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BMC 1.5 keeps stalling


Heather

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I had a reconditioned engine fitted. It worked fine until the oil cooler pipe came off and all the oil came out. We replaced the pipe and filled up the oil. Now it runs ok on tickover but cuts out after 5 minutes when using. It restarts but cuts out again and after a few goes like this the temperature goes up and it does not restart for a while. We had to replace the washers on the fuel filter as leaking and the fuel is flowing through ok.

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Few BMC 1.5s have an engine oil cooler for inland use but many have a gearbox oil cooler so the first question is please can you clarify which oil cooler you are talking about so we can be sure.

 

How much oil did it loose and what colour was it? Have you checked the gearbox oil level?

 

On the face of it this looks bad because I can't think of any reason the engine would react like this apart from seizure UNLESS its a fuel problem but when most 1.5s start to run out of fuel they very often rev up as they stop and you don't mention that.

 

Check the fuel tank breather is not blocked.

Check to see if you have another "filter" between the tank and engine (not the one at the back of the cylinder head). If you have see what it has caught. e.g. water, dirt, or bug residue.

 

Edited to add: Further thoughts :

 

Is the engine full of coolant and have you bled the skin tank?

Are you sure you have nothing around the prop - feel below it in case something is hanging down.

 

 

Edited by Tony Brooks
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Sorry not oil cooler oil pressure pipe. The oil was brown/black it all came out. We only drove for 5 minutes to get home.

Since the engine was reinstalled it smokes black a little on start up. The starting is also very poor now. It looks like black soot is coming out the exhaust with the water.

The engine was in boat before but kept overheating and the injector/fuel pump was leaking so went back and had new injectors fitted. They said we had a rattle on the gearbox and it was our gearbox causing the overheating but we had the gearbox reconditioned the year before. It did not overheat the first 2 times we used it but kept cutting out. After we went at full throttle all these problems started. They installers wont come back out now and we cant find a good engineer in our area.

We had an electric fuel pump fitted last year and had the fuel polished as well. It does not rev up before stalling.

Where is the fuel tank breather?

Thanks

 

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58 minutes ago, Heather said:

Where is the fuel tank breather?

On, or near the fuel tank. Usually a round, or hexagonal brass thing with metal gauze filled holes in it. It lets air in the tank when fuel is drawn out. Can get stuffed up with dust and dead spiders. If blocked, then a vacuum forms in the tank and more fuel can't be drawn, so the engine stops. Another way to check is if immediately after the engine stops you try and open the fuel filler. If there is an inrush of air, then the breather is blocked. Or remove breather and clean, refit.

Jen

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2 hours ago, Heather said:

They said we had a rattle on the gearbox and it was our gearbox causing the overheating

A gearbox problem might cause the engine to be overloaded, but shouldn't cause it to overheat.

2 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Is the engine full of coolant and have you bled the skin tank?

 

I suspect that if the OP has water coming out of the exhaust then this is a direct or indirect cooled engine, and will not have a skin tank.

Which then raises the question whether there is a blocked cooling water strainer involved.

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2 hours ago, Heather said:

The oil was brown/black it all came out. We only drove for 5 minutes to get home.

Now, there's the sentence I can't get passed.

If that's really what you did, are you so puzzled why you have an engine displaying terminal symptoms?

 

A comparison could be.

My horse broke its leg.  I only rode it 5 minutes to get home.

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3 hours ago, Heather said:

Sorry not oil cooler oil pressure pipe. The oil was brown/black it all came out. We only drove for 5 minutes to get home.

Since the engine was reinstalled it smokes black a little on start up. The starting is also very poor now. It looks like black soot is coming out the exhaust with the water.

The engine was in boat before but kept overheating and the injector/fuel pump was leaking so went back and had new injectors fitted. They said we had a rattle on the gearbox and it was our gearbox causing the overheating but we had the gearbox reconditioned the year before. It did not overheat the first 2 times we used it but kept cutting out. After we went at full throttle all these problems started. They installers wont come back out now and we cant find a good engineer in our area.

