Click Here For Marine Diesel Engine Maintenance Guide

After doing my own research and drawing from my own experiences, below is my top 20 list of ways to improve your boats fuel efficiency.

1. Many of today’s boats have electronic fuel injection or direct fuel injection which need more injector cleaner detergent than is typically in commercially available gasoline. Use a good injector cleaner to clean-up injector deposits and help your engine run its best.
2. Marine diesel additives will upgrade the typical No. 2 diesel fuel to a high octane premium diesel. It is documented in laboratory tests to significantly improve engine performance, increase fuel economy to just over 13 percent, and reduce exhaust emissions.
3. Lighten the load whenever possible by taking along only the gear and supplies you’ll need. If you’re going on a one-day trip, don’t pack enough gear and supplies onboard for a six-day cruise. Clear your deck of clutter and lower canvas tops. You’ll reduce the weight and drag of your boat, and you’ll not only burn less fuel, you might see improvements in handling and performance as well.
4. Distributing onboard gear evenly. If your boat is listing to one side or the bow is weighted down and plowing through the water due to poor placement of onboard gear, your fuel efficiency is going to drop. So, be sure all equipment and other stuff is balanced through-out the boat. This helps give a smoother ride and increase your mileage.
5. A quality onboard fuel computer will help you efficiently manage what you have in your tank by supplying accurate readings of how much fuel you are using at any given moment. This is a highly desirable alternative to the notoriously inaccurate fuel gauges that come standard on many boat models.
6. Regular marine diesel engine maintenance and tune-ups will contribute greatly to your boat’s overall fuel efficiency. If your motor is not operating the way it should, chances are the system will be working overtime and eating up more fuel. You might have a professional marine technician overhaul your engine. Also be sure you are running your boat within the RPM range recommended by the manufacturer for best fuel efficiency.
7. Installing a quality trim-tab system on your boat (if appropriate) will not only improve the ride of your boat, it will help you go farther on a tank of fuel. Trim tabs allow you make necessary adjustments to the way your boat cuts through the water, planes and handles. By Adjusting your trim according to boat speed/load and the current water conditions you will help optimize performance and save fuel.
8. The hulls of boats kept in the water often have overgrown jungles trailing from their bottoms. If you are carrying a small eco-system of algae, barnacles or other marine growth on your boat, you will definitely have fuel-consuming drag when underway. So check often your boat’s underside and brush or scrub off any unwanted visitors.
9. Talking about the bottom, when was your last haul-out? Is it time for new bottom paint? This too can help you improve performance.
10. If you fish, water in your boat’s bait tank and live wells can add a surprising amount of weight to your boat (about 8 pounds per gallon). Instead of heading home at the end of the day with all this extra weight, empty your tanks of both unnecessary water and bait before making that long run back to the docks.
11. I suppose we should also mention the ballast sacks for wakeboarding. Maybe it’s time to rethink the huge wake and cut back some. If you don’t want to cut back then maybe rethink how you use them. In the past, my buddy filled up in the morning and didn’t empty until the end of the day. He’s thinking about only doing so many runs this year with his ballast sacks filled and dumping back out before cruising off to catch up with the rest of the group.
12. When you fuel up, do it in the mornings before the heat starts up. This assures you’re getting the most fuel for your money.
13. When fueling your boat, run the pump slowly. Many nozzles have a design that recaptures and you may not be getting all you’re paying for. Never ‘top up’.
14. Another reason to fuel slowly is some pump nozzles don’t have a shut off and you end up dumping fuel into the water. This hurts not only your wallet but the water you love to play on.
15. Don’t wait until your tank is nearly empty, try to refuel at the half way point. Gas evaporates quickly and open space in the tank can steal your play time.
16. Use the appropriate size propeller and check for damage. Using the stock propeller may not be best suited for your type of boating. By experimenting with different props, you may find one that saves fuel and improves performance.
17. Check your prop, a damaged prop, even just a slight “ding”, can negatively affect fuel efficiency and performance - get it fixed! While you’re having that done be sure they check the balance of the prop. An unbalanced prop can cause more problems than just loss of miles.
18. Throttle back to cruising speed or the “sweet spot”. Chances are that your boat does not get her best mileage at full speed. Once you get up on a plane, throttle back slightly to find the best speed. Your boat will ride smoother, more level and performs her best.
19. Avoid excess engine idling. Even in neutral, your boat is consuming fuel, it takes less fuel to restart the engine than to idle for one minute, plus idling can produce potentially deadly carbon monoxide (CO) fumes.
20. Use the proper fuel to oil mix for your engine (if you have that type of engine). If you must mix your own fuel, follow the manufacturer’s recommendations. Too little or too much oil can harm your engine, affect overall performance and reduce fuel efficiency.

