Parts list, costs and other thoughts! - rebuilding our Volvo MD 11D engine!

The engine appears to be running fine, at least for the last 20 minutes or so, and while the boat is still resting on land.  Our “dear” friend Peter (Aquataurus) insisted that the real test will be when we put the engine under load …. Thanks Peter for your vote of confidence!!!!

Which parts did I need:

Here is a listing of all the parts I had ordered and installed during this overhaul.

• Cylinder Liner Kit # 875549 (liner and pistons and sealing rings and piston ring)

• Decarbonizing Kit 876376 

• Push Rod 3583802

• Paint for engine

Costs:

 

While I found the detailed listing by http://www.marinepartseurope.com/en/e-volvo-penta-603-MD11D.aspx very helpfull, their listings gave me also a good idea about the costs involved in rebuilding this engine. In the end, I obtained my parts from the “local” Volvo distributor (http://www.frenchcreekmarina.com/).  Apart from getting some valuable advice from the marina staff, their prices were also significantly less than those found at the above mentioned site.

In total, and including the re-grinding of the valves and its seats, we paid about $1,600 for all what we needed so far for our rebuild.

Other thoughts and considerations:

We are (occasionally long-range) cruisers, and because of this we enjoy certain features of this engine.  It has hand-starting capabilities (in case the battery should fail), it does not rely on sophisticated electronic controls, and it offers the possibility to rebuild the engine in situ due to its replaceable wet-type cylinder liners and side access ports.

When our engine showed severe signs of aging, we had the option (A) to replace it with a more modern engine, (B) to purchase an overhauled engine of the same type (or to have the work done on our engine), or (C) try to learn how to rebuild this engine on our own.

Option A and B amounted pretty much to the same dollar amounts re engine, apart for the additional costs involved for Option A concerning shaft couplings, changing engine beds, moving controls and hoses …. friends of ours who followed this route spent about the same amount on all these changes as on the engine itself.

Option C – if it would have failed, we could always go back to option A and B.  We knew the approximate costs of this risk.  And should we be successful, we would have saved a good deal of money – and learned a lot in the process!

 It was worth taking the jump.  Remember, I am not a diesel mechanic.  This is all new to me.

And apart from our cost calculations, I can say that I have now a much better idea about the engine and how to repair it, and would not hesitate to take on this job once again.

If !!! … yeah, always so easy to say after the fact.  Back in Martinique, we contemplated to replace the engine.  We had ongoing problems which we found difficult to trace (especially cooling issues with repeatedly broken impellers, apart from some other issues), causing us a considerable amount of stress.  Enough stress that we were ready to look into purchasing/installing another engine; the infra-structure in Martinique would have allowed us to do that right there.

Fortunately, we met Frank from SV Enola who knew this engine and who explained the likely cause for these symptoms and suggested a “temporary” solution (rinsing the cooling passages with HCL), but made it clear that we would have to take the engine apart to do a proper job.  The rinsing helped and the engine stopped overheating or eating its impellers.

If I would have had access to similar information I provided in my blog, I would have done an overhaul.  Alas, I had much less information available to me at that time and did not see myself taking the engine apart as per workshop manual.  Calder's book on diesel engine repair suggested on-bord solutions, and showed tentalizing images.  But his instructions were not detailed enough for me to follow through with a rebuild past decarbonization. And I did not know at that time about the article written by Manfred (http://www.kavenga-segeln.de/media/2b574205c78c63f8ffff893aac144227.pdf) whose images suggested that a rebuild can indeed be carried out with the engine bed/crankcase remaining on the boat and the piston rods remaining in place. That article got me thinking ...

In the end, to do a job like this in these places, one would have to have access to the parts likely needed for this overhaul (see above our listing).  Unless this guarantee is in place, there is no point of even starting.  There is no room for “exploration”.  We had the de-carbonizing kit on board, which would not have been enough.

Based on my experience, the job could have been completed within 2 weeks, looking at a part-time (e.g. 4 hours a day) effort.  The essential steps are to remove and clean and re-paint the parts (biggest job), to pick-up the new parts, to have the valves/seats lapped or reground (if needed), followed by putting things back together.  The work could have been done while the boat is in the water (although, the (very, very !!!) messy cleaning should be done on land!).

Here are the tools I made for my overhaul:

From left:  the pressing tool for fitting of cylinder liners, the measuring tool for the dimensions A and B, my valve spring decompression tool.

Hope this helps – on to the next job.  Repainting the hull with Awlgrip!