We had an electric fuel pump fitted last year and had the fuel polished as well. It does not rev up before stalling.

Where is the fuel tank breather?

Thanks

 

 

OK so brownish black is probably engine oil but 1.5s do not have any external oil pressure pipes so if it was not a pipe running to an engine oil cooler what was it? Might it have been a leaking oil filter, the standard 1.5 ones were good at this or do you have an after market remote oil filter because that would have oil pressure pipes.

 

So now we know its either a direct raw water cooled engine or more likely a heat exchanger cooled engine and either would overheat if the raw water pump impeller was damaged. Both will overheat if a bend on a water pipe gets clogged up by debris from the water or broken bits of water pump impellor. Heat exchanger versions will overheat if debris build up in the heat exchange.

 

Personally I would expect big end damage if you ran for 5 minutes with no oil pressure and that would cause a banging or loud tapping noise when running  getting louder as its revved up under load so as you don't, mention that I ma less ready to say you have wrecked the engine. This does not mean you have not damaged the pistons though, poor starting may well be a symptom of poor compression/damaged pistons and/or rings. So when was the raw water pump last given any attention? How does the volume of water exiting the exhaust compare with last year?

 

There is much  do not understand - "the injector/fuel pump was leaking so went back and had new injectors fitted" - if its the injector pump leaking why have new injectors fitted? Anyway I very much doubt they were new injectors, more likely overhauled ones which is fine as long as they were done in a pump shop, have the correct nozzles fitted to them and the correct little washers were fitted down the injector holes. I have heard of so called 1.5 injectors being fitted with the wrong nozzles so bits get broken out of their heat shields and that would cause poor starting as  would fitting pintle nozzles instead of pintaux ones. Both look very similar unless you know what you are looking for. Its not unknown for the heat shields inserts to come out on the injectors and not get put back in, that makes them very difficult to start and they smoke like anything.

 

I don't want to raise you hopes but how do you feel about pulling the injectors out if I give you instructions?

 

Any chnace of some photos of the engine please?

 

What is your area? Someone may bea bale to recommend.

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2 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

I don't want to raise you hopes but how do you feel about pulling the injectors out if I give you instructions?

 

If the OP is asking this type of question I doubt that she would be confident to pull injectors.

3 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

What is your area? Someone may bea bale to recommend.

OP's profile says Broxbourne.

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1 minute ago, David Mack said:

 

If the OP is asking this type of question I doubt that she would be confident to pull injectors.

OP's profile says Broxbourne.

 

I wonder how Bizzard is feeling!!

2 minutes ago, David Mack said:

 

If the OP is asking this type of question I doubt that she would be confident to pull injectors.

 

 

I agree but to get much more help without an engineer its DIY or nothing.

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Sorry not oil cooler oil pressure pipe. The oil was brown/black it all came out. We only drove for 5 minutes to get home.

Since the engine was reinstalled it smokes black a little on start up. The starting is also very poor now. It looks like black soot is coming out the exhaust with the water.

The engine was in boat before but kept overheating and the injector/fuel pump was leaking so went back and had new injectors fitted. They said we had a rattle on the gearbox and it was our gearbox causing the overheating but we had the gearbox reconditioned the year before. It did not overheat the first 2 times we used it but kept cutting out. After we went at full throttle all these problems started. They installers wont come back out now and we cant find a good engineer in our area.

We had an electric fuel pump fitted last year and had the fuel polished as well. It does not rev up before stalling.

Where is the fuel tank breather?

Thanks

 

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2 minutes ago, Heather said:

Sorry not oil cooler oil pressure pipe. The oil was brown/black it all came out. We only drove for 5 minutes to get home.

Since the engine was reinstalled it smokes black a little on start up. The starting is also very poor now. It looks like black soot is coming out the exhaust with the water.

The engine was in boat before but kept overheating and the injector/fuel pump was leaking so went back and had new injectors fitted. They said we had a rattle on the gearbox and it was our gearbox causing the overheating but we had the gearbox reconditioned the year before. It did not overheat the first 2 times we used it but kept cutting out. After we went at full throttle all these problems started. They installers wont come back out now and we cant find a good engineer in our area.

