One thing, HBH - no spark plugs or tune up needed on a diesel
generator (see first line of Keith's original post).
Keith - on a diesel, the very first place I'd suspect is clogged
filters and/or water in the fuel. What kind of filters do you have?
Diesel fuel injectors are *exceedingly* intolerant of contaminants;
they're built to hundred-thousand inch tolerances, and any crud will
make them run bad or not at all. Virtually all problems with diesel
engines are traceable to fuel -- that is, unless the motor is soooooo
tired that it won't make enough compression to ignite the fuel. But
you'd have had a lot of warning that you were getting to that point -
lots of smoke, unburned fuel smell, etc.
First and foremost, you must determine what kind of genset you have.
Odds are you have an Onan or Kohler. What color is it painted? Look
around on the set, there should be a plate that gives manufacturer,
model number and serial number. Is there a generator owner's manual
that came with your boat?
I don't mean to sound like a schmuck (which is what someone says when
he's about to), but I'm surprised you don't know what kind of
equipment your boat has -- especially since I infer from your post
that you've had the boat for a while ("it had been a trusted and
rather dependable unit for a long time"). Anyway, find out what
you've got, and find a service manual for it (eBay is a great
source). If the manufacturer plate is missing, start poking around
and look for decals, tags, even a name cast into the cylinder block.
If you totally can't ID the generator, take a bunch of photos from
different angles and post them. Oh - post them somewhere that people
can access them. I tried to look at your link and got a "403 - Access
Denied" error message. I'm supposed to be signed in to look at that
photo, and of course, I can't sign in to your account. I did a search
for "Ramlin'" in Webshots, and got somebody's wedding; then I searched
for "Uniflite" and found a boat up in the San Juan's that might be
yours, but it's called the "It'll Do." So I couldn't tell.
Once you ID the generator, pick up a service manual for it. Even
though there are fewer things the average owner can do on a diesel
without specialized tools, the service manual will tell you how to get
things apart and back together, which can save you some dough. Like
if you need to have the injectors or injector pump tested, you can
pull them and take them to a shop rather than paying someone to do
it. However, if you're not confident of your mechanical abilities, do
NOT screw around with a diesel engine. Gas engines are much more
forgiving of ham-fisted repairs than diesels are, and the financial
consequences of screwing up are much more serious with a diesel than a
gas motor.
The most important thing you can do yourself is to replace all your
filters, and if the filters are original, consider replacing with a
high-quality Racor or other name brand water separator/filter.
Remember to re-fill the filters with fuel and try to get all the air
out of the lines. You'll have to crack the lines to the injectors and
purge all the air before it will run.
That's about all you can do without specialized equipment - the next
step is to pull the injectors and take them to a diesel repair shop
and have them checked for spray pattern and clogged nozzles; you need
a special test bench for this. Don't try to bend the metal fuel tube
from the injector pump to the injector, it's not designed to bend
much, just enough to pull the injector out. If the injectors are
okay, you may have a problem with the injector pump itself, if it got
some crud in it.
Water in a diesel fuel system is extraordinarily bad; you should have
a water separating filter that needs routine replacement or a
separator bowl on the filter that needs routine draining. One water
gets to the injector pump or injectors, it's only a short time before
they're ruined. On a diesel, filter replacement and water draining is
the equivalent of the spark plugs/tune up on a gas motor: routine
maintenance that cannot be overlooked.
Good luck
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