ewenm
Petty Officer 2nd Class
- Joined
- Mar 30, 2005
- Messages
- 187
hi, i have just bought a 32 foot Mustang ( Australian) with twin 4.3 litre efi mercruisers, and now have a couple of questions
1/ this boat has two 250 litre fuel tanks either side of the boat out board of each motor, each motor has its own tank with no inter connection, is there any reason why the two tanks could not be connected??
i realize that for filling purposes its still easier to fill the tanks individually, but i thought if one motor was using more fuel than the other at least the balance of the boat would not be upset which leads me to
2/ one motor seems, (and this is just a gut feeling at this time,) like it user more fuel than the other, the economical motor only has to charge one battery and has a new prop, the other motor which seems to use more fuel is charging two batteries and has a good but used prop it also runs just a touch hotter than the other( could be just the gauge)
both motors have good compression and new manifolds and risers etc (325 hour on each in total) does this seem normal??
3/ is it possible to visually see if the mercathode system is operational, any LED,s or indicators??
i have had a marine electrician give it the once over and he says the boat is putting to much current into the water, by that i mean he used his meter one probe over the side and the other on the metal parts in the engine room,
apparently a reading between 500 and 900 ( millivolts??) is the target, mine was varying but all higher than the target, he then noticed there way no bonding system other than the earth return to the batteries, so he made up a lead to physically connect all the goodies together, at this point he was getting a reading of 986, still to high ( i,m not sure about the decimal point but anyone with experience will know what i,m talking about, well hopefully) so at this point we will be lifting the boat out and checking anodes etc, and he , the electrician feels we may need to add more anodes, he wants to mount a large one on the transom between the two drives?? and internally connected to the bonding lead.
he is returning today to fit a galvanic isolator and to re test
how does all this sound?????? ive not had a boat with shore power or this level of complexity so any thoughts appreciated
Ewen
1/ this boat has two 250 litre fuel tanks either side of the boat out board of each motor, each motor has its own tank with no inter connection, is there any reason why the two tanks could not be connected??
i realize that for filling purposes its still easier to fill the tanks individually, but i thought if one motor was using more fuel than the other at least the balance of the boat would not be upset which leads me to
2/ one motor seems, (and this is just a gut feeling at this time,) like it user more fuel than the other, the economical motor only has to charge one battery and has a new prop, the other motor which seems to use more fuel is charging two batteries and has a good but used prop it also runs just a touch hotter than the other( could be just the gauge)
both motors have good compression and new manifolds and risers etc (325 hour on each in total) does this seem normal??
3/ is it possible to visually see if the mercathode system is operational, any LED,s or indicators??
i have had a marine electrician give it the once over and he says the boat is putting to much current into the water, by that i mean he used his meter one probe over the side and the other on the metal parts in the engine room,
apparently a reading between 500 and 900 ( millivolts??) is the target, mine was varying but all higher than the target, he then noticed there way no bonding system other than the earth return to the batteries, so he made up a lead to physically connect all the goodies together, at this point he was getting a reading of 986, still to high ( i,m not sure about the decimal point but anyone with experience will know what i,m talking about, well hopefully) so at this point we will be lifting the boat out and checking anodes etc, and he , the electrician feels we may need to add more anodes, he wants to mount a large one on the transom between the two drives?? and internally connected to the bonding lead.
he is returning today to fit a galvanic isolator and to re test
how does all this sound?????? ive not had a boat with shore power or this level of complexity so any thoughts appreciated
Ewen
