawzall! By Capt. Bill Pike \| Posted August 2009 So a guy walks into a boatyard and says, “Hey, I gotta have a bow thruster.” In a few days, an open-ended job begins, with the bill contingent upon the yard’s hourly rate,... Read Article

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