Hoping to hear something positive!

All the best

Paul

Regards,

Maarten-Pieter 

Paul,

I gather the engineers would always prefer to remove the engine to make their job easier. Easier to do other work on the engine if it is out if the problem is not just a head gasket problem. Not sure how difficult engine removal would be on a 415 - but my guess is -difficult. 

All the best

Paul

Sorry to hear about your problem. 

As a fellow owner of a 415 with the same engine I'm obviously interested in the cause. Have you any thoughts about why it happened? Do you think your service engineers did something wrong or is it just 'bad luck'?

Regarding changing the head gasket, it should be perfectly possible to do this in situ. Access is OK from 3 sides. However, if the block needs to be milled flat (unlikely, I would have thought, unless the engine was run dry for some time) then it will have to to come out. I would discuss with your new engineers doing the job initially in situ but accepting if there is work required on the block then it will have to come out.

Good luck

As with everything, nothing is clear cut. The original engineers didn’t clean the sea water filter which was almost completely full of bits of mussel shells, which I think they should have seen and made them question a blockage in the sail drive. But then we could have spotted that too, but they were official Volvo Penta agents. 

This caused the engine to overheat, spewing coolant out of the pressure cap. We immediately turned off the engine waited for it too cool, topped up the coolant and used it very sparingly and at very low revs back to the marina. We then had the sail drive cleaned, oil and coolant changed and all seemed ok. Next time we used the engine, low power and black smoke/water was almost immediately obvious in the exhaust, this time all the coolant had disappeared but into the engine. Again we turned off the engine sailed back to the marina entrance and were towed back to our berth. 

The engine is being taken out on Monday for inspection so I will report back after that, but it would seem that these engines are very sensitive to even a small amount of over heating. 

All the best

Paul

That sounds like real bad luck. Whatever the actual fault you should have had an overheat alarm from the Volvo cockpit panel before any serious damage was done. If your alarm didn't sound then that needs investigating as a priority - it could have saved the engine.

The alarm should trigger around 120C, about the time that the pressurized water starts to boil. I know this because mine triggered last summer (2018) when I started the engine without turning the seacock back on. Normally when cruising I leave the seacock on but I had turned it off to clean the raw water filter (full of seaweed strands and small shrimps) and obviously forgot to turn it on again when I'd finished. Silly boy! When the alarm went off (next day) it caused a few seconds panic as we were exiting the cill at Trebeurden and didn't have any sail up or room to anchor! Fortunately no damage was done as the fresh water coolant was only just starting to boil and the exhaust hose and water trap/silencer also seemed to have survived.

I have since fitted a sea water flow alarm that triggers if the engine is started and no cooling water is flowing. This should detect a potential overheat situation long before it becomes a problem. Unfortunately the company making the kit I used has recently ceased trading but Google can suggest several alternatives.

Fingers crossed that your engine can be easily fixed. I'm sure several of us with the D2 series engine will be interested to hear the conclusion to this sad tale.

Roger, the overheat alarm didn't work because our 8th MDI unit had failed after 1 engine cycle and we were using the engine without it, lesson learned but if Volvo built MDI units that lasted and honoured their warranty this might not have happened. But don't start me on that one!

Ok the good news first, it was actually quite easy to get the engine out of the boat and onto the Marina pontoon and on inspection, the block, pistons and bearings seem ok. The head is being sent away for accurate measurement and (hopefully) milling rather than replacement.

There was a significant amount of unidentified crud in the coolant waterways. As we have only ever used Volvo coolant, the engineers were at a loss to explain this, although they did suggest I see if the hot water cylinder and it's feed pipes were clear.

As ever any thoughts would be welcome because I am not an engineer

All the best

Paul

Regarding the overheating, was there a failure of the cylinder head gasket? If there was it is hard to see it in the photos.

Have your engineers suggested checking the heat exchanger internals? This seems a more likely source of 'crud' (from salt water?) in the waterways than the calorifier (which only contains clear mains water). 

They checked the heat exchanger before they decided that it was the head gasket, apparently that was all ok. There was no obvious damage to the head gasket, but they seem to think head is warped, but will only find out tomorrow. 

