Start Your Engines!

It's now March 4th, 2012 and we're now ready for the long awaited step of the first start for these engines.  Although we didn’t have one gauge quite hooked up yet (the transmission oil pressure gauge), all the things necessary for safely running the engines were in place and of course we were anxious to give it a try.  Besides Ray and me, our crew today included Erin and our friend Laura, who were also anxious to witness the event.  We arrived ahead of time, as I wanted some time to purge any air from the fuel lines before the first attempt.  We do this by activating the electric fuel pumps back near the tanks to pressurize the fuel system, and then slightly loosening a fitting at the injector pump until fuel escapes.  Diesel engines are notorious for being finicky about any air in the fuel and generally don’t start if that is the case.
 
Well, I had the pump on, but before crawling down there with wrench in hand I thought “why not push the button first, just to see what happens?”  What happened was the engine sprang to life in less than 2 seconds and continued to run just fine.  The instrument panel indicated it had plenty of oil pressure, and a quick check to the stern showed the cooling water was coming out the exhaust.  We let it run for 10 or 15 minutes, checking for any loose fittings and leaks.  I cycled the transmission briefly into forward and reverse to route some ATF into the cooler and was very glad that the boat wanted to go forward when the lever was forward, and wanted to go backward when the lever was in reverse.

The Captain is happy with the first engine starts

Our plan was to run just one engine at a time so that if there were any weird noises or events we’d know from whence they came.  Next came the attempt to start the port engine.  It sprang to life in similar fashion, taking maybe a whole 3 seconds to fire up.  Laura pointed out we had a leak, and looking down the doorway from the bridge I saw that it was the valve on the intercooler that was open, spouting out some coolant.  That was a really easy fix!  The raw cooling water was also exiting through the exhaust for the port engine, so we were in business.

 This all happened before our 1:00 o’clock scheduled start time, and one more witness arrived just after we shut off the port engine.  Randy Rice, another tenant who had repowered his boat with these same model engines, came to see how we were doing.  We confessed to jumping the gun, but started them again to show off.  I had brought my infrared spot thermometer, and Randy checked the surface temperature of various parts of each engine to see if there were any hot spots.  All was fine in that department.  We ran each one for probably another 10 or 15 minutes and, although the water temperature gauges did come off the peg they didn’t warm up to the point that I think the thermostats would open.  I think the coolant temperature got up to a reading of around 130/140 degrees during that time – it may take having them under load to reach a real operating temperature.

  The transmission coolers took on enough fluid that we had to top up the transmission again, which we expected to do, and we found one slight leak in the raw water system on the port side.  We may have to redo one joint in our PVC plumbing there.  There was also a puff of exhaust from the port side upon startup, and I could smell some exhaust so we'll be checking connections there as well once things cool off.  All in all we’re very pleased with today’s results. 

 We still have plenty to do, both to finish off the install and of course to put the boat back together – but this has been a milestone day for sure!  We officially anointed the keys by putting them on the Chris Craft Rendezvous key fobs we acquired back in 1991 when we stumbled into our first Chris Craft Rendezvous in Port Orchard in the Free Spirit.