We had an electric fuel pump fitted last year and had the fuel polished as well. It does not rev up before stalling.

Where is the fuel tank breather?

Thanks

 

I am afraid simply repeating what you have already said will get you nowhere. Especially as @Jen-in-Wellieshas already answered your question about where the tank breather may be and what to do to check it when the engine stops.

 

We may assume that you are located at Broxbourne  as your profile says but boats are movable so you could be anywhere at the moment so can't really make recommendations. The only recommendation we can make until you confirm your rough locations is to ask other boaters who are local to you.

 

Broxbourne may be near enough to London to make it worth while asking on the London boaters face book page.

 

I have tried to help but if you decline to answers to questions can't do much more to diagnose the problem.

 

To be honest I am not even sure you actually have a BMC1.5, it's far from unknown for new boaters to  have a different engine to the one they thought so hence my request for photos.

 

@bizzard I think is around your area but he, like myself, may well be beyond working. He may pop up and offer advice or suggest an engineer. @RLWP is an engineer I would trust and he does travel but he is Midlands based and may well not want to get involved in this even if you could afford to pay his travelling. Both will be informed I have named them in this post so might reply.

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We didn't know oil coming out til we stopped just saw oil pressure dropping. The engine is noisy for 5 minutes when starting then sounds sweet when warmed up a little.

Once the engine has started for the first time it starts easily until we have done it 10 times then it starts to overheat. We had the prop checked and is also clear. I think it was the fuel pump that was leaking. The pipe that came off had a metal core that had frayed and was just pushed on. This caused the oil to come out. 

We had trouble starting before and an engineer adjusted the timing on the fuel pump? It ran lovely afterwards apart from overheating. We went down the Thames keeping revs below 1600 and it was fine until we went faster then there was a bang and we lost oil pressure. We had an engineer who said injector pump seal had gone so it was losing oil. We limped home with poor starting and smoke poring out on starting in the mornings. This was why the engine was removed again. Since it has been back the overheating seemed ok on 2 short trips it was only after the oil came out that the cutting out started.

We can only do basic things ourselves and keep asking friend to help as we cant find an engineer in the Broxbourne area to help so don't think we can start removing injectors. We are waiting for someone to help check the impeller as we don't know how to do it. It was new last September.

It has a header tank and a water strainer. We have checked the strainer and put a rod down the pipe near the stopcock. Both are clear and there is plenty of water coming bubbling up and coming out the exhaust. 

 

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5 minutes ago, Bod said:

Electric fuel pumps very often have a small filter fitted internally.

Easy to check. 

 

Bod

Good point, but not all so guess what - a photo of it please or a very good description. This would not explain the overheating or smoke/soot and in the absence of revving as it stopped I suspect it will not be the problem.

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Sorry i was busy last night and not sure if i am even answering these properly. We are in Broxbourne on the river lea. All the local engineers are useless and booked up for months. This is why we had RCR install a new engine 2 years ago as we had bad starting and cutting out and the engineers did not sort it. After 2 years we have only used the boat last year on our limp home Thames trip. Their engineers are terrible and they used old parts most of which they replaced eventually so nearly all new or refurbished parts now and still wont work. The engine is now out of guarantee and they wont come out.

How much is a boat worth without a working engine! 

I will go up later and try to get some photos

 

Thanks for your help

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Just now, Heather said:

We didn't know oil coming out til we stopped just saw oil pressure dropping. The engine is noisy for 5 minutes when starting then sounds sweet when warmed up a little.

Once the engine has started for the first time it starts easily until we have done it 10 times then it starts to overheat. We had the prop checked and is also clear. I think it was the fuel pump that was leaking. The pipe that came off had a metal core that had frayed and was just pushed on. This caused the oil to come out. 

