Engine Overheating Baseline Assessment

[Maine Sail]

Hi All,

In the past few months there have been a rash of "engine overheat" topics here, and elsewhere, and I finally had a chance to photograph how I get a temperature baseline of my engine for potential future over heating events.

"Why the heck would I want to trouble shoot something before it's broken?"

The reason for doing this is because without knowing how your engine operates, and what the actual temps are of various points in your cooling system, it's nearly impossible to aim a thermometer at say the the heat exchanger outlet port and guess that it's out of range or blocked.

I've posted another article to my web site that outlines how to do a temperature baseline assessment.

Doing this is easy and it will save you time and money when you do have an overheat situation. With boats it's not a matter of if but when. I do need to take a couple of more pics but needed my tripod in order to do so. I'll add them to the article after I take them.

Engine Temp Monitoring & Over Heating Baseline Assessment


P.S. You won't read about this trick in the books..

[Melrna]

When I bought my boat during the survey the overheat alarm went off at high RPM. My surveyor took out the temperature instrument you show in the photograph and instantly found the cause. It was the in the mixing manifold. It was a quick fix, Yammar had a recall on the mixing manifold as being to small. Yammar sent out a replacement in two days and I was back in business.
Another good use for it is to troubleshoot air conditioners. Taking the reading of input vs output air. There should be 20 degree difference.
I can think of a few other uses for it but I will reserve those for "Off Topic" section.