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Valve seals or oil control rings?


frahkn

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My 14 year old Beta 43 has started smoking, in has not done this since I purchased the boat nearly 4 years ago.

It doesn't smoke tick-over but begins at about 11,000 rpm, gets worse from about 13,000 but then stays the same, as far as I can tell. The smoke is a mixture of grey and black, it is not a great deal (the exhaust is in the roof) and doesn't attract attention but the point is, it never smoked before. It has never used oil between services and strangely, still doesn't appear to be doing so.

One mechanic has suggested sticking valve seals but someone else says it is probably the oil control rings.

Is there anyway to find out without stripping the engine down - this would be expensive because I could not tackle the job and access is very poor? Are there other potential explanations?

Frank.

 

 

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12 minutes ago, frahkn said:

My 14 year old Beta 43 has started smoking, in has not done this since I purchased the boat nearly 4 years ago.

It doesn't smoke tick-over but begins at about 11,000 rpm, gets worse from about 13,000 but then stays the same, as far as I can tell. The smoke is a mixture of grey and black, it is not a great deal (the exhaust is in the roof) and doesn't attract attention but the point is, it never smoked before. It has never used oil between services and strangely, still doesn't appear to be doing so.

One mechanic has suggested sticking valve seals but someone else says it is probably the oil control rings.

Is there anyway to find out without stripping the engine down - this would be expensive because I could not tackle the job and access is very poor? Are there other potential explanations?

Frank.

 

 

Neither, I would say. Fuel more like. Air filter, injectors dripping, need servicing, nozzles need cleaning, injection timing.  Try a good dose of diesel engine fuel system cleaner in the tank.

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One other explanation could be poor injector spray pattern (Bizzard posted as I wrote that).

Exhaust smoke colour is nowhere near as clear cut as the white = vaporized fuel/steam, blue = burning oil, black = excess fuel/not enough air thing implies.

I think the OP has added extra zeros to his speed. If not its the engine internals breaking up. :D

I would swear my Bukh  produces blue smoke on idle yet it burns no oil, I am sure its black caused by insufficient swirl at low speed.

 

 

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I reckon it must be a gas turbine to rev like that. Contact Rolls Royce aero engines Derby if its a ''Trent'' engine, they had oil leak explosions which nearly brought down a Quantas Airbus A 380. They've fixed em now though, of course.

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38 minutes ago, frahkn said:

My 14 year old Beta 43 has started smoking, in has not done this since I purchased the boat nearly 4 years ago.

It doesn't smoke tick-over but begins at about 11,000 rpm, gets worse from about 13,000 but then stays the same, as far as I can tell. The smoke is a mixture of grey and black, it is not a great deal (the exhaust is in the roof) and doesn't attract attention but the point is, it never smoked before. It has never used oil between services and strangely, still doesn't appear to be doing so.

One mechanic has suggested sticking valve seals but someone else says it is probably the oil control rings.

Is there anyway to find out without stripping the engine down - this would be expensive because I could not tackle the job and access is very poor? Are there other potential explanations?

Frank.

 

 

Hardly surprising it smokes at 11000 rpm. 

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1 hour ago, frahkn said:

My 14 year old Beta 43 has started smoking, in has not done this since I purchased the boat nearly 4 years ago.

It doesn't smoke tick-over but begins at about 11,000 rpm, gets worse from about 13,000 but then stays the same, as far as I can tell. The smoke is a mixture of grey and black, it is not a great deal (the exhaust is in the roof) and doesn't attract attention but the point is, it never smoked before. It has never used oil between services and strangely, still doesn't appear to be doing so.

One mechanic has suggested sticking valve seals but someone else says it is probably the oil control rings.

Is there anyway to find out without stripping the engine down - this would be expensive because I could not tackle the job and access is very poor? Are there other potential explanations?

Frank.

 

 

Grey black smoke is usually an over fuelling problem, oil smoke would be blue. I would be looking at the injectors. Maybe simply a blocked or collapsed air filter. Try removing the air filter and running the engine.

