HELP, ANY ONE KNOW A MOBILE VOLVO PENTA MAN

[Guest]

Back to square one again today, engine serviced and the flippin alarm is sounding again as soon as the throttle is iopened enough to lift the bow but for no obvious reason,

Sutton Staithe have tried thier best but do not seem to be able to identify the cause of the alarm and have suggested I get a volvo chappie with his OBD laptop to find out what it is.

So can anyone put me in touch with someone with the neccecery expertise, equipment, etc to go to Sutton and find out what the stored codes are to identify the possible source of the darn alarm.

I am 200 miles away and all I get are phone calls with problems not solutions makes you wonder what you are paying for sometimes! now where is the smiley off someone pulling thier hair out!

[Antares_9]

Well, I hate to say I told you so, but...

Any Volvo agent's mechanics will Travel Dave, I suggest the guy in Lowestoft (Lake Lothing) Northgate marine, he will have all the kit and training required to diagnose and rectify. Also he will have the Volvo factory team to advise if it's a really odd problem.

I know people get tired of me saying this but the only place to have this sophisticated kit looked at is the trained and equipped agent, anybody else is working blind and it's not fair to expect them to be able to do anything but standard mechanical service, even then the agent should be the first stop.

Sorry Dave, edit to add the number 01502 584193

[pks1702]

Might be also worth a PM to NeilB to see if he can point you to a 'trusted' dealer

[Antares_9]

BTW, I'll just shift this to the technical area if that's OK

[jimbo]

Already done it David

[Antares_9]

Lakesailor to Jimbo ( I think)

[Guest]

Yes you are right David, Peter from SSboatyard said as much today, its well outside thier comfort zone they are used to old BMCs and Thornycrofts, Nannis are made by wizards and serviced by warlocks and Volvo's have 5 cylinders that really is confusing!, joking apart, if its not obvious you need the OBD equipment to find out at least where to start looking.

Its not mechanical and probably a faulty sensor, connection or something stupid but it is annoying! unfortunately I would have expected the boatyard to have called someone in themselves but they have rung me and asked me to arrange it from 200 miles away! I might as well have taken the week off and project managed the repairs myself at this rate.

I asked SS to do the list but all I seem to be getting is 10 reasons why it cant be done rather than the one reason why it should be done,,,,because I, the customer wants it doing and is paying for solutions not more problems!

Ps are the rams on the trim tabs usually self bleeding? the fluid has become low and the trim tabs have stopped working, and they want me to have the boat lifted (£200) for an hour so they can bleed them!, surely a long bleed tube would do it without lifting the boat or dont boat mechanics at £45 per hour get thier sleeves wet!

I was hoping to have the weekend on the water but looks like its not going to happen this week now

now where is the vented spleen smiley

[Jupes]

We use Northgate Marine and the guy (apologies, Adam snoring, so no name ) is incredibly helpful and has helped us no end. Adam has done all the serviciing himself and whenever he needed advice they were more than helpful and have put him right where needed.

Very good service.

[Antares_9]

Dave, I believe, only believe mind that the rams are not self bleeding, in any case I thought you requested a full service, in which case the boat would be out of the water for essential leg oil change, and equally if not more essential checking of bellows integrity. Truth is it may well have to be lifted anyway if one of the trim sensors needs to be replaced. I'm not sure whether it applies to your leg (I don't know the model) but Volvo introduced a set of gaiters to protect the rams as so many were having to be replaced under warranty due to seal damage by growth, this may be a reason for your loss of trim fluid as if it's low then it's obviously gone somewhere.

[NeilB]

The chap at Northgate Marine is Peter Saunders. 01502 584193.

The other local dealer is French Marine, their main office is Brightlingsea but they have a branch at Rackheath on 01603 722079.

They both have the equipment and training to check over your D3, from what I've heard they both have a good reputation. If they get stuck (unlikely) they can always call on some technical guys here at Watford for advice.

The issue with the rams is only on the DP-H drive fitted to D4/D6 engines, your D3 wil have a SX or DP-S drive. Not sure on bleeding them either, only reference I can find says to top the reservoir up and operate the trim up and down to vent the system. Our tech guys are prob still in bed so there's no one to ask at the moment!!!

[Antares_9]

Yet another post on the subject as I didn’t read you post properly Dave, so missed that you were talking about the trim tab rams rather than the leg trim rams. Not sure which make you will have fitted but I recall that some Bennett tabs for instance can be bled by operating without lifting. If they are Lenco then they are totally electric with no hydraulics despite looking similar to Bennett’s offering..

[Guest]

Thanks chaps.