Don’t let gas or diesel prices keep you off your boat this season. The tips above will help improve your miles per gallon and allow you to enjoy your boat without fearing the gas pump.

This article written by Debbie from Pacific Northwest Boating. Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=Debbie_Salituro

There are few things that an amateur mechanic with a limited tool kit can (or should) do to the major components inside marine diesels apart from making sure that it has a good supply of fuel and air and clean lubricating oil.

Click Here For Marine Diesel Engine Service Manual

You can, however, check and adjust the gap between the rocker and the valve. There has to be a gap - usually about the thickness of a fingernail - to allow for the different rates at which the various components expand and contract as they warm up. Without it, there’s a very real risk that the valves won’t shut completely: they may even come into catastrophic contact with the pistons. If the gap is too large, the valves may not open as far as they should, and the engine will certainly be noisier than it should be.

1 Read the engine manual to find out what the valve/rocker clearances should be, and whether they should be adjusted with the engine cold or at normal running temperature. Note that the clearances for inlet valves may be different for those for exhaust valves, because exhaust valves get hotter.

2 Remove the rocker cover - a relatively thin metal box on top of the engine, usually with the oil filler cap in the middle. Some engines have a separate rocker cover for each cylinder, or for each of two or three groups of cylinders.

3 Check the gap on each valve in turn, when the valve is completely closed and the gap is

its widest. There are two ways of finding out when this happens. On a multi-cylinder engine, the best way is to find the ‘magic number’ for your engine by adding one to the number of cylinders. For a four-cylinder engine, for instance, the magic number is five.

4 Turn the engine slowly by hand , if necessary using a spanner on the crankshaft (big nut on the lowest of the pulleys at the front of the engine). Watch the rockers moving as you do so, until the two rockers for one cylinder are ‘on the rock’ - that is, when one is rising and the other falling - signifying that this particular cylinder is at the end of its exhaust stroke and just beginning its induction stroke. Subtract the number of this cylinder from the ‘magic number’ to find the number of the cylinder that is ready to have its valve clearances checked. If, for instance, you have a four-cylinder engine and number 2 cylinder’s valves are on the rock, number 3 cylinder is ready, because 5 - 2 = 3.

5 On a single-cylinder engine, the clearance for one valve should be checked when the other valve is fully depressed. You can use this approach for a multi-cylinder engine, but it will take longer!

6 Slacken the lock-nut on the rocker whose clearance you are about to adjust, and then unscrew the threaded adjuster about one or two turns.

7 Set a feeler gauge to the clearance specified in the engine manual, and slip it between the valve stem and the rocker. Gently wiggle the feeler gauge whilst tightening the adjusting screw, until you can feel the feeler gauge being nipped between the valve stem and the rocker.

8 Leave the feeler gauge in place, and hold the adjusting screw with a screwdriver while you tighten the lock-nut. When it’s tight, wiggle the feeler gauge again to check that you haven’t upset the adjustment: you should feel a slight resistance, but it shouldn’t be jammed tight.

9 Repeat the process for each valve in turn, then replace the rocker cover, making sure that the cork or rubber sealing gasket is smooth, undamaged and properly seated.

Marine diesels servicing? boatpartsdatabase.com has lots of resources for the boating trade and public alike. The web is a vast source of information. Boatpartsdatabase collects the leisure marine industry into one huge database of contacts. Boat engine servicing is something you can do yourself with the help of boatpartsdatabase, lists of suppliers of spares and parts.

Article Source: EzineArticles.com/?expert=John_Routledge

On acceleration, the throttle valve opens to permit more air to enter the engine. The ECM responds by opening more fuel. Sensors monitor the amount of air entering the marine engine and the amount of oxygen in the exhaust. They allow the ECM to fine tune the delivery so the the air-to-fuel ratio is just right.

