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Bertram31.com General Bulletin Board
Injector pump mystery
Posted By: Walter Kaprielian
Date: Wednesday, 18 May 2005, at 10:23 p.m.
At the end of last season my port Cummins 210 wouldn't shut down when I turned it off with the key. I had to manually pull the kill switch on the injector pump. When my mechanic went to check and pull out the shutoff solenoid we discovered it's tip was lodged inside the injector pump. He decided that since the injector pump had to be pulled, we might as well rebuild/clean/recalibrate it for the new season. That engine smoked at idle more than the starboard one and we weren't sure if it was the pump or a bad injector or two, but at anything more than idle, both ran perfectly on specs.
In April I had the Injector pump rebuilt, it had a worn shaft and got a healthy bill. We reinstalled it, and the engine still smoked at idle...perhaps even more, but Randall and I ran it the 20 or so miles from 3 Mile Harbor to Montauk at 20+ knots with no problems. We were going to pull the injectors last Thursday, but the Mechanic couldn't make it, so we went fishing on Saturday. The boat ran fine to the south side of Montauk with many starts and stops as per normal Fluke drifting.
On our return, cruising at 2400 rpm, about 300 yards from the inlet the port engine suddenly shut down. No sputtering, no roughness, just shut down.
I checked all my instruments, no overheating, etc. and limped in on one engine.At the dock I checked out the usual suspects.
Filters full, cracked the 10mm nut, cranked her and sprayed fuel. Cracked the injectors...nothing when I cranked her over. Took off the turbo pipe and spritzed a bit of ether in and she started right up and died when the ether stopped. I replaced the lift pump just in case it was faulty-nothing...no fuel to the injectors.We removed the pump again, and also the 6 injectors and drove the 80 miles to the rebuilder.
Sure enough, it was in the shut position. There was fine metal residue by the shutoff gate that he first said came from bad fuel. I Have both engines feeding from one tank. No problems with the other engine. The fuel passes through a brand new Racor filter then through a brand new secondary filter before it hits the injector pump. I fine-filtered the fuel I pumped up manually and it looks clean to me. He disassembled, cleaned and recalibrated the unit again for $297.50 and assured me that he saw no internal scoring or damage that could explain the residue. It tested well on the bench. Tomorrow it goes back on the engine...but I can't get a reason why it happened, which leaves me very insecure...and about $1500 poorer (and I haven't gotten my mechanic's bill yet). Six rebuilt injectors later, it better not smoke again.Any thoughts on why this happened? Doesn't make me feel good about going offshore until it's solved. Walter
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