The most controversial component of the decade eliminates the emissions from your boat’s engine and hopefully not the money from your pocket. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that Americans spend more than 500-million hours pleasureboating each year and…
If you’re reading this magazine, chances are you’re not a tree-hugger: You burn lots of fossil fuel to push your boat at high speed through a relatively unyielding…
You don’t know what quiet means until your diesel goes “clunk” and dies—silence may be golden, but it rarely bodes well. “Clunk” is what a snapping crankshaft sounds like, for example. I once lost a crank halfway across the Gulf Stream, leaving me adrift on a moonless, star-filled night. Mea culpa: If I had included oil analysis in my regular maintenance program, it probably would
Pessimists have been known to argue that engines are nothing more than constantly degrading machines. It’s a somewhat depressing characterization to be sure, but it’s also a truthful one. From the day you start your engine up, parts corrode, sludge forms, bearings wear—things are beginning to break down. To slow down the process, man created lubricants.
Here’s the situation: You’re in the market for an engine rated at 1,000 hp. But before committing you wonder, is that rating accurate? The answer is, sort of. The numbers on an engine spec sheet are formulated according to a set of conditions that may or may not reflect those your engine will face. It’s your responsbility to understand the caveats that can affect
The way the average marine transmission accomplishes the mission is “Way more complicated.”Okay, my education concerning things mechanical has not been formal. Indeed, you might say I’ve extracted the whole shebang from the School of Hard Knocks—meaning I’ve typically learned about things by having to either maintain or fix
The way the average marine transmission accomplishes the mission is “Way more complicated.”Okay, my education concerning things mechanical has not been formal. Indeed, you might say I’ve extracted the whole shebang from the School of Hard Knocks—meaning I’ve typically learned about things by having to either maintain or fix
You’ve heard the mantra before, but it bears repeating. A diesel engine basically needs just two things: clean fuel and air. If it’s missing either, it’s dead. That’s why troubleshooting a diesel usually involves tracing the air and fuel systems from start to finish, always beginning with the simplest and least-invasive potential cause and ending whenever your
Starbrite Star Tron Enzyme Fuel TreatmentMy trawler spends plenty of time sitting in a slip with her fuel tanks semifull and her powerplant twiddlin’ its thumbs. To deal with the consequences, I installed a fuel polisher last year to remove contaminants, a savvy move in retrospect because I’ve since been able to keep my go-go
As more states mandate E10 ethanol-blended gasoline for off-road use, the problem of water accumulation in fuel tanks grows. And nothing can ruin your day faster than your engine dying from a lethal gulp of H2O. If you’ve been burning E10 for a while, you might already have what techies call “water bottom.”Water bottom is simply water under the fuel in a tank, and it’s unfortunately become
If you really want to know what’s going on inside your engine, you need to know about oil analysis.In the surfeit of CSI programs so popular with TV viewers these days, one scene is never absent: The investigators lock eyes with the suspect in the interrogation room and coolly announce that blood samples taken from the crime scene
There are plenty of reasons why the diesel engine is the best power choice for boats over 35 feet, and principal among them is its sterling reliability and reknowned durability. Compared with even the newest electronic gasoline engines, diesels are signifitcantly less likely to suddenly stop running and significantly more likely to outlive their owners.But diesels aren’t perfect. They do
There are plenty of reasons why the diesel engine is the best power choice for boats over 35 feet, and principal among them is its sterling reliability and reknowned durability. Compared with even the newest electronic gasoline engines, diesels are signifitcantly less likely to suddenly stop running and significantly more likely to outlive their owners.But diesels aren’t perfect. They do
If you really want to know what’s going on inside your engine, you need to know about oil analysis.In the surfeit of CSI programs so popular with TV viewers these days, one scene is never absent: The investigators lock eyes with the suspect in the interrogation room and coolly announce that blood samples taken from the crime scene
There are plenty of reasons why the diesel engine is the best power choice for boats over 35 feet, and principal among them is its sterling reliability and reknowned durability. Compared with even the newest electronic gasoline engines, diesels are signifitcantly less likely to suddenly stop running and significantly more likely to outlive their owners.But diesels aren’t perfect. They do
The most controversial component of the decade eliminates the emissions from your boat’s engine and hopefully not the money from your pocket. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) estimates that Americans spend more than 500-million hours pleasureboating each year and…
If you’re reading this magazine, chances are you’re not a tree-hugger: You burn lots of fossil fuel to push your boat at high speed through a relatively unyielding…
You don’t know what quiet means until your diesel goes “clunk” and dies—silence may be golden, but it rarely bodes well. “Clunk” is what a snapping crankshaft sounds like, for example. I once lost a crank halfway across the Gulf Stream, leaving me adrift on a moonless, star-filled night. Mea culpa: If I had included oil analysis in my regular maintenance program, it probably would
Pessimists have been known to argue that engines are nothing more than constantly degrading machines. It’s a somewhat depressing characterization to be sure, but it’s also a truthful one. From the day you start your engine up, parts corrode, sludge forms, bearings wear—things are beginning to break down. To slow down the process, man created lubricants.
