Wednesday, April 22, 2009
22 April - Day 49. One of the worst sounds aboard has to be that of a diesel engine shutting down unexpectedly. THis is something our genset did several times today. The Onan's built-in diagnostic system indicated that lack of raw water flow caused the automatic shut down. A check of the strainer and impeller removed them from the suspect list. The Onan would restart fine and run for a handful of minutes before shutting down again. Additionally, the raw water flow appeared normal while the Onan was running. Perhaps the problem lay in the raw-water-flow pressure switch. An Ohm meter revealed that the normally closed switch opened when raw water flowed. For whatever reason the switch wasn't opening. This was confirmed when the two wires to the switch were removed, making it appear to the Onan that raw water was flowing, and the genset continued to run. Tomorrow I'll pull the pressure switch and dig deeper. 0nm today: 1281nm total. DBH
