RE: YANMAR 4BY2 SERVICE BULLETIN

Andrew posted YANMAR 4BY2 SERVICE BULLETIN at URL http://www.tugnuts.com/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2682 today. I've read the Yanmar America Service Advisory that Andrew gave a link to and I'm almost positive this advisory is applicable for our Yanmar 150 HP engine in our MY2010 Ranger Tug R25.

In particular I read "Ranger Product with a 4BY2 with a model year of 2010 or 2009." as a boat affected by the advisory which certainly covers our boat.

Using Andrew's Yanmar Marine Dealership list I will be contacting MER Equipment (206.286.1817) in Seattle to discuss a review of this advisory.

Thanks for posting this Baz. I personally have been using Gallery Marine in Seattle for most of my needs. Irvin (Service Manager) is a very good guy that will also be able to take care of this issue. Thanks again.

Irvin Prichard, Service Manager
Gallery Marine Services LLC
717 N.E. Northlake Way
Seattle Wa. 98105
Phone: 206-547-2477

Thanks Andrew.

I called Irvin and spoke with him and he will check on the Avisory for me today in regards to having the new oil line on hand and then call me back. We will then go from there to schedule the oil line replacement.

I've heard back from Irvin and he now has the oil line replacement on hand. I will schedule his service next week and post back the results.

Irvin did have a question about this Yanmar advisory though.... He wondered why the Yanmar service advisory was SPECIFIC to Ranger Tugs - he found this to be odd!!! ? Since he asked, I now also wonder... :roll: ...Andrew, do you have an explanation for this ?

Hello Andrew..
Just a young signs to say to you that everything walks well on " Claud' in " and that I am going to begin in a month a big tour of Corsica.
When you will have time, and if you have the information, can you say to me with which type of product or method it is advised to clean the cloth taud of Tugs?

I take advantage to say that I feast on all the exchanges on Tugs Nuts (even if I post few e-mails)
By hoping to send to the community of beautiful photos of my tour of Corsica!!
May be you don't have this information: there is a lot of photos and informations about the new Ranger Tugs R31 on the French Motor boat review...
Very cordially
Claud' in of Corsica ( France)

Dear Tugnuttters:

This issue is real. The oil line on YOLO (R-27) malfunctioned after 25 hours last summer. Winter Island Yacht Yard (and Ranger Tugs) responded quickly and I got a new engine. Unfortunately, at the time Yanmar did not identify the oil line problem.

Fast forward to Saturday, May 26, 2012. After 1.5 hours into her 2012 maiden voyage, the oil line failed again. I did not see the service bulletin posted on Tugnuts, otherwise I would have had the service performed before the cruise. Here I am with my family in the middle of Boston Harbor with all sorts of boat traffic whizzing by me and the low pressure alarm goes off. I instantly shut down and dropped the anchor. I then made three phone calls: TowBoat US, Winter Island Yacht Yard and Ranger Tugs. All my calls were answered within minutes. We got towed back to the Lynn Yacht Club, Andrew called me back in route to inform me of the Yanmar Service Bulletin and Winter Island Yacht Yard called to tell me they were working out the logistics of the repair.

Peter was at my boat by 5:30 pm last evening (the same day!!!!) and the oil line was replaced. Today, we will continue with our Memorial Day weekend cruising.

Although the problem was incredibly frustrating (seeing that it happened twice), I cannot complain one bit about the incredible service afforded to me and YOLO.

Thanks again to Peter Haywood (WIYY) and Andrew Custus (Ranger Tugs).

PS: As a Persion Gulf era veteran, I would like to ask everyone to pause and honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice so that we can enjoy our Ranger Tugs, in peace and free from harm.

Kudos to our troops!! Also Winter Island Yachts and Andrew at Ranger. Boy Barry, it seems like you dodged the bullet on this one.

Barry- I was overwhelmed when I read your post. I have not met you but you were so kind to share some of your modification designs which we so flagrantly utilized on our R-27.

You were blessed in your outcome. Don't even want to think of other possibilities.

I saw Andrew's posting of the service bulletin the night it was posted.

The next day Dominic from Wefing's Marine, my dealer, was on the phone alerting me to the problem and the service bulletin. He was attempting to reach every customer effected. Typical Wefing's service.

