A friend had a VW Rabbit diesel and was told  about the same things about
his car - and his mechanic had done a leak down test too.

I recomended him to my mechanic - a fellow who trained at the Volvo
Factory but now resides here in Maryland .

He told him to put two quarts of transmission fluid into each of two
tanks of fuel ( I think the fuel  tank was about 10 or 12 gals ) and run
t  --- then he would take another look at the engine --- which he did  about
80 thousand miles later  when he put in new injectors !!

Darn if I wouldn't try it -- for a couple of bucks - can't see what it

would hurt ..

Don't ask me what it does or how it works - I have no idea.
                                     All the Best
                                              Ken
                                              MV Mrs.Hudson

We bought the Sand Dollar (1989 53' Fleming pilothouse motoryacht, 2 CAT
3208NAs) in January of 1999. Before we bought her, we had a reputable marine
surveyor go over the boat and engines and we sea trialed her.  What I
considered to be two minor anomalies showed up: the engines smoked a lot,
and one ran slightly hotter than the other. The surveyor assured me the
smoking is normal for 3208s, and didn't think the temperature differential
was interesting.

Over the past nine months, we've had a lot of the marinization components of
the engines replaced (hoses, belts, pumps, exhaust elbows) and have done
lots of catch-up maintenance to the engines (replaced injectors, rebuilt
injector pumps).  I thought we were golden: we were taking care of her and
she'd be happy.

Got a call last week from the mechanic: port engine was hard to start and
was missing on at least two cylinders.  They performed a leakdown test, and
confirmed she needs a ring job.  Checked the starboard engine and found she
was in slightly better shape, but was following the same path. Estimated
cost of removing and rebuilding the two engines: $34K. The engines only have
2400 hours on them: they should have been good for well over 10000 hours.
Everybody has unconfirmed theories on why they failed: previous owner didn't
break them in properly, the engines had overheated, the rings carboned up,
she wasn't run hard enough, etc.  We won't know until we pull them apart,
and maybe not even then.

Sigh.

As I told my wife: it would have been cheaper to have bought a new one,
eaten the depreciation, and sold her when we no longer needed her.

Sigh.

How do you avoid stuff like this?  I thought we "did it all right":  got a
good survey, had a good mechanic.  Bought a reputable make with reputable
engines from the manufacturer's dealer.  When we're done, we will have put
over $50K into the engines...all to have what we should have had when we
bought the boat.

Things like this are really frustrating! The goal is to enjoy a reliable
boat.  Somehow, it doesn't feel like we're accomplishing this...

...At least I got to blow off some steam. But the Admiral is still really
ticked.

Jeff East
M/V Sand Dollar
53' Fleming