Jump to content

Hot water in bilge under engine


Featured Posts

Hello

newbie here, stepson has bought a 1980’s narrowboat with ford 1800 Diesel engine.

 

it collects water under the engine say six inches after a two hour trip, at first we thought it was coming from the prop shaft gland but it seems to be quite hot, so wondering if it’s coming from a leak in engine cooling system, the boat does have a water heater which is run from the engine so maybe this?

 

has anyone experienced something similar at what was the cause/fix?

 

Many thanks

 

Tom

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not sure looking for possible causes, Stepson away for a week but will check when he's back, is the coolant circuit a closed loop or does it pull in freshwater from canal? it's a ford diesel should have mentioned that. Given the amount of water it's losing I guess it wouldn't be closed loop or it might have overheated by now?

 

It looks like it's a car engine rather than dedicated boat engine that has been modified to run in boat.

 

Thanks 

 

Tom

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Not inough info. Is it raw water cooled? Is it skin tanks and are they leaking? Pictures will help if u dont understand. Has it lost water when you open cap? Does it have a header tank?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Is there a calorfier with the PRV piped in to the bilges so as the water heats up the PRV is letting more than an odd drip in to the bilge. I have had a PRV stick open and drained a full water tank in a couple of hours.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Definitely not enough info. If you and/or he studies http://www.tb-training.co.uk/15cool.htm#bmn53

and compare the pipework and number of pumps with your engine you should be able to work out which system you have. A typical tank cooled narrowboat will have a dry exhaust and just a single car type engine water pump. It will not suck water out of the canal.

 

Be very wary, unless it is a leak in a raw (canal) water circuit 6" in the drip tray is such a loss it is likely to quickly lead to overheating.

 

As  said above this could easily be a problem with the Domestic hot water circuit.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Some skin tank cooled boats have the tank set on the base plate, rather than the more usual place on the hull side. If such a tank has bilge water above it, I guess that bilge water would get warmed.

Edited by David Mack
Link to comment
Share on other sites

6 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Some skin tank cooled boats have the tank set on the base plate, rather than the more usual place on the hull side. If such a tank has bilge water above it, I guess that bilge water would get warmed.

 

I thought about that and assume the water was cleared out each day. If it is the same water then yes, a very probably cause and probably no coolant loss at all.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Create an account or sign in to comment

You need to be a member in order to leave a comment

Create an account

Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!

Register a new account

Sign in

Already have an account? Sign in here.

Sign In Now
  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.
×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.