Edited by Flyboy
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If it was valve seals then I would expect smoke at start-up where oil has run down the valve stems into the combustion chamber, but yours is ok at idle getting worse as rpm increases.  As said already, if burning excess fuel it might be too much fuel/poor spray pattern or not enough air.  Check for obstructions in the air intake starting with the filter.

As an aside I used to be involved with vehicle warranty and we got a call from a dealer about intermittent loss of power and lots of smoke, he checked for fault codes etc and had given up.  So we sent a guy to have a look.  Turned out the the owner used an old pair of Y fronts for dipstick wiping which had become sucked into the air filter.  So it is worth checking for air flow obstructions :lol:, not very often, but it does happen.

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You can get injector cleaner from Halfords.  It may clean up bad injectors, I've used in cars and it sometimes works and does no harm to try.  If you go to low revs and throttle up hard - does the smoke go black as the load comes on - another sign of bad injectors.   Very unlikely to be valve seals as others have said as they leak oil into the cylinders when stationary and you get loads at start up as it burns off and then goes away.

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4 hours ago, Flyboy said:

Hardly surprising it smokes at 11000 rpm. 

I think that one went over most folk's head Flyboy, although Bizzard didn't miss the rpm issue with his turbine quip.  Maybe Japanese motorcycle engines are in more canal boats than we thought? :)

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Thanks everybody, I will try injector cleaner and look at the air filter.

I wii report back when I have some results.

Sorry about the extra zero - that's the second time I've made that error on this site!

Can I add a question - I have recently used a diesel bug 'cure' in my fuel as I had the bug in the Refleks heater filter (which is fed from the same tank). Could this have had anything to do with the smoke problem, do you think?

 

Frank.

Edited by frahkn
diesel bug
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19 hours ago, frahkn said:

My 14 year old Beta 43 has started smoking, in has not done this since I purchased the boat nearly 4 years ago.

It doesn't smoke tick-over but begins at about 11,000 rpm, gets worse from about 13,000 but then stays the same, as far as I can tell. The smoke is a mixture of grey and black, it is not a great deal (the exhaust is in the roof) and doesn't attract attention but the point is, it never smoked before. It has never used oil between services and strangely, still doesn't appear to be doing so.

One mechanic has suggested sticking valve seals but someone else says it is probably the oil control rings.

Is there anyway to find out without stripping the engine down - this would be expensive because I could not tackle the job and access is very poor? Are there other potential explanations?

Frank.

" Cor" not surprised it smokes at those revs I would have thought it would have "Thrown a leg out of bed before it reaches those dizzy heights" ( Think 1 '0' to many) :lol:

 

 

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Smoke from less than perfect combustion is greyish (very diluted black?) and in many sunlight conditions can look very similar to blue smoke (burning oil).

There is a school of thought that giving the engine a good thrash from time to time will often help. Narrowboat engines spend most of their life doing very little and so getting full of soot, they are happier when working harder.

................Dave

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19 minutes ago, dmr said:

Smoke from less than perfect combustion is greyish (very diluted black?) and in many sunlight conditions can look very similar to blue smoke (burning oil).

There is a school of thought that giving the engine a good thrash from time to time will often help. Narrowboat engines spend most of their life doing very little and so getting full of soot, they are happier when working harder.

................Dave

Barrus actually recommend that every 50 hours you run the engine at full throttle in gear for 15 minutes. Finding somewhere suitable to do this on a canal would be difficult though, maybe in a full lock with the gates open.

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I can't see a problem with running an engine in gear whilst stationary, driving forwards. If the bows are tied securely to the bank, just put the tiller over so that the stern end moves out into mid stream where the prop wash can't erode the bank and tie or hold it in that position. Just keep a look out for boats coming along.

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48 minutes ago, Flyboy said:

Barrus actually recommend that every 50 hours you run the engine at full throttle in gear for 15 minutes. Finding somewhere suitable to do this on a canal would be difficult though, maybe in a full lock with the gates open.

Yes...that's exactly how its done.

