[MarkofSeaLife]

Have you wasted big money on the wrong solution??

Cruising world wide theres different propane/Butane and mix or propane and butane in different countries... and the regulators and fittings are different. Though you can put Butane in a propane cylinder (or visa versa) many countries dont allow it, don't have the fittings, or only do Swap-and-Go.

So... I have a full UK Propane tank in reserve that I will not use before heading to sea.
My French Butane/Propane mix tank is called CampinGaz.
Thursday night just at the end of cooking dinner I saw the flame drop so the tank is empty. I changed to a new full CampingGaz cylinder and turned the stove on briefly to make sure its worked. Maybe 10 seconds (remember these facts, Sherlock!!!!!!!!!!!!)
Next morning turn the stove on and just a spluttery flame comes out. I think it must be some air bubbles in the hose and run it for a few seconds with GF worrying about gas smell.

I decide the tank must be at fault, check it and the rubber O Ring looks different to the old bottle. I walk them both to the shop and get 2 full ones.
Back to the boat, new gas bottle on and same thing happens!!!!! Bad flame on each element and in the oven.
It "can't" be the same problem with 2 different gas bottles!!
Might it be the Regulator?
It "can't" be 2 problems occurring at the exact same time.
OMG the $1,000 stove is kaput?????
To check the the stove is bust I plumb the UK Propane cylinder in and it works!!!!!!!
Thus it MUST be the regulator. No problem they are about $14.
But thats the OLD regulator. France/EU has gone to an new $120 regulator!!!
Which needs new connections!!! $30.
So I pay out my money...
So I plumb the new Regulator in. Same fault!!!!!!!!! Gas is wrong, spluttery, unsafe etc etc etc.

Its different gas bottles.
Stove is OK as the UK Propane worked on it
Same fault with both regulators. so the regulators are not the problem.

You worked it out yet??

The 2 CampinGaz tanks filled in the same batch have both be overfilled giving a higher gas pressure through the regulators (!!) and causing the spluttering.
Solution: Hold the button in for 10 minutes and keep the cigarette lighter on until some gas is used...

A waste of half a day, 4 trips to the marine shop and about US$160

Make me feel better with your disaster story

Mark

 

[Minnewaska]

That's brutal. I always understood that different gases require a different orifice at the burner itself. I understand it's to properly mix air and fuel. Was your new stove designed to burn either interchangeably? I have no experience with butane aboard.

I'll try to think of a good juicy, make you feel better, example. I've had more occasions than I can count, where I've thrown a new part or repair at something, that didn't actually fix the problem. It's usually because I have enough knowledge to repair, but not enough to diagnose. On the other hand, I had the most reputable Volvo mechanic incorrectly diagnose a problem and tried something else that didn't work. I then personally changed out the injectors, which I thought was the problem, and fixed it. Goes both ways. Diagnosis is always the hardest part.

[p.s. I'll get you those pics I owe you later today.]

 

[capta]

We finally installed a gas stove top. 4 burners, no genset, real sweet.
Everything went fine, but I ended up with two regulators, one for my very old, but never used, lay down alloy propane tank and one for the 2 French upright tanks that were available in Bequia at the time we did the install.
When we switched out the first empty for a full one, the flame would not hold steady or get above a flicker. We tried everything including hooking up the US tank and regulator (thinking perhaps as it was larger, it had more pressure?), but fortunately for our wallets, it was evening. We woke up the next morning and poof, the stove worked perfectly. Same thing happens every time now, but we've found it just takes some time for the gas to fill the line. It is a pretty long line.

 

[Don L]

But hey, your tanks are full.

 

[MikeOReilly]

What's really amazing to me is that all of that took you only a 1/2 day. For me that would have been a week-long odyssey .

 

[BarryL]

Hey,

My story: Motoring into my home port. I look behind and steam is coming out of the exhaust. Engine is overheating big time. I make it in to my mooring and do some checking. All of the coolant is gone. Hmmm. Strange. Do some diagnosis and learn that the water heater has failed and allowed all of the coolant to leak out. Change water heater, add new coolant. Run engine and it overheats. Hmmm. I do some more checking and then the coolant lines to the new water pop off and again I lose all of the coolant. I fix that and the engine overheats again. Now I check some more and I determine that coolant is not flowing through the system. So I change the thermostat. No difference. Eventually I realized the problem was just an air bubble in the cooling system. Once I solved that there were no more issues. Fortunately a thermostat is pretty cheap and so were the few gallons of coolant I had to buy.

Barry

 

[hpeer]

Kerosene. 😊

 

[davidpm]

Funny you brought up Propane.
My friend bought a special horizontal aluminum propane tank. He took it to the local hardware and they could not fill it so he returned it to WM and bought two more thinking he should have a spare as it was going to be used for heat.

