HELP! Salt water in my 130's

[mhoyt01]

Super unfortunate. My 140 gallon fuel tank got a leak and salt water got in and as well as fuel out. Both my engines stopped running. Back at home, my inline and in-engine fuel/water separators were full of salt water. Fuel filter, fuel pump, and high pressure fuel sump were th same. I've drained evrything best I could, hooked both engines to a 5 gallon tank with god fuel. I turned them over for 10 seconds each, then drained everything again. Did that three times. They still won't start. Spark plugs are clean and dry. Any suggestions? Starting ether? Should I run something through there other than fuel to clean that salt water out?<br /><br />Thanks,<br />Matt

 

[mhoyt01]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

O, and more info on my motors. They are counter rotating '99 Honda 130's with 230 hours that were in perfect condition prior to this disaster. Engine Gear/Oil changed every year, and the fuel pumps replaced under warranty....<br /><br />Thanks,<br />Matt

 

[hondon]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Get yourself to a Honda dealer.Chances are you have cooked the high pressure fuel pumps.There is an upgraded fuel system available that you may or may not have .

 

[mhoyt01]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Thanks for the advice,<br /><br />I was worried about hat. I'm going to clean the fule injectors, and then if that doesn't work, take them in...<br /><br />Matt

 

[marinegrh]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

do you have fuel pressure, if so what is it, there are updated pumps out from honda, also leak down and wot compression, salt does amazing things to hondas, post you numbers and well go from there<br /><br />certified honda tech

 

[mhoyt01]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Ok, it fired up for just a second. I was running gas with sta-bil through the port one and it fired up. The throttle was WOT and my instinct was to pull it back, which killed it. Promising though.<br /><br />I'll try and get the proper equipment to get fuel presure and compression.<br /><br />Thanks for the advice guys,<br />Matt

 

[mhoyt01]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Ok, I paid to have the fuel system gone through. $700 for both engines - new filter, fuel water separators, and spark plugs. Injectors clean and all line blown out.<br /><br />Compression<br />Starboard Engine<br />120<br />120<br />120<br />180<br /><br />Port Engine<br />95<br />100<br />100<br />100<br /><br />Not good, so we backed the valves off and poured marvel mystery oil in the chambers and are letting it soak for 4 days. Again with compression and then leak down after soaking period. Fingers crossed hopefully compression will come up.<br /><br />Matt

 

[hondon]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Be carefull how you obtain those compression numbers.This engine will HAVE to be at wide open while cranking to give you a valid reading.You can accomplish this by jumping the neutral switch .

 

[MajBach]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Sorry to hear about your probs. My post here is for curiosity's sake. Why does salt water do this? Is it only salt water or can regular water too. Did this happen after sitting for a bit or while running. How does a foreign liquid kill your compression and fuel pumps if not from corrosion?<br />Hondon?

 

[mhoyt01]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Unfortunetly, the engine was at wide open throttle, so the compression numbers are on - rebuild time. Worst situation imaginable really.<br /><br />Fresh water is bad, but salt water is way worse. I was told you can save an engine if you get all the salt out in 24 hours. Mine sat for 2 weeks before being dealt with due to work and other factors. The guy who help me was able to save my fuel pumps and high pressure resevoirs, but I 'have to much build up on the cylinder walls and my rings must just be shot to hell.<br /><br />Great move I made buying two engines instead of one....<br /><br />Matt

 

[Alaskantech]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Matt, have you done a leak down test on your engines yet? Leak down will give you a better idea of what is going on in those cylinders. I am assuming that this is just a contaminated fuel situation. These motors did not get sunk or go under running. I have had my share of experience with salt water and fuel in my enviroment and I can't think of a reason for your motors to be so severly hurt, unless they went under. I would do a leak down and check fuel pressure and go from there. Did you have the new fuel system upgrade done before this problem came up? Have you had your engines inspected for the casting cracks?

 

[Hawaiian]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Matt, I too own a Boston Whaler and the thought of water getting into my internal tank is scary. Do you know how the water got into your tank and did you fix the problem? The Outrage 22 is an awesome boat. I hope you get it, and your motors running again soon. <br />Good luck, <br />Perry

 

[hondon]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Alaskan is right on.A leak down is certainly in order.This is a hard engine to break.What else do we need to know?

