Advice on spring engine maintenance

[Petty Cash]

I have the 300 kamd diesels, what maintenance should I do to my engines besides the regular oil,filter,w/sep,g/filter,air filter. I changed the impellers and belts last year. What should I do this spring.should I change trans oil, compressor oil ect. I have 450 hours and there was a valve job done at 200 hours.

[backman]

If I were you

I would always change tranmission fluid and oil at the end of the season.

I would do compressor and coolant every 2 years - expensive sure; but the coolant looses its efficiency over time. Whenever you drain the coolant, replace the thermostat at the same time. Cheap insurance.

Belts and impellers are no brainers for me @ 400 hr's/year - pay the yard as part of winter maintenance and I don't have to worry about them for another year.

I also pay them to spend a couple hr's per side going through each fluid and hose system, looking for weak areas; checking clamps, looking for chafe, etc. I do this myself during the season on a regular basis; but to me its well work 4 or 500$ to have another pair of trained eyes trying to catch problems before they occur.

My yard wants me on a P.M. program for the electricals, alternator and starter. They suggest taking them off and servicing every 2 years - I do not do this but I do see the validity in their approach. I believe, rightly or wrongly that I will see indications of a failure in either of these and service them at that time.

I have all coolers taken off and cleaned every 3 years; on my old 42's we found that at 6 years the core of the transmission coolers was failing at the welds.

I will probably have my exhaust elbow taken off and inspected this winter as well as having the turbo inspected and cleaned.

Obviously running gear; including shaft seal should be visually inspected during the winter.


I am insanely anal about this and drop a small fortune in the preventative maintenance but 100 miles out is no time to find a problem. I have been towed in 5 times from offshore on other people's boats and with the exception of 1 time where we ate a submerged gill net at 26 knots; the other 4 were directly attributable to either poor maintenance or not knowing how to diagnose and address minor problems before they became major.

[Petty Cash]

backman

Thanks for the reply, very helpful. I'll start saving $$$ now for spring.