Westerbeke Generator Non-Functional

[mjmiron]

Hi all,

Just wondering if anyone has a guess what may be the problem with my genset.
I was out in a large tie-up last Friday on the St. Croix River and a freak T-storm came down and threw 60-70 mph winds at us. Needless to say pretty everyone's anchors gave in and boats were flying everywhere. I ended up with a 6' john boat slamming between my SB stern and the 40' Chris Craft tied to me. The john boat was on it's side half sunk and ended up sinking. So during this debacle I started my engines to have some control of the boat and an alarm started going off and my generator dummy light came on. I turned it off and kinda forgot about it during the mayhem. Went to turn it on the next day and it sounded quite loud (exaust loud) and would not carry a load. I turned it off and I am now looking to pursue service that I fear will take way too long to fix.
Just curious if anyone has an idea if boats crashing together fiercely would cause damage to a specific area associated with the genset. I am pretty sure it is a 7.0 Westerbeke

Thanks for reading and your input.

p.s. no body was serioulsy hurt in the 60+ boat tie-up...no idea how. Lots of boats damaged though.

 

[aquadancer]

Glad to hear nobody got hurt. Raft ups and storms usually don't mix well.

Loud and hollow exhaust sound usually suggests low or no cooling water flow. Perhaps you got blown into shallow water and sucked up some sand which is clogging your strainer or killed your genny impleller. Check cooling water flow and clean strainer / replace impleller as needed. Your genny impeller is easy to access (I had a 98 370DA).

Hope this helps.

 

[RollerCoastr]

The symptoms of alarm and loud exhaust are inline with a lack of cooling water, typically a clogged sea-strainer or bad impeller, or now both.

When you started it back up, did you check for the discharge of cooling water in the exhaust?

This doesn't explain why it won't carry a load however...

Hopefully your problem is actually 2 simple problems at the same time (not a blown gasket or something worse)

Independently, the most common reason for a gas genny to not carry a load is fouled plugs. A 7KW Westerbeke running on 2 of 3 cylinders is easy to diagnose. It will produce about 95 volts, sound rough, and the discharge water will be milky and will smell lightly of gasoline. If that's the case, change the plugs, make sure you run it with a LOAD from now on, and you'll be good to go.

 

[mjmiron]

Thank you for your input. I went down to the tub last night and checked the strainer and it was mostly clear. I did not check the impeller but will this weekend. Any chance that I sucked air into the system and that is causing a stopage of raw water flow? There were 2-4' waves crashing into my stern that may have lifted my stern up and allowed air to enter the system through the intake. The strainer was full of water.
I started it yesterday and it did carry a load but ejected water for couple of seconds and it was very limited in volume. I stared smelling rubber burning, which did not seem good, so I shut it down.
Thanks again for your assistance.

 

[Cocktail Time]

From what it sounds, and smells like, you need to replace your impeller. Could have just been coincidence it went out when it did.

 

[mjmiron]

Thanks for all the input and suggestions. I replaced, what appeared to be, the original intact impeller. Still had no water moving through. :huh: Decided to close the sea cock and remove the hose from that point and jam a wire hanger through the hull and here pops out a mike and ike size piece of wood.
Everything is back to normal and I now have a brand spankin' new impeller. :smt038

It was 92 and quite humid Saturday so the wife and five other guests, aboard for the night, were quite excited fot the AC.

Happy Boating!

 

[Hampton]

Well done.