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Changing from external coil to internal HEI? Catastrophic failure!!!!!

Once again, a boat is nothing more than a large hole you sink LOTS of cash into. :D

Sorry to hear about the misfortune. On a good note, at least the boat didn't catch fire from all that HOT oil being thrown everywhere.
 
yep, it's the positive note I've been trying to focus on, especially when there was 3 of us in the boat

it's all over the carpet, battery, exhaust, and anything else that's in under the hood
 
it happens.. sorry to hear.. was it a hose failure or the fitting? not uncommon for corroded fittings to fail...

I once had to put a pair of BB's in Joe Pesci's boat because it blew the oil lines from corroded fittings.. thats what happens when ya buy a boat that sank..


anyway, sorry to hear... hopefully the mills not hurt too bad...

oh, and just thought i'd mention, kinda moot now but, in all my yrs working on boats, and I am talking thousands of setups, I've never seen a vac advance dizzy in a boat.. strictly mechanical or computer.. there really is no purpose for it and it's definitely a potential corrosion/failpoint spot..

but obviously you've got bigger fish to fry now...

drop me a note if ya think i can be of any help... I do jobs like that on a daily basis, tho I'd be selling em a short block...
 
also, I know it's a little late now, but there are audible and kill systems that could be run to prevent EXACTLY that.. an audible low pressure alarm is standard on MANY boats... cheap....
 
yeah, thought about the alarm or kills switch after the fact. There's nothing on the blazer either.

How would I run something like that? The little sensor that is in the same port as the oil pressure sender. How does that work? Can I run it to my coil relay and have the relay lose ground/power or something when low pressure happens?
 
I wouldn't bother with the kill system, just do an audible alarm in the dash... a make/break, 4/5 oil switch and a water temp switch and the buzzer... plumb the oil switch to the NPT hole above the filter boss.. water temp, wherever you can put it...

it's just a make/break ground system... the alarm goes off when the key is on, and till the motor sees 4 psi... here's one..


http://www.amazon.com/Marine-Engine-Warning-Pres-Temp/dp/B000FOW3O2

you can also tie a light into it too, to give you a visual in the dash when the buzzer is going off...
 
btw..... just to elaborate on that Pesci story I mentioned... :whistle:


boat blows up, Pesci shows up at my shop to find out the damage.. comes walking up with a guy on each side of em, wifebeaters T's, gold chains, etc.. like a scene right out of a movie.... i had to chuckle to myself..

so I tell em what happened and the work the boat needs, and he goes, and ya gotta imagine this in that Joe Pesci voice, "Wha, you callin my boat a piece of sh*t?"

I still laugh everytime I remember it... it's my bro-in-law's fave story of all-time, he tells everyone about it to this day... he also does a killer Pesci impersonation which makes it quite comical...
 
You could hook it to the kill switch, but there are a couple of problems with doing that.
One is, you will have to hold down a bypass switch to crank the engine. My 100KW genset had a low oil pressure cutoff, and had a button you had to hold down while it was cranking until the pressure got up.
Perhaps a theft deterrent, but bad news if you are overboard and someone else is trying to crank the motor to come get you.

The other problem is this can cause the engine to suddenly stop without warning. Not a good thing on any vehicle, especially a boat. There are just too many situations where a loss of power is bad.
Such as cutting across in front of a line of barges. No problem as long as you are moving way faster than them and can give them plenty of clearance.

If you lose pressure at the wrong moment, the engine will still get you out of danger if you act immediately when the buzzer goes off.
If it just quits, then you have to figure out that its the oil pressure, press the button and then crank the motor before that big sloping front on the first barge sends you under.
 
K85 Octane said:
I got a quote of $1k to pull the motor and put it back in. I will be fixing the engine.
Click to expand...

Crappy news man, bummer, but you'll get it fixed. And a grand to pull the motor! Holy crap, it's much easier to pull the motor in a jet boat than a car, you can have it out in an hour. It's just some wires, a few hoses, etc. Piece of cake, easiest engine you'll ever pull. It only has one accessory (alternator). No fan, no power steering, no water pump, no AC, so simple. Do it yourself and save the cash man, you could buy about 6 cherry pickers with that much money.