Shaun from French's Marine answered the phone first and are on thier way, laptop in hand and a cheery smile!

the hydraulic trim for the outdrive is fine, its the hydraulics for the trim tabs that are not working and the resevoir is low, apparantly they are topped up via the rams, seems potty to me but thats the info from SSB as they cannot see how to top up the resevoir? so it looks like a lift at some point at which time I will get the outdrive serviced but will be looking for some one who can take care of all the issues next time, reccomendations welcome.

Just for clarity I asked SSB to just service the engine, they already indicated that the outdrive was not something they had experience with but as it has only just done 230 hours I figured it could wait till the end of the season when it was going to be anti fouled, they also have lift issues at SS as the slipway is not very deep and the V hull may well give them problems which would have ended up being my problem no doubt.

come back bounty all is forgiven!

[Guest chriscraft]

hi does this help??

http://www.bennetttrimtabs.com/images/H ... illing.jpg

[goodall_m1]

hi does this help??

http://www.bennetttrimtabs.com/images/H ... illing.jpg

That looks like a very useful web-site if you go back to its home page, good explanations oabout what the tabs do, why you need them etc.

Aquaholic: You might find the following interesting...

Bennett Trim Tabs have proven to be:

Responsive: Instantaneous and accurate, no other system beats Bennett Trim Tabs.

Precise: Bennett Trim Tabs never over-run or free-wheel after you release the controls. Our hydraulic system allows exact adjustments, especially critical at high speeds.

Maintenance-Free: Install it and forget it. Our system offers years of trouble-free service.

Durable: Bennett Trim Tabs are designed to last longer than your boat. Third-party research and countless testimonials have proven this again and again.

The following maintenance information can also be found in your Owner's Manual

. Periodically, check fluid level in HPU. With trim tabs completely retracted, fluid level should be about 2 inches from bottom of reservoir (approximately 22 ounces). To refill, remove Lexan cover and filler plug located at the front left hand corner of the reservoir. FILL WITH ANY TYPE AUTOMATIC TRANSMISSION FLUID (ATF) ONLY. Brands or types of ATF can be mixed. Running HPU with an excess or lack of fluid will not cause damage.

Martin

[Brian]

I installed bennnet trim tabs to my Bayliner.

They do help a bit with the side to side steering of the boat.

[Antares_9]

Martin

If you go back to the recent origonal thread, the links were all covered at the time, in fact in answer to your question. You're getting as bad as me. "Have I had my dinner?" "Oh, did I like it?"

[Guest]

latest update.

Shaun from French's has rung me their computer wont talk to the engine for some reason and has suggested that I order the EVC button Pack, while waiting for that to arrive on Friday they will try a different laptop pobably again on Friday so hopefully a definative reason for the alarm sounding will come from one source or another on Friday

So the EVC Button pack is ordered this will allow me to control all aspects of the engine and drive controls and even more importantly will give "a reason" for the alarm sounding AND the ability to turn the damn thing off!

He ran the engine and its fine, its not in limp home mode or any thing like that and thinks its not going to be anything serious but more than likely, we will find out exactly what on Friday.

The good news is the list of jobs has been getting whittled away, we now have a fuel guage, a serviced engine, a new extended bathing platform, most of the lights are working, ordered the gas struts and brackets today they will be here on Friday, bilge pump is in hand and apart from a few odds and sods hopefully all will be working for the weekend

[jimbo]

Fingers crossed for you Dave!

[Antares_9]

Good luck Dave, it seems all to be on track now

[pks1702]

My own experience of Shaun at French Marine is that he is very helpful, French are a Yanmar main dealer. I have had e-mails via shauns Blackberry after office hours in response to questions. The guys at Levington have always been excellent when I have dealt with them so from my own experience you are in good hands. As an example I asked them to look at a coolant blow I had under warranty, for some reason the engineer decided to do a service. When I queried this with Shaun he could not be more apologetic and organised a credit; result free service. As a result of that I buy all my engine spares from them.

[Happy Jax 3]

Hope all goes well Dave and you are back on the river soon.

Modern technology, don't you just love it. Bring back points and condensers, that's what I say.

[Antares_9]

I don’t hold with all these new fangled condensers, points, distributers, coils and the like. Give me a good old magneto any day.

[Guest]

Give me a good old magneto any day.

I thought he'd lost his powers but then, at the end, the suggestion was that he could affect that chess piece without touching it....

[senator]

You can't beat a good old magneto, especialy on a hot day, I like the chocolate and mint one, always conjures up images of Birmingham, me being a good old Brumie and thinking of the young hooligans punting shed doors down the canal, after they have sold the lawn mowers obviously.

Any way I'm off to find me old mate Fred, was Drifting around somewhere