Need help with Westerbeke 12.5BEG - hunting

I feel for the original poster. My Westerbeke diesel wouldn't stay running, heck it wouldn't even start during Sea Trial. The diesel tech returned to the boat this is after I paid him to change all the filters, oil, adjust the valves on the Perkins 2 propulsion engines, replace all the fuel filters, belts and rubber hoses on the Perkins 4.154M's and the Westerbeke 4.4 generator.
It turned out to be a defective oil pressure sender unit. Then I asked him if the unit put out Alternating Current you know what a generator is designed for? I get the excuse he forgot to check it under load. The good news is that I started it put it under a heavy load and ran if for about 2 hours after we closed and all is well. One would think if you ask a pro or specialist to perform maintenance on a generator they would make sure it ran (from his 1st and 2nd visits, then on the 3rd visit he would check to see if it would continue to run functioning as a generator not just a small 3 cylinder diesel engine.
Bill
 
There is a reason I like to do stuff myself. If I don't know what I'm doing and just throw parts at a problem at least I'm not paying labor rates. I'm paying only for my education not some supposed mechanic.
 
i would ck the stator output at this point westerbeke parts will add up real fast poke and hoping
 
Bruce this is good sound advice. My situation was different in that
I didn't own the boat at that point. However I didn't want the engines damaged due to the extended layup
I also weighed my offer it was fairly low so I wanted to make sure I had the best possible outcome.
This was a unique sale.
Bill
 
It's shocking how little some "professionals" really know. People like use tend to do our research - it really peeves me when I realize the professional I'm paying knows less than I do.
 
Indeed, We expect them to know what they work on but in reality there are so many similar but different systems out there that it is very hard for anyone to be expert on all of them.

In this case a genny expert might have been a better choice especially a dealer of that brand.

I have a mechanic who is very familiar with Cummins. He is the only one that I let work on my boat since I'm not doing any wrenching any longer. He works often with my help or at least a discussion of how to proceed. despite all that I check all his work.
 
quote:
Originally posted by BillK

It's shocking how little some "professionals" really know. People like use tend to do our research - it really peeves me when I realize the professional I'm paying knows less than I do.

Click to expand...


It's not just boats. SO's Rinnai water heater went south recently. Ditto her fridge and clothes washer. The "techs" consult an electronic manual and make phone calls to God knows who and read fault codes. Everything else is a stab at a list of associated problems.

Pathetic on a good day. We paid good money for the machines and repairs. End result was living like a cave dweller, a basic set of shrugged shouLders on the part of the tech, and a ridiculous bill.
 
Tech fixed it on the 6th visit. It turned out to be the voltage regulator circuit board, not the governor. The tech apologized several times and was clearly disappointed in his own performance in diagnosing and fixing the issue. He said he'd never seen one of these boards go bad before. My '05 model gennie only has 310 hours on it, so that's something you wouldn't expect to wear out....at any age really!

He hasn't billed me yet, so I'm waiting for that. He told me he wouldn't bill me when he left the boat the 1st 4 times, so we'll see.

The gen worked very well for us the whole Memorial weekend. I probably put another 10 hours on it in 2.5 days on the water. I don't run the gen when we're anchored and swimming. I have a 3,500 W inverter system with an large battery bank that'll carry our activities for the better part of the day. At night, we leave the windows open and run fans. Weather was beautiful here over the weekend!

So happy to be up and running again!
 
I think you should disconnect your power cords before you start your gen. When your switching from shore power to gen with the switch probably cause you to mess up your circuit board.
 
A proper BlueSea AC source switch should work this way you have the following AC/OFF/Gen. There is no way even if you tried switching as fast as humanly possible that both sources would ever connect to each other. It's basically an electrical switch where you can never have both sources engaged at the same time. If you did it's possible the Genset would explode. You'd certainly know it and this switch will not allow surges or spikes past it by its mechanical design.
I can tell you the noise would be explosive in nature.
If it makes you feel better then disconnect the shore cords 1st.
Bill
 
Correct, I have the large rotary know with Shore / OFF / GEN. Typically, I don't turn the generator on until we're at anchor. I don't have thrusters, so my generator isn't needed while underway.
 
That's a very expensive switch. I just had to purchase one to change from a single source 30A to dual 30 amp AC.
Big money but the switch or sliding breakers are the only way to properly keep the generator and AC circuits separated.
Bill
 
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