 

[mhoyt01]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

I do not know how fuel got into the tank yet, as I am going to fix the engines before I fix the tank. I do know I have a leak in the hull though. I have two front compartments, both with drain holes. After the incident, I put the boat back on the trailer, and gas was leaking from both drain holes, but there was no fluid in the compartments. So my guess is, I developmented a hole in tank, and I already had an existing way for salt water to get in the bildge(being forced up the drain holes, then through the foam while under way).<br /><br />Back to the engines, I need help understanding why a leak down test is in order. With the compression being as bad as it is, what else could be done to fix them without a teardown?<br /> Those posted numbers were taken twice, once right after the fuel system was completely gone over, then five days later after the chambers were completely filled with marvel mystery oil and left to soak. At the end of five days, the oil had drained completely out of the all the cylinders except starboard #4, the only one with decent compression. The compression numbers were exactly the same.<br /><br />To answer your questions, the engines were not submerged or anything like that, but were ran on what I figure was almost exclusively satl water till they just stopped.<br /><br />Thanks so much for your advice guys?

 

[mhoyt01]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

The ? was supposed to be a !<br /><br />the soutern California fires are getting to me. Well, that and residual gas fumes from my boat =]

 

[gss036]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

I was of the impression that a good water/fuel separation filter would not allow water togo through it. How did that happen. <br />From my past experience when I had water/condensation problems in my large(115) alum tank, my filter would fill up and I would start getting surging and I have had the engine quit running becaue no fuel was passing throug as the filter was full of water.<br />I solved my problem by leaving the fuel cap off and putting a paper towel in the opening, my boat is stored in my pole barn. It has a built in vent but obviously not venting properly and I can't access it.

 

[Alaskantech]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Matt,<br />These motors are extremly hard to kill. They are a huge block for the horsepower. I have seen these things beat hard on large heavy boats for many more hours with no real wear. If you run contaminated fuel, mostly salt water, for any length of time the fuel system will simply stop. Salt water is dense, it will have a hell of a time getting past the injectors. I can beleive that your fuel pumps failed, salt water is nasty. I can not understand how you could have any cylinder damage from bad fuel. The amount of fuel to make it to the cylinders and sit there after shut down is small to say the least. This amount of contaminated fuel in the cylinders should not affect them so greatly. A leak down test is going to show where that air is going, either into exhaust, intake or base. Compression test's should not vary more than 10% from cylinder to cylinder, providing that crank speed remains constant on all cylinders at the time of test. I would be more suspect of the one high reading than the rest on your test. Even if your motors had low compression, they would still run. What is your fuel pressure at crank and do you have a good spark?

 

[rodbolt]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Hello<br /> Dude you numbers are looking rather well. dont compare motor to motor. its a producton thing so all may not be identical. you must do a leak down test. its the ONLY accurate test of the rings and valves and head gasket sealing. 95 ,100,100,100 is an acceptable set of numbers. however if the leakdown says 10%,25%,10%,5% then not only would I know its rebuild time I would know what and where the leakage was. compression test is an ok test but I would prefer leakage. in fact on the smaller yammi 4 strokes it is impossible to do a compression test as a lot of them have an automatic compression relese to aid in starting. dont get hung up on the numbers until you get some percentages. good luck and stay out of the smoke. wow those fires are really terrible. makes our hurricane look insignificant

 

[MajBach]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

rodbolt:<br />I would like you to elaborate on how you can justify 100 psi average compression in one engine to 120 psi in another as being a 'production thing'. Not questioning you, just curious. <br />Also, someone mind explaining what a leak down test is?<br />BTW - no one replied to my above questions.

 

[rodbolt]

Re: HELP! Salt water in my 130's

Hello<br /> well can you verify that each cylinder has the exact same volume> can you verify that each cylinder on both engines has the excact same airflow can you verify that each cylinder rotates and the same cranking speed during the test. dont compare engines compare readings between the cylinders on each engine. a leak down test uses a known air pressure injected in the cylinder while the piston is at TDC. the other gauge actually measures how much air is flowing through the tester to maintain the specified pressure. the results are displayed as a percentage of leakage rate. in a perfect cyl you would have 0% in the real world 5-10% is acceptable with some manufactures going as high as 20 % if it was mine I wont accept anything more than 10 %if it leaks more its easy to trace the leak back to an intake or exhaust havle or leakage into the cooling system.and if anyone else wants to try this and they have an inboard with closed cooling YOU MUST remove the heat excanger cap. a closed cooling system wont take 120 psi a customer did this recently. he plugged in his shop air to test for a leak and created a whole bunch more.<br /> good luck and keep posting