I have been in touch with First Mate Yacht services in St. Augustine - the folks who performed the cooling pipe replacement last fall. they are obtaining the oil pipe and we should be trailering over to beautiful st. Augustine in the next week or so to have the fix and to cruise for a few days down the ICW. We've been wanting to visit the reopened Marineland Marina and the attraction that was Marineland that i last visited in 1951.

Barry, hope you had a great Weekend after all!!!!

Burt's Diesel Service (http://burtsdiesel.com/index.htm) Has a tech coming down to my boat Thursday. I have 45 hours on the engine so I'm having them do the 50 hour service at the same time. They come highly recommended by a couple of the marinas and service folks I know on Lake Erie and the big thing for me is they'll come to my boat which is on a lake 2 hours from where they're located.

By the way, Dominic called me too. As noted earlier, great dealer (Wefings), and great service!

I've had the boat here since March and this is the second recall/service bulletin that's been done on it by Yanmar since then. The first was the heater hose replacement. I hope this isn't a pattern 🙂

Following up on Barry Cohen's post on the sevice provided by Peter Haywood of Winter Island Yacht Yard: I got the engine warning on my Yanmar 150 this past week when I was out cruising. I was fortunate that the line had started to crack but hadn't broken, so I was able to return to the dock under my own power and had lost less than a quart of oil. I called Peter Haywood and he arranged for the repair by a local Yanmar mechanic. This Sunday (the day after he had fixed Barry's boat), Peter called to see if my boat had been fixed yet. When I explained that we were still waiting for the part, he said he and his wife Diane were in the area with the part and would stop by. This was Sunday evening of Memorial Day weekend. They didn't leave until after 10:00 PM Sunday night, but the repair was complete and all is well.

I am still in awe of the service provide by Peter and Diane of Winter Island Yacht Yard, and Ranger Tugs. I used to envy Tug owners in the Seattle area; it seemed like whenever anyone had a problem, Andrew Custis would miraculously appear on scene and fix it. Peter has taken over that role in the New England area.

Given the reports posted here for both the R-27 and R-25 I feel extremely uncomfortable taking my boat out until I get this issue resolved for my boat. I did attend the Mini Cruise to Fisherman's Terminal this past weekend and I must say this issue was on my mind during the 1.5 hours it took me to cruise on down south to the meeting, and of course on the return journey. I kept a mindful watch on my oil pressure gauge throughout the cruise. I also kept my engine running at no more than 2500 rpm hoping to keep oil pressure level down and not to stress the engine oil system too much.

I have Gallery Marine checking my Yanmar 4BY2-150 engine next Monday June 4th at 7:30am at my dock slip at Port Of Edmonds, and will not be taking my boat out to open waters until this service check has been completed.

I do have questions for those that have actually encountered this oil line problem...

1) Can you say what engine RPM you were running at when the oil line broke or cracked ?
2) When the line broke/cracked did oil pressure fall off to zero or near zero ?
3) If oil leaked into bilge will the Yanmar advisory repair done under warranty also be responsible for cleaning up the oil mess ?
4) When oil line repaired/replaced does the engine oil (if any) need to be drained out, and if so, does the warranty repair cover the expense of replacing the engine oil ?
5) The Yanmar advisory states the repair should take no more than 2 hours -- is this an accurate estimate ?
6) Can the oil line be replaced without disengaging, loosening and/or removing other engine parts ?
7) Do the engine beauty plates have to be removed in order to get at the oil line ? I ask this as when the last Yanmar advisory was issued for the water hose lines they had to be, and when replaced not all the holding bolts were seated down all the way. This caused a bad engine rattle noise at around 2800 rpm (obviously some form of harmonic) and it took me several attempts to isolate the issue which turned out to be the bolts not having been fully seated.

On a side note... if the oil line breaks and all the engine oil squirts into the bilge and subsequently gets pumped out overboard who is responsible for the oil spill mess ? This is a serious issue as people responsible for oil spills goto jail (so I'm told)... :roll: :cry: :shock:

Just to answer your question regarding the oil being pumped out by the bilge pump; the sensor does not recognize oil and therefore will not start the pump.

knotflying":11wzqo9x said:

Just to answer your question regarding the oil being pumped out by the bilge pump; the sensor does not recognize oil and therefore will not start the pump.

Click to expand...

Thanks... If there's sufficient water in the bilge to activate the pump will the pump stop when sensing the oil ? ... as oil floats on water, right ?

