Hallberg Rassy Rasmus 35

Hallberg Rassy Rasmus 35
An Old Classic

Monday, October 15, 2012

Revision to my last post

Well I have figured out some things with the engine install.  And some lesson are learned the hard way.  It has been hard to start of late(last two days) and I have been having to re bleed the fuel lines.  I thought is was the added Facet fuel pump that blew a fuse that caused the hard starting problems.  Nope.  I found out what was causing the hard start.  I didn't put enough diesel in the tank and it was sucking air.  I also found out what can happen when you crank the engine several times without it starting.  I got water in the engine!!  Today I checked the oil level prior to starting and saw a milky coating on my oil dip stick.  I called Beta and they gave me a plan to flush the engine of the bad oil.  I pumped out the oil, replaced the bad oil with good, replaced the oil filter, and ran the engine for a couple of minutes.  Then repeated the above steps four times.  Ended up running 16 quarts of good oil thru it and using up 4 oil filters and it looked like it cleaned up well.  I will probably do it a few more times tomorrow just for good measure.  It is running great now that have the fuel tank filled up to an appropriate level and have nice clean oil in the engine.  And luckily it was fresh water, so no salt problems should occur.  Having hopefully dodged a bullet, I now have to figure out what went wrong.  I went to great lengths to get the install done correctly. Hmmm, apparently I missed something.   I have a long exhaust hose run and have a Vetus LP60 muffler installed that holds 2.77 gallons of wet exhaust, which I thought would take care this.  Maybe not.  I am ordering a LSL60 which holds 4.23 gallons of wet exhaust.  I have a high vacuum loop installed on the water injection hose and a high loop in the exhaust hose itself.  That is the way several Rasmus owners I have talked to have theirs set up.  The only thing I can think of is that the duration of cranking the engine without a start caused water to accumulate in the muffler to the point of backing up in the engine, not having enough pressure to blow out the wet exhaust.  Any thoughts out there would be appreciated.  I am thinking that the insufficient fuel level caused the hard start, which caused the back flow of water into the engine, and also saved my engine from destruction when it wouldn't start before I checked the oil level and found the water in the engine.  Whew!!  Question: What size exhaust muffler are you Rasmus owners installing in your boat?  Do you put a loop in the exhaust hose?  Also, I want to know how you experienced owners handle hard engine starting situations, specifically, after cranking the engine over an unusually long period of time without a successful start, do you empty out the wet exhaust muffler at some point to keep water from backing up in the engine?  Any ideas are appreciated.
Thanks
Pat

1 comment:

DaveD said...

Hi Pat....
Yup you dodged a bullet!

The fuel suction pipe in the Rasmus is a full 4 inches up from the bottom of the tank. So with a nominal 75 gallons theoretically available, you only get 55-60 to use. you probably won't need the facit pump.

As for the exhaust, I think you just filled up your waterlock muffler - no exhaust to blow the water out.. I use the Vetus LSS muffler and have never had a problem.

--Dave