Here’s the situation: You’re in the market for an engine rated at 1,000 hp. But before committing you wonder, is that rating accurate? The answer is, sort of. The numbers on an engine spec sheet are formulated according to a set of conditions that may or may not reflect those your engine will face. It’s your responsbility to understand the caveats that can affect
The way the average marine transmission accomplishes the mission is “Way more complicated.”Okay, my education concerning things mechanical has not been formal. Indeed, you might say I’ve extracted the whole shebang from the School of Hard Knocks—meaning I’ve typically learned about things by having to either maintain or fix
The way the average marine transmission accomplishes the mission is “Way more complicated.”Okay, my education concerning things mechanical has not been formal. Indeed, you might say I’ve extracted the whole shebang from the School of Hard Knocks—meaning I’ve typically learned about things by having to either maintain or fix
You’ve heard the mantra before, but it bears repeating. A diesel engine basically needs just two things: clean fuel and air. If it’s missing either, it’s dead. That’s why troubleshooting a diesel usually involves tracing the air and fuel systems from start to finish, always beginning with the simplest and least-invasive potential cause and ending whenever your
Starbrite Star Tron Enzyme Fuel TreatmentMy trawler spends plenty of time sitting in a slip with her fuel tanks semifull and her powerplant twiddlin’ its thumbs. To deal with the consequences, I installed a fuel polisher last year to remove contaminants, a savvy move in retrospect because I’ve since been able to keep my go-go
As more states mandate E10 ethanol-blended gasoline for off-road use, the problem of water accumulation in fuel tanks grows. And nothing can ruin your day faster than your engine dying from a lethal gulp of H2O. If you’ve been burning E10 for a while, you might already have what techies call “water bottom.”Water bottom is simply water under the fuel in a tank, and it’s unfortunately become
If you really want to know what’s going on inside your engine, you need to know about oil analysis.In the surfeit of CSI programs so popular with TV viewers these days, one scene is never absent: The investigators lock eyes with the suspect in the interrogation room and coolly announce that blood samples taken from the crime scene
There are plenty of reasons why the diesel engine is the best power choice for boats over 35 feet, and principal among them is its sterling reliability and reknowned durability. Compared with even the newest electronic gasoline engines, diesels are signifitcantly less likely to suddenly stop running and significantly more likely to outlive their owners.But diesels aren’t perfect. They do
There are plenty of reasons why the diesel engine is the best power choice for boats over 35 feet, and principal among them is its sterling reliability and reknowned durability. Compared with even the newest electronic gasoline engines, diesels are signifitcantly less likely to suddenly stop running and significantly more likely to outlive their owners.But diesels aren’t perfect. They do
If you really want to know what’s going on inside your engine, you need to know about oil analysis.In the surfeit of CSI programs so popular with TV viewers these days, one scene is never absent: The investigators lock eyes with the suspect in the interrogation room and coolly announce that blood samples taken from the crime scene
There are plenty of reasons why the diesel engine is the best power choice for boats over 35 feet, and principal among them is its sterling reliability and reknowned durability. Compared with even the newest electronic gasoline engines, diesels are signifitcantly less likely to suddenly stop running and significantly more likely to outlive their owners.But diesels aren’t perfect. They do