Baz, mine broke at 3,400 rpms. I shut down within a few seconds of the alarm and when the engine was drained, it had lost approx. 1 to 1 1/2 quarts and did no damage to the engine. If you don' shut down immediately, you may well be talking to Mack Boring about a new engine. Based on my experience, if I had it to do over, I would not operate my boat without the oil line replaced. It sounds like the part is available and Yanmar/ Mack/ Boring is prepared to send out a mechanic. As for cleaning up the mess, the only way to do it right is to remove, clean and reinstall the engine.
PS: the problem occurred in my boat before it was identified as a know deficiency and Yanmar put out a bulletin.

Hi All,
If you have not been visited by a mechanic and verified you do need the oil line replaced, you can easily verify it yourself.
R27 and 25SC owners, open the engine hatch kneel down on the stbd side of the hatch opening facing fwd, look in and fwd at the top fwd end of the engine. You will see a small vertically mounted cylindrical object that is the oil pressure sensor. At the bottom fwd face is a bolt that fits a 14mm wrench. This is the head of the banjo bolt that holds the top end of the oil line banjo fitting. Put your finger on the bolt head and moving inboard you, hopefully, will touch a rubber hose. If you feel a metal tube approx. 1/4 inch in diameter, DO NOT RUN YOUR ENGINE ANY MORE! This is the faulty oil line. Notify your Yanmar dealer of choice and let them know you have definitely identified that you have the faulty oil line.
For the folks with the R25 Classic, open your companionway step, look at the fwd stbd top end of the engine where you will see, just under the engine cover, the head of the banjo bolt and to the port side of the bolt head either a hose (good sign) or the metal tube (replace this).
Hope this helps.
Cheers,
Peter

In response to Baz's questions: In my case the I got the engine warning while at pretty high RPMs, probably around 3500. My oil pressure did not go to zero, in fact it appeared normal to me as I returned to the dock, however I think my situation was unusual in that apparently I only had a fine crack in the line as opposed to a complete break.

One thing that is hard to figure on this problem is why there have been several failures recently, when all of our engines are different ages and have different operating times. I was just starting my third season with about 190 hours on the engine when it failed. Probably running at high RPMs with higher pressure is more risky that low RPMs, but the failure may be due to thermal or vibration stresses on the pipe that could happen at any RPM. In any case, judging by Peter Haywood's post, the recommendation is clear that if you have the bad pipe, you should not use the boat until it is fixed.

Tom
Indian Summer

ttlmac":141uu1m6 said:

In response to Baz's questions: In my case the I got the engine warning while at pretty high RPMs, probably around 3500. My oil pressure did not go to zero, in fact it appeared normal to me as I returned to the dock, however I think my situation was unusual in that apparently I only had a fine crack in the line as opposed to a complete break.

One thing that is hard to figure on this problem is why there have been several failures recently, when all of our engines are different ages and have different operating times. I was just starting my third season with about 190 hours on the engine when it failed. Probably running at high RPMs with higher pressure is more risky that low RPMs, but the failure may be due to thermal or vibration stresses on the pipe that could happen at any RPM. In any case, judging by Peter Haywood's post, the recommendation is clear that if you have the bad pipe, you should not use the boat until it is fixed.

Tom
Indian Summer

Click to expand...

Thanks... My Yanmar 4BY2-150 engine has around 197 hrs on it. No way will I be taking our boat out until Gallery Marine takes a look at my engine's oil line in question next Monday.

WE have over 300 hours on our engine. But we were on a trip when this came up, so we returned to Anacortes without finding someone to come out over the Memorial holiday. I figured that if it had not gone bad by now, it probably would last another 14 hours back. Willie has medical appointment tomorrow so we needed to return. I will call North Island Boat to come check it tomorrow. I noticed that a dealer posted a way to check if yours is one of the recalled lines. I will check it tomorrow....it is happy hour now.

Andrew's original post lists models and model years affected by the service bulletin. You can find it here:

YANMAR 4BY2 SERVICE BULLETIN


Cheers,

Bruce

We had our oil line replaced prior to the season starting on our 2011 25SC after having a "heads up" by Ranger. I already had my boat in the shop for another issue but I was not going to pick it up until I had that oil line replaced and now after reading some of your posts I'm sure glide I did. Just got done with a 95mi trip this past weekend with the family and I felt very confident running at 80-90% with that new oil line. Still haven't gotten reimbursed yet from Yanmar b/c the bulletin came out the day I picked up and paid for the work but I'm sure I'll see the refund check prior to next season.