[C320-list] Perkins Perama M30 Overheating

[Bev Wright]

Mark, 

Thanks for your post because, coincidentally, Whoosh #15 overheated on Wed night in Herring Bay/Chesapeake (opposite coast!) for the first time ever since I got her in 07/2014 and our boats are both 1993 vintage so I wonder if that's a sign of something?  I was motoring to the slip after engine had been running/idling for 90+ minutes (hanging out waiting for a race which didn't happen due to no wind) and noticed that temp was about 190° at 3000 RPM. I throttled back to 2000 RPM and it cooled down immediately to normal 175°. I inched it back up to 2500 and it stayed at 175° for the remaining 20 min trip back to the slip. I had no smoke. Today I checked the strainer and it was clean. Oil, transmission fluid and coolant were OK and dry bilge. So, it's a mystery other than maybe she doesn't like to idle for that long. It was suggested that perhaps something was temporarily blocking the raw water intake. I will be cruising this weekend and will obviously keep an eye on it.

Bev Wright
s/v Whoosh #15
Deale, MD

-----Original Message-----
From: C320-list [mailto:c320-list-bounces at lists.catalina320.com] On Behalf Of Mark Cole
Sent: Friday, August 25, 2017 11:25 PM
To: C320-List at Catalina320.com
Subject: [C320-list] Perkins Perama M30 Overheating

My wife and I motored our boat over to a local boat yard for a haul-out yesterday.  About 20 minutes into the 1 hour trip, I noticed the water temp gauge was up to 220° and there was grey smoke (steam?) coming from the exhaust.  I shut the engine down and checked the raw water strainer.  There was a little gunk in the strainer, but not much.  Everything else looked OK, so I started the engine up again; there was cooling water coming out of the exhaust and water temp was back to normal.  We motored the rest of the way to the haul-out and the temp gauge stayed at 175° the whole way.  I went back to the boat this morning to start on the long list of stuff to do.  When I checked the bilge, there was maybe a gallon of water with antifreeze in the bilge.  I opened the heat exchanger on the engine, thinking it would be empty, but it was full.  When I dipped my finger in, it didn’t smell like antifreeze…  Is it possible that the heat exchanger burst when the water temperature went up?  Does that mean I could now have salt water in the engine block?  Anybody dealt with this before?

Mark
Fiddler’s Green, #8
Tacoma, Washington=