Rapid Loss of Power

C

Commander Ed

Active member
Joined
Jul 16, 2009
Messages
40
Fluid Motion Model
C-248 C
Hull Identification Number
90001
Vessel Name
Sea Dragon
Cruising on Sea Dragon from San Pedro to San Diego (2009 R-25 with 150HP Cummins) - Running at 14 knots for about 45 minutes - engine died. Sudden loss of power very surprising. Trouble shooting - suspecting electrical due to sudden nature of loss of power. Engine battery buss showed 0 volts. House and Engine both normal. Befuddled - hit cross connect on battery busses - still 0 on Engine buss. After about 10 minutes looking into battery compartment for anything abnormal, the battery buss came up to 13+volts. Engine started and fault on cummins display showed an overheat for a moment but quickly returned to normal. Suspecting I might have got some seaweed blocking through hull causing overheat and shutdown - puzzled because it should have given an aural warning before getting too hot - all indications seemed normal, and we proceeded on. (starting to change route to hug coast a bit more)

After 30 minutes - same loss of power and engine battery buss indications. Again after 10 minutes the buss comes back, engine starts and we proceed at reduced power. (vowing to hug coast and looking for possible friendly harbor) Did I mention that the weather is starting to turn crappy and seas are coming up.

Made decision to abort into Dana Point - but power loss happened 3 more times getting into the harbor - fortunately - not in the restricted maneuvering area of the harbor. Glad to be in and at a dock as the weather had really blown up quickly, and bobbing around for 10 minutes every 20 minutes or so made me - the skipper sick. Sick skipper and sick boat - not a good combination.

Raining too much and too hard to do much trouble shooting yesterday - but the symptoms were always consistent - and I don't think it was related to temperature because I monitored it closely and shut downs still happened. Did not seem to matter what the load or RPM were either. Still think it is electrical - maybe a grounding problem?? But not sure if the logic on the Cummins keeps the buss from powering up after a failure for 10 minutes, but will do some reading.

Any ideas from anyone is appreciated - will be completing my journey to San Diego today by trailer. Once in home dock - I will have time to TS and get hold of Cummins. If I learn any lessons - will post at later date.
 
I had problems with intermittent shutdown on a gasoline engine onetime and it turned out to be a clogged fuel filter.

But, you have a run down battery and that perplexes me. Do you still have the cross connect connected? The house battery may be charging the engine battery. It can take awhile to recharge the engine battery enough to start the engine.

You might want to check your strainer.

You might have multiple problems.
 
Commander Bill.

Does flat screen engine display go blank when the engine dies?
What I am asking is, does everything related to engine quit, just like you turned off the key?
Then after a short period of "rest", engine can be started and everything seems normal, for a little while.
 
I meant Commander Ed.
 
As it ends up, the engine battery is fine, so even though the cross connect was on, it did not really effect the system as far as I can tell. I did check the strainer when I suspected the over heat, and it was fine. Since I monitored temp after that, the shut down was not heat related.

As for the other question - Yes the screen went blank just like turning the key off. When the key was still in the on position, the engine battery bus showed 0 volts. If I turned the key off - the battery bus would show normal voltage until I selected "on", then it went to 0 again. After about 10 minutes - in the on position (not trying to start the engine), the engine screen would come up with the "count down" dashes moving and the battery bus would be at normal voltage again. Engine would then start and run for about 20 min before going through the same thing again.

It was rough seas and we were taking some relatively hard "bumps", but can't say the bumps had much to do with it. Engine would stop at various RPM settings, from relatively low to WOT. Mystery to me.

Good news was that engine started this morning and I was able to load onto my trailer and it is at my home in Cardiff by the Sea for the night. Will launch it again at my home slip tomorrow in San Diego. After that, I will likely call Cummins and ask for assist. Still open to theories you may have. Thanks for the responses - and I have been called worse than Commander Bill.....
 
I lost power on my thrusters once last year, traced it to a battery terminal that seemed tight on first inspection, but wasn't tight enough.

As far as the overheat indication goes, there could be something in the impeller (even parts of the impeller itself) that is intermittently clogging the aw water flow.
 
This one can be tricky. What do your house batteries read on the 12 volt meter? The reason I ask this is because the engine ECM was routed directly to the House battery and the starter fired off of the start battery. I would check connections and battery levels on all the banks and report back to me.