We had trouble starting before and an engineer adjusted the timing on the fuel pump? It ran lovely afterwards apart from overheating. We went down the Thames keeping revs below 1600 and it was fine until we went faster then there was a bang and we lost oil pressure. We had an engineer who said injector pump seal had gone so it was losing oil. We limped home with poor starting and smoke poring out on starting in the mornings. This was why the engine was removed again. Since it has been back the overheating seemed ok on 2 short trips it was only after the oil came out that the cutting out started.

We can only do basic things ourselves and keep asking friend to help as we cant find an engineer in the Broxbourne area to help so don't think we can start removing injectors. We are waiting for someone to help check the impeller as we don't know how to do it. It was new last September.

It has a header tank and a water strainer. We have checked the strainer and put a rod down the pipe near the stopcock. Both are clear and there is plenty of water coming bubbling up and coming out the exhaust. 

 

Thank you, more information to help. So definitely heat exchanger cooled.

 

This "I think it was the fuel pump that was leaking. The pipe that came off had a metal core that had frayed and was just pushed on. This caused the oil to come out." sounds more like a fuel pipe than an oil pipe but without a photo who knows. An oil pipe would have metal braid up the middle but only a complete  clot would just push it on without any form of clamping, you could get away with doing that on a fuel pipe. However dropping oil pressure suggest it was an oil pipe.

 

If you have as much water coming out of the exhaust now as you did before all this then it is less likely to be a cooling system fault.

 

A mistimed engine can cause overheating FWIW.

 

We will just have to hope one of our engineers I mentions responds.

 

Re your last post. I am sorry  about your source for the engine, although I have had no personal experience at least one member here who is also an engineer is  vitriolic about the quality of such engines. I fear the only way out now, if you can't find a local engineer, may be to get the boat to Calcutt who specialise in those engines but you would need several days of towing.

 

 

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38 minutes ago, Heather said:

Their engineers are terrible and they used old parts most of which they replaced eventually so nearly all new or refurbished parts now and still wont work. The engine is now out of guarantee and they wont come out.

How much is a boat worth without a working engine! 

I will go up later and try to get some photos

 

Thanks for your help

I know you feel like chucking the sponge in and selling up (been there!) but I would have thought that close to our nations capital there would be plenty of competant boat engineers.

Suggest you ask around,and also on here for a recommendation of a competant engineer and get your engine looked at and fixed by someone who really knows what they are doing.

Best of luck.

Giving your engine problems some more thought;if your engine is really bad,then you may be chucking good money after bad.

If you think your boat is worth it,then consider a new engine and gearbox.

By the time it is fitted,new engine mounts,a skin tank welded in,you are looking at £10K+!

Or sell with a knackered engine for whatever you can get,and look for another boat.

Edited by Mad Harold
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I also forgot to mention that after temperature got up to 95 degrees the water level had not gone down when we took the header cap off! 

The revs wont go over 1500 now used to go to 2100. Any idea what this means? I will try the London Facebook to see if they know of any engineers.

 

Thanks

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RCR sell engines mangled by Key Engineering. I have had long experience with both companies and would not buy a nut and bolt off them.

 

The last time I heard a story like this the lady gave up after having RCR fit two exchange engine, neither of which were any good, and having the RCR guy out every morning to start her "new" engine because she could not.

It later became apparent that he was using cans of Easy Start ether.

 

Eventually she did the right thing, sued RCR or at least threatened to, and bought a brand new Canalline engine which was an easy swop for the BMC. She had no problems at all with the Canalline.

Edited by Tracy D'arth
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32 minutes ago, Heather said:

I also forgot to mention that after temperature got up to 95 degrees the water level had not gone down when we took the header cap off! 

The revs wont go over 1500 now used to go to 2100. Any idea what this means? I will try the London Facebook to see if they know of any engineers.

 

Thanks

First off electric coolant temperature are not the most reliable or accurate of things so one has to consider a  sender fault but that can't be checked without something like an infrared thermometer. At least you did not boil it.

 

The low revs could be a lack of compression (piston damage) but it could also be a lack of fuel so diagnostic work will be needed.

 

Lets hope you find an engineer.

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