On the MDI issue the last one literally lasted one engine cycle, turn on ok turn off ok, try to turn on again blown. Various different theories abound, back eddy from the stop solenoid, problems with temperature sensor. But Volvo don’t seem to take the matter seriously and have refused to replace the last two units. No proper reason given, but think due to the fact that until recently I always carried a spare on board and was therefore fitting them myself rather than have Volvo do it. 

All the best

Paul

Why do they fail? I certainly don’t know, but electronics generally dislike heat, vibration and voltage transients, so mounting it on the engine and taking its power from the starter (rather than from the battery) seems like a good recipe for failure.

Good luck with the aftermath of your overheating problem.

make sure that the workshop does a proper job renovating the head and block surfaces. If they use a cheapo manual milling machine or a chinese / american CNC machine I would insist to put both on a flat grinder after milling. You can get a good surface with high speed milling, but these are normally not found in an engine repair shop.

 

Good Luck!

Thanks for the advice, our new Volvo agent / engineers assure me that they send these to a specialist engineering shop for machining, so hopefully they have all the right equipment. 

All the best

Paul

The head was measured and can be milled / polished back to flat which is good news. We visited the workshop today and they had taken the heat exchanger and exhaust elbow off. Below is a photo of the exhaust end of the heat exchanger, which shows two holes between the exhaust and the coolant chambers.

They reckon that this was the initial cause of our problems and suggested that if you do not run the engine at least every 2 weeks, the "stagnant" salt water can corrode the metal. I have checked the Volvo user manual and they do indeed suggest the engine should be run every two weeks and that if you intend to leave it more than two months then you should 'inhibit' it.

We have never not run the engine for two months, the longest period might have been 4 weeks, but is usually every week.

With regard to the litany of broken MDI units which certainly didn't help our situation, they say that the Volvo 2 year warranty only extends from the date of the original purchase. I bought two of these in October 2016 after a lightning strike took out the original, so despite Volvo giving me five further units since then, the latest being in June 2018, these are now out of their perceived warranty period.

I am staggered that a company like Volvo can design an engine for a marine environment that is so sensitive and that despite accepting the problem with their MDI units (and recalling some) they fail to honour their obligations.

Apologies for the rant, but seriously unhappy 

All the best

Paul

This is truly shocking and I completely understand why you are seriously unhappy. 

Although I try to run my engine every 2 weeks or so, even through the English winter, it can occasionally be 3 or even 4 weeks between runs if we have been away, and there must be thousands of D2 engine owners who run their engines less often than you and I do. Are Volvo actually suggesting that there is a risk that ALL these 'neglected' engines could fail due to salt corrosion? If this is a real threat then Volvo should have designed in a more robust casting or possibly included anodes in the seawater circuit. I think you have a strong case against Volvo, for the above casting fault and also the appalling saga of the failing MDI units. It might well be worth trying to mobilise social media (if you subscribe - I don't) or publicise your story on the UK PBO Forum ( http://www.ybw.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?13-Practical-Boat-Owner-s-Reader-to-Reader" rel="nofollow - http://www.ybw.com/forums/forumdisplay.php?13-Practical-Boat-Owner-s-Reader-to-Reader ) and the US Cruiser Forum ( http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f54/" rel="nofollow - http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f54/ ) and see what support you can muster for a campaign for better support from Volvo. Maybe just the threat of doing this will make Volvo take more interest. 

Good luck.

Further to my previous and my comment in your new thread, I've just found this thread on the Cruisers Forum regarding the MDI issue.

http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f54/volvo-penta-mdi-black-box-failures-188440-2.html" rel="nofollow - http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/f54/volvo-penta-mdi-black-box-failures-188440-2.html

Many thanks for that, I will look into posting on the sites you suggested 

All the best

Paul

https://nordkyndesign.com/engine-reliability-a-look-at-the-volvo-penta-mdi-black-box/" rel="nofollow - https://nordkyndesign.com/engine-reliability-a-look-at-the-volvo-penta-mdi-black-box/

Another theory to add to the pile!

The first 3 or 4 failures we had came when the boat was under two or three years and so the electrical system was as ex factory. 

My two cents worth!

All the best

Paul