..................Dave

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On 4/20/2017 at 09:30, Flyboy said:

Barrus actually recommend that every 50 hours you run the engine at full throttle in gear for 15 minutes. Finding somewhere suitable to do this on a canal would be difficult though, maybe in a full lock with the gates open.

OK, I'll change the air filter now, I have a spare on board.

Next town I'll get some injector cleaner - might need a fair bit as I have nearly a full tank of fuel (350 litres or so).

In some lock, far from civilisation, I'll try the full revs thing. Only thing is, if going up in a full lock surely the gate will just open; if going down I'm just adding to water pressure on the gates?

The fuel filter is new, I changed it and the agglomerator thingy when I put the diesel bug treatment in.

Anyway, I'll report the results.

 

Frank.

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1 hour ago, frahkn said:

OK, I'll change the air filter now, I have a spare on board.

Next town I'll get some injector cleaner - might need a fair bit as I have nearly a full tank of fuel (350 litres or so).

In some lock, far from civilisation, I'll try the full revs thing. Only thing is, if going up in a full lock surely the gate will just open; if going down I'm just adding to water pressure on the gates?

The fuel filter is new, I changed it and the agglomerator thingy when I put the diesel bug treatment in.

Anyway, I'll report the results.

 

Frank.

Go in a lock that's descending, leave it full with the top gate open,. There's no way the bottom gates can open as they open inwards.

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1 hour ago, frahkn said:

OK, I'll change the air filter now, I have a spare on board.

Next town I'll get some injector cleaner - might need a fair bit as I have nearly a full tank of fuel (350 litres or so).

In some lock, far from civilisation, I'll try the full revs thing. Only thing is, if going up in a full lock surely the gate will just open; if going down I'm just adding to water pressure on the gates?

The fuel filter is new, I changed it and the agglomerator thingy when I put the diesel bug treatment in.

Anyway, I'll report the results.

 

Frank.

A quick way to give the injector pump and injectors a good clean is to remove the micro fuel filter on the engine, tip out half the diesel fuel and top right up with neat diesel fuel system cleaner, replace and run the engine for half hour at highish revs. The same could be done with a pre-filter near the tank, if so do that one first. A little bleeding may be needed. Did this a lot with diesel road vehicles a lot to pass the MOT, works wonders.

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Right, first results for you all to ponder.

Removed old air filter (it was complete). It was very dirty and oily - see below.

Left the filter off completely i.e. did not put new one on. This made no difference whatever to the smoke, everything was as described in my first post.

However I have noticed (with and without the filter) that the smoking grows less - doesn't stop but is less - after the engine has been running under load for about 2 hours.

I don't understand the oily filter. The engine is cocooned and is in the bathroom! the gearbox then extends below a double bulkhead (which hides the exhaust as it goes to the roof and hospital silencer) and the drive is under the bed in the back cabin. There is an extractor fan for the alternators but nowhere really for the air filter to pick up oil.

Tomorrow I'll replace the air filter and try to get some injector cleaner to try.

Frank.

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If the crank case breather is choked up and there is a tube between say the valve cover and air filter unit ''there to consume its own crank case emissions'' this would foul up the air filter if the c/c breather is choked.

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2 hours ago, frahkn said:

Right, first results for you all to ponder.

Removed old air filter (it was complete). It was very dirty and oily - see below.

Left the filter off completely i.e. did not put new one on. This made no difference whatever to the smoke, everything was as described in my first post.

However I have noticed (with and without the filter) that the smoking grows less - doesn't stop but is less - after the engine has been running under load for about 2 hours.

I don't understand the oily filter. The engine is cocooned and is in the bathroom! the gearbox then extends below a double bulkhead (which hides the exhaust as it goes to the roof and hospital silencer) and the drive is under the bed in the back cabin. There is an extractor fan for the alternators but nowhere really for the air filter to pick up oil.

Tomorrow I'll replace the air filter and try to get some injector cleaner to try.

Frank.

Possibly excessive crankcase pressure forcing oil back past the piston rings.

Is there a crankcase vent breather or crankcase vent filter that is blocked? 

 

Edit - cross posted with Bizzard.

Edited by cuthound
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