I would also trace the wires from the Engine ECM located on the port side of the engine to the house battery and check connections and corrosion at that point. One of these wires is a solid red and one is a black wire about 10 gauge in size with an inline fuse on the red wire hooked direct to a positive battery post or positive battery buss. It does not look like any other wire we used during installation.

I would then go to your Main engine ground, ground block and main battery ground and clean all of your connections. This is common as a boat sits in the salt.

Main engine ground is located on the port side aft corner of the engine. It has a braided ground strap used for vibration. Make sure this is tight and clean. From that point it goes to a terminal block. Make sure that is clean and tight. From that terminal block, it runs to the battery ground buss. Make sure all of those grounds are tight and clean.

This also could be a cause of the Alternator wire working itself loose. I would be very careful and make sure the wire on the alternator is tight. If it is not, take extreme caution in tightening that nut.
 
Today I dealt with a factory recall on my 2006 Nissan Frontier. I realize that there is a difference between a Nissan pickup and a Cummins diesel. I will quote from the recall letter, " .....an issue with an Engine Control Module relay may, over time, cause engine performance issues, and in some instances, can cause the engine to stop running while the vehicle is in motion." I believe Andrew just mentioned something about the ECM. Just a thought.

Dave
 
Check the fuses in the black box on the Cummins. Local boat had EXACTLY the same symptoms. One of the fuses in the black box was defective. The fuse was cracked so sometimes it was making connection, sometimes not. Get out your best pair of reading glasses. Remove the fuses and jiggle the prongs. Look for a crack in the metal inards of the fuse. I believe it was a 20 amp fuse.
 
To All,
Thanks for the suggestions. I will do my troubleshooting and report back. As always Andrew - really appreciate your advice. BBRH - you nailed the symptom with your question, and in the back of my mind - what you suggested is my probable cause and I will check it at the top of the list. Again thanks to all. I will report back.
 
Hi Commander Ed. When checking the fuses, you should use a volt ohmmeter in the continuity setting while manipulating each of the fuses as BBR has suggested. Better than the eyes. I don't know how many times that I have looked a fuses, thought that they looked great, only to find them open w/ a continuity test.

Speaking of fuses and fuse holders, I had a wild one not long ago on my RV. It showed full voltage w/ no load. When I put a load to the wire, the voltage dropped and she no worky. It was a single inline type. I could not get the old fuse out. I just replaced the thing and was good to go.

I hope that you find your gremlin. Intermittent stuff on the high seas aint fun or safe.
 
Commander Ed, et al,

While I don't have a Ranger Tug, I've experienced similar problems with my diesel tractors over the years, esp. on the newer models, and, after years of problems, finally found out that small amounts of air were being sucked into the fuel line.

At first it seemed to be a problem with the fuel filter since changing that relieved the problem for a short while, then it seemed to be tank venting, since the problem abated when I loosened the fuel tank cap. But - the final analysis found a mis-sized fuel line connection where they had uses a 5/16 inch male into a 3/8 inch female (hose) this was drawing air into the system and the engine would rapidly get weak and maybe run only a short while on idle or such. The problem was worse at high rpm (created more suction and thus more air entered the fuel line). This was on a very expensive, new John Deere Tractor which had plagued me and the dealer for two years until they finally took the entire fuel system apart and measured and checked how it ran by bypassing the different components.

So, I would advise you to triple check any fuel line or hose connections and be especially certain that any barbs or inserts are large enough for the hose/line female.

John
 
I was doing about 10 kts and my Cummins 150 died abruptly, no sputtering. After an hour of occasional cranking, no firing, I called BoatUS for a tow. They said they'd arrive in about an hour and just before arriving, I thought I'd better crank again so as not to look dumb if they cranked and it fired up. It fired up as if nothing had happened. Very embarrassing. I concluded there must have been air in the line that somehow burped itself. Thus the restart. I called Cummins. They had nothing intelligent to say.
Norb Hattendorf
"Two If By Sea"
2009 25' Ranger Tug
norbhat@comcast.net
 
If your flat screen engine dispaly goes blank same time engine dies, better check for defective fuse mentioned earlier. Air in the fuel line and/or clogged fuel filter is not going to cause the engine dispaly to go blank.
 