And you could put a kill switch in with a low pressure switch and a relay by switching the ignition off, would probably cost less than $20 total, (and also hook the relay power up to the solenoid wire (starter engage) so it has ignition while cranking), however, like Fordum said, it can have bad consequences if a boat suddenly stalls underway. On the other hand, like you found out, if it loses oil pressure, it won't be long before it stalls anyway(unless your switch just went bad). So install at your own risk.


And Paul, that Pesci story does sound pretty funny. Was he serious? And was he mad or he just acts like that normally?
 
yeah, the only kill systems I ever see are on some of the high pony race boats.. the light and buzzer are usually plenty of warning...


Pesci... oh, he was dead serious.... he started out trying to be pissed, his 2 gumba bodyguards trying to look tough... very surreal... :haha:

by the time he left i was getting the " I preciate the honesty, etc, etc" from him.. never did get a tip tho! :doah: :whistle: :haha:

that boat was f*cked.. it had sank about 4 yrs earlier, prior to him buying it... he didn't know.... I had to rewire the whole battery system, 2 long blocks, tons of hoses and fittings, yada, yada....


Will Smith was an amazingly cool, down to earth dude for someone that's a gazillionaire... :bow:

Bon Jovi and Richie Sambora are anorexic little men... neither one is more than 110 pounds soaking wet.. nice guys tho....


iirc, I think those are my 15 minutes with fame... :haha:
 
yeah, I can see where losing power, especially in a jet boat, can be very bad. Enter a lake finger, try to whip a U turn and have it die in mid throttle, it would have shore written all over it.

I'm picking up that buzzer/ sensor pack, but from Ebay where it's cheaper.
I don't have a cherry picker and the one I rented before wont go high enough or long enough to grab the motor from the boat. The rear seat is also in the way and would have to be removed. I'm sure that's where the high price comes from, the extras needed, plus he would remove the engine and put the new one back and have it running for me, so there is time in that too.
 
K85 Octane said:
yeah, I can see where losing power, especially in a jet boat, can be very bad. Enter a lake finger, try to whip a U turn and have it die in mid throttle, it would have shore written all over it.

I'm picking up that buzzer/ sensor pack, but from Ebay where it's cheaper.
I don't have a cherry picker and the one I rented before wont go high enough or long enough to grab the motor from the boat. The rear seat is also in the way and would have to be removed. I'm sure that's where the high price comes from, the extras needed, plus he would remove the engine and put the new one back and have it running for me, so there is time in that too.
Click to expand...

Actually you have a rudder so it shouldn't be as big of a deal. However, high speed in a jet boat, if the engine dies and water flow is restricted then it can cause the boat to spin out of control. Some race jet boats have a safety piece that will allow the impeller to free spin if the engine stalls to prevent crashes.
 
This is my only boat oil pressure story.
I was in the Apalachicola river fishing about 10 years back.
I've got a 17.5 Ranger with a 150hp 2 cycle merc.
It'll run pretty good.

For those of you who have never experienced a good Fl. thunderstorm, you don't know what you are missing.
Hurricane force winds start at 75mph.

I've seen 120mph winds in some thunderstorms. Thats a class 2 hurricane. Plus I have seen lightning at night so bright and often you could read a newspaper by it.
Plus I have been through 6 hurricanes.

I looked down the river, and I was impressed. That was one bad looking storm and it was coming fast.
I started reeling in the line and pointed to the storm. My friend started reeling in too and asked if we could outrun it.

I cranked her up and started up the river. It was about 10 miles to the landing, and in just a short distance I was closing in on 70mph.
The fastest I had ever run that boat was about 60, but I had it doing all it could do. The tach was just on the redline, and I had it trimmed until there was not much in the water.

Suddenly I heard the motor change tone slightly. I have never understood how it can happen, but sometimes you can pick up a leaf on the prop. Normally I would stop and reverse the motor to clear it.
Not this time, I just kept running.
Suddenly I noticed that the RPMs were dropping slightly. I bumped the throttle, and it was all the way.
Motor dropped a little more RPMs, and something in my mind said trouble.

No alarms, just something felt bad.

Looked over at my friend, told him hang on.
Chopped the throttle, turned the key off.