I volunteered to take tanks in to be filled. Neither would take any gas. These are $400 each 20 Gal tanks with a standard grill type fill and a large connection I didn't know what it was for.

I figured it couldn't be a problem with two brand new tanks so I look for a propane store. I use Google maps and find suburban propane. I get to the place and there is no Suburban propane but a Tractor Supply. The TS guy said my tanks were not legal because they did not have a bleed screw so he wouldn't fill them.

I find a commercial propane dealer and take the tanks in. A really rough and tough lady decides I should have bled the tanks because they were new but she couldn't because she smelled gas due to the prior attempt to fill.
She filled one tank with the extra-large fitting but recommend I return both tanks. Apparently, there is a large and small fitting. This was after she slammed the tank down on the concrete because sometimes the valve gets stuck.

Near the beginning of this process, I had called the manufacture and they said it was probably a stuck valve but they took my number.

I took the tanks back and recommend we just buy a cheap steel horizontal tank for less than a hundred from amazon.

A day or so later I get a call from the factory.
1. The tanks have to be purged otherwise they will take some gas but not well.
2. The small valve is one-way only. You can not fill it with that valve so it does not have a bleed screw.
3. You have to fill it with the large fitting and it does have a bleed screw.

No one knew about the existence of a one-way valve. Not the hardware guy, nor the TS guy or the first couple of factory guys or the propane lady.

A couple of weeks later I'm telling my friend about this disaster and I get halfway through the story and he says. Well you know it has a one-way valve.

 

[roverhi]

Powering back to the marina in the Oakland Estuary suddenly getting steam in the cabin and out the exhaust. No fun trouble shooting as the Estuary is busy on the weekend with not only private boats but ferries, CG Cutters and huge container ships. I'm solo so diving down below to check engine then jumping back in the cockpit isn't fun. Discover the coolant has boiled out. Dumped a gallon of coolant in the engine and nursed it back to the slip at idle.

Seemed like every complaint I'd heard about cooling issues on Yanmars was caused by the exhaust mixing elbow clogging up so I knew that was the problem. Nearly two C notes later and I'm ready to fix the problem. Bought a new mixing elbow and pulled the exhaust off the engine. No problem but couldn't unscrew the elbow from the short threaded pipe or the pipe from the manifold casting. No problem, buy a bigger pipe wrench. Still no joy. Add a cheater bar, still no movement. Time to call in the cavalry at a $100 an hour. A little acetylene, huge vice, equal sized pipe wrench, two foot cheater pipe and it finally comes apart.

All is good but no, still no raw cooling water. Get on the phone trying to locate a raw water pump while the mechanic continued to trouble shoot. Before I could find a pump the mechanic says to hang up. He'd pulled the hose off the coolant water sea cock and no water was coming out. A little work with a screw driver and flow was restored.

15 minutes with a screw driver would have saved me $500 but I did have nifty new big pipe wrench and a shiny new mixing elbow.

 

[sesmith]

In my case it didn't require money, just time. Last spring, when recommissioning the fresh water system after winterizing, the water pump quit running. I was pumping the tanks dry with the pump (rather than just dumping the water into the bilge).

I tapped on the pump a couple of times and it briefly came back to life. Convinced it was a pump motor problem, I removed the pump, disassembled the motor, cleaned the brushes and commutator, and put it back together.

Still no water...hmmm. That's when I thought to try turning on the sink faucet in the head. Plenty of water there. Kitchen faucet aerator had plugged with crap. Now if I only had thought of troubleshooting things the right way first. Thank goodness nothing leaked after my journey to the inner dimensions of the water pump.

 

[Barquito]

Had some part that needed to be replaced on my Atomic 4 engine. I am willing to try, but, pretty stupid when it comes to engines (and most other things). I hired a mechanic to look at it. He got whatever part it was replaced that was the problem. We launched the boat the next day. Now it wouldn't start at all. By some stoke of good luck (or maybe an actual TIA), I realized the mechanic had put the ignition wires back on in the wrong firing order. Pop-Pop-Pop-Pop, and we were back in business.

 

[PhilCarlson]

I once replaced a starter in my Jeep Cherokee. Not a difficult job but since it was winter in Minnesota and the breakdown took place at the bank late in the evening and being broke and I absolutely couldn't miss work the next day, it was necessary to fix it in place immediately (those were the days when my tools, including a jack-stand, lived in my car). The job itself took a little less time than the walk to the parts store, and a little more time than the conversation with that nice deputy that stopped by to see just what I was doing under a jeep in the bank parking lot at 10PM in 25F weather.

Turned out that it was my battery cable, not my starter.