Running Westerbeke by jon

Happy Thanksgiving Everyone, I’ll let Arline tell you all about the parties and good times, but here’s the latest on the motor.




Well the injectors were ready on Monday and after a few errands we got back to the boat by 3:00. I finished installing them and a few other last minute items on the engine and wanted to try and get it to run just for a moment. We were scheduled to go into the water on Tuesday and then there was another schedule conflict. It was the beginning of parties here at Indiantown. Tonight the Steel Drum Band was starting at 5:00 and we missed that last year. So for half an hour I primed the system with the fuel boss, and tried to get it to run. I could only get it to run if I put fuel into it from above and then only till the fuel was gone. And the Steel Drum Band was warming up, so I’d have to wait till tomorrow.



1st thing at it had the same results and just couldn’t get it running. Now I’m getting nervous and it was our turn to be put into the water. We pulled Kasidah around the corner to her dock space and I jumped back at it. I thought I should check from the start so as not to miss anything. So I removed the fuel line from the engine at the injector pump and placed a coffee can under it to catch the fuel. I turned the pump on there was my problem,….WATER, no fuel just frigging water. Checking the fuel separator confirmed it was full of water. I pulled about a gallon of water out before good fuel started to flow, I cleaned the separator and fuel filter blew the lines out, then I only needed to get the water out of the injector pump. Now I’m sure the motor was running when we put her away in the spring so I was worried about the pump having water in it all summer. That would have been real bad! So on a recommendation from the guy who rebuilt the injectors, I sprayed WD-40 in the pump where fuel should have been and all the water came blowing out. (Did you know the WD in WD-40 stands for Water Displacement). A little more priming and bleeding and in 2 minutes it was running. It runs cool and never idled as nice.