Click Here For Marine Diesel Engine Maintenance Manual

The Caterpillar HEUI (Hydraulic Electronic Unit Injection) system supposedly goes one step further in the delivery of ‘just right’ fuel to the marine diesel engine. The fuel injectors are operated ‘electronic-hydraulically’ instead of ‘electronic-mechanically’. The engine lubricating oil (sump oil) is utilized to generate the hydraulic pressure by boosting it with a high-pressure oil pump. It is delivered to the injectors through a manifold between the cylinder head and valve covers. The ECM regulates the oil pressure, which determines the pressure of the fuel to be injected.

Being more fuel efficient and lower in emissions, EFI has become almost universal in modern marine diesel engines.

This is an excerpt from Dick Gandy’s Australian Boating Manual

In marine diesel engines the fuel is injected directly into its combustion chambers (cylinders) where it mixes with hot air and ignites by compression. In petrol engines it is delivered to one or more pre-combustion chambers where it mixes with cold air and then enters the cylinders to be ignited by spark plugs.

Click Here For Marine Diesel Engine Manual 

The pre-combustion chamber is traditional petrol engines is the carburettor. In the modern EFI engines it is the intake manifold, which is located just before the intake valve of each cylinder. petrol was pumped into the carburettor, but in the EFI engines it is injected by a fuel injection system similar to diesel engines.

Marine Diesel Fuel Delivery – Tank To Engine

In its simplest form, the fuel flows from the tank, through the primary filter, to the fuel lift pump. It then flows through a secondary filter to the fuel-injection pump, to fuel injectors, which squirt it directly into the combustion chambers (cylinders).

The fuel injectors are usually delivered more fuel than is required for combustion. The excess is returned to the fuel tank, taking with it small amounts of air entrained in the supplied fuel.

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Because of its compact form, the open combustion chamber system presents only a small surface area to the compressed air, and the amount of heat lost by conduction to the combustion chamber is relatively small. As a result, the temperature of the compressed air at the moment of injection is always considerably higher than the fuel’s self-ignition temperature, and the fuel ignites readily.

Click Here For Marine Engine Service Manual 

Unfortunately, the other combustion chamber systems present a large surface area to the compressed air, resulting in a large loss of heat. When the engine (and combustion chamber) is cold, the large difference in temperature between the compressed air and the combustion chamber causes a rapid transfer of heat from the air to the chamber. This heat loss, coupled with the fact that compression only raises the air temperature a certain amount above its initial temperature, makes starting a marine engine from cold a problem.

Many systems of overcoming this have been developed, the most common being:

• heater plugs or glow plugs

• thermostart devices

• the Ki-gass system, and

• the use of a volatile fuel.

Heater plugs or glow plugs for your marine diesel engine.

These units screw into the combustion chamber and supply additional heat to the air during the compression stroke. A heater element on the plug lies flush with the combustion chamber wall and, when prior to starting, a current of 20 to 35 amperes is supplied from the battery for from 30 to 40 seconds, this element glows bright red. If the engine is then cranked, some of the heat from the element will be transferred to the compressed air, giving a final air temperature that is high enough to ensure efficient ignition and combustion.

Heater plugs may be divided into two types – single-pole glow plugs and double-pole glow plugs. The difference lies in the terminal posts on the plugs – single-pole plugs have only one electrical terminal or connection, and double-pole plugs have two.

Single-pole glow plugs
Single-pole glow plugs are said to be connected in parallel. This means that the current is supplied from the battery to the single terminal of each plug, and the circuit is completed through the cylinder head to earth. In this system, full battery voltage is applied to each plug, and one plug can fail without affecting the others. Thus for a vehicle using a 12 volt electrical system, 12 volt single-pole glow plugs can be employed.

Double-pole glow plugs
Series connection is used with double-pole glow plugs, the current from the battery passing through one plug and on to the next. Thus the battery is connected to one terminal of the first plug, whose other terminal is connected to one terminal of the second plug. This system connects all the plugs, the free terminal of the last plug being connected either to earth on the engine, or earth at the battery.

Discover how to use glow plugs and make marine diesel engine repairs here.