The boat coasted on step a long way, but when it dropped off, the water came in over the stern and washed all the way to the bow.
I already had the bilge pump going. I wiped my glasses off, and looked back at the motor.
Greenish oil all over the water.
We were in sight of the landing, and another boat came and towed us in. We got the boat on the trailer and got in the truck just as the bottom fell out.

Finally it slacked off enough for us to see how to drive.
Monday I gave it to my Mercury dealer and told him what happened.
The guy who runs it is a factory trained mechanic.
I told him I was wondering why the oil alarm didn't go off.

A day or so later he called me up. He said that the oil line between the pump and the injection point had ruptured.
The alarm watches the pump on that motor, and the pump was working fine so the alarm did not go off.
He showed me the block. On one cylinder you could see a dull patch. He said he had never seen that before.
He said that the piston in that cylinder had started to seize just as I killed the motor. Normally the piston would seize and then carnage would ensue.
Somehow I had managed to stop the engine just before.

He acid washed that cylinder, replaced that piston and put in a bearing kit and its still going strong today.

A lot of folks disconnect the oil injection and just mix the gas and oil. I leave the injection hooked up, but I change that hose out each year and mix a small amount in the gas just in case.

I'm sure Ratch has a better way.
 
I read this....

Fordum said:
This is my only boat oil pressure story...with a 150hp 2 cycle merc.
Click to expand...

...and thought, is he going crazy? But I suppose that qualifies, you won't forget that one!

I was on vacation in Miami once when there was a hurricane, not a real strong one. I just had to get in the ocean to say I did it, even though the hotel wouldn't let me, I said, "well, it's not illegal" so say whatever you want, I'm going. So I went down and got in the ocean at the beach, but I had to get out pretty darn quick because the huge waves were washing these 4" - 6" rocks up to against the beach bottom a short ways off the shoreline, and they would bash on your feet and ankles and hurt like h3ll. Don't know where those rocks came from because they weren't there before.
 
Ok, here is an update on the engine. :doah:


Picture026.jpg

Picture025.jpg
 
Here is the break down.

crank is in very bad shape, possible trash
one bent rod w/broken wristpin and broken bearing cap
one bent valve
one VERY beat up cylinder
original engine, one piece rear main seal, 454 chevy oval port truck engine
never been bored
crank areas on block are fine, bearings all wasted
cam looked fine
didn't hear anything bad about the valves, lifter, rockers, etc (one bent valve not closing of course)
oil pan has some kind of weird dent on the bottom, to clearance something on the floor of the boat, I don't know what yet as I just learned about it, but it may have affected the oil pump pickup
oil pump pickup was tack welded, but the weld broke and appears to be VERY lose inside the pump, but it has a bolt in one of the main caps, so it might not have fallen off
remote mount oil filter line broke on filter end, sprayed oil everywhere

So, I'm not really sure what all happened to this thing. My worse scenario has been blown out of the water today. I had hoped it was just a seized bearing and crank, but NOPE.

WONDERFULL :waytogo:
 
that sucks... too bad your on the best coast, I've got all kinds of machinable BB parts kicking around the shop..

I had a customer yesterday that almost had the same thing. oil pressure sender rotted out, blew 4 qrts out.. luckily his alarm system works and he shut it down...

might be best I'm guessing to just hunt down a short block... maybe just go with a Jasper or similar...
 
Hijack
Ryoken, you ever work on a P.P.Jet? No joke. My experience came from the N.S.W. command that I was attached to. 2 30' Novamarine Rhibs, 2 IVECO SRM30 5.7's driving 10" impellers (too small imo).
Hijack off
 
is P.P the company? the only jet drives i've worked on, which happens to be pretty extensive cuz I worked for Dinckley, which are all jets, are Hamilton and Ultra.... I had been told Ultra was the major supplier to the military... here's a pair I rebuilt/etc..


20080823_86.jpg




and, like your situation, too small an impeller... the Mann's I installed would only run at about 85%.. Mann likes to see 95%.. little more pitch would have got em there, plus about 3, 4 more knots, but they didn't wanna go for that... the impellers where about $2500 a piece...
 
The intakes on those look a lot smaller. I see the bucket/ diverter bosses on them, they hydraulic? We took the hydros off of ours, kept throwing belts at the wrong time and we blew a couple of buckets off doing crash backs. oops.
 
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