Ooooops TWO IF BY SEA.
I failed to notice that you were able to crank the engine while you were waiting for tow.
If you were able to crank the engine, the problem was not a defective fuse.

Also please excuse the tyypppoes.
 
TWO IF BY SEA.
There was a discussion on another thread regarding engine dying possibly due to fuel starvation.
The theory was that in rough conditions, if the fuel tank is low, the fuel may slosh away from the fuel pickup.
The fuel tank in the R-25 is about 6 feet long and only about 20 inches wide.
The fuel pickup is at the rear of the tank.
If the fuel tank is low, in rough conditions, all the remaining fuel in the tank, could slosh to the front, away from the fuel pickup.
I thought the theory sounded plausible.
I never let my fuel tank get below 1/3 full.
 
To All of you who provided ideas and advice.
Well I got Sea Dragon back from Cummins today, and as I suspected the problem was electronic, and easy to fix once identified. Andrew was the "man" again and helped the Cummins guys troubleshoot. The problem ends up being the ground wire to the ECS was not secure. Simply tightening the connection on the battery is the fix. The logic is that if the ECS gets an interruption in power, the engine shuts down immediately..... Like NOW.

Since the seas were up, and the bumps were rough enough, the ground would occasionally be interrupted, and then once it settled down, it repowered the bus allowing the start. Simple inspection was not enough, it took actually tightening the connection (a wingnut) to make the connection again. I will be replacing the wingnut and putting on a locking style nut that will not "back off" again.

While my ECS ground was actually wired to the secondary (smaller) post on the engine battery, apparently on some boats it is wired to the house battery. According to Andrew wiring to the engine battery is now preferred. (Andrew - if I got this wrong, please chime in.)

So Mystery solved - easy fix - but hopefully my lesson learned will help someone else in the future.
 
I just dropped in to say that I read that the engine would stop if the ECS lost power after reading Marine Diesel Engines: Maintenance, Troubleshooting, and Repair http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/00..._m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_r=0VA3SAEZFBS1RH80FN2W

It is one of the best books on diesel troubleshooting, maintenance and repair. It is written in plain English so that the layman can do his own work. It was also mentioned that some engines have a bypass mode so that when the ECS fails you can still limp home. It would be interesting to know if the Cummins does.
 
We learned the hard way -- twice -- that our Ranger Tug 29 has a "Safe Mode" in its Yanmar engine.

We took delivery of the Circle T here in Southern California in January 2010. Our first two training days with the dealer both ended up with an unknown engine problem -- a sudden change to a very loud and funny sounding engine and a boat that would not exceed 4 to 5 knots no matter what the dealer tried to do at the controls. Cell phone calls were made while limping home at 5 knots but no one, not the dealer nor the factory nor the Yanmar rep contacted had any idea what could be causing what we were experiencing. This was supposed to be a fun day. It wasn't.

Yanmar came out the next day and inspected everything, to the point of not only changing both fuel filters but also cutting the old ones in two to see if there was debris inside. They didn't find anything... and the engine had meanwhile fixed itself and was operating normally. And so we went out for day #2 of training, only to have the exact same thing happen. Needless to say this was not the introduction to our new boat I was hoping for... I was starting to wonder about how Lemon Laws apply to boats.

Long story short, a loose connection was finally located on the rectangular black box on the port side of the Yanmar engine, which I believe is the ECS referred to in the last post. Once this connection was made fast, the problem was fixed and has not reoccured. We later learned that the loud and funny sounding Yanmar which kept running but would not exceed 5 knots was its "Safe Mode" -- something was wrong and the engine was doing what it had to do to protect itself while allowing the boat to make headway.

Interestingly, I've not been able to locate any reference to this Safe Mode in my Yanmar owner's manual or any place I've searched online. But having experienced it, I can tell you it's there.

After reading Commander Ed's experience of losing all power in just about exactly the same location where we were when we had our problem and entered the safe mode, I can tell you that the safe mode's 5 knots is better than a dead engine. Note to Commander Ed -- you and Becky would look good in a 29 !!
 
You are correct. It is amazing what a ground connection can do to an electronic engine. Sometimes an easy fix can be the last thing you check. I am the best at troubleshooting and going to the hardest thing first and the easiest last.

I remember my last one of an engine that wouldn't start. I went straight for the starter. Ended up being the battery. See, everyone cannot be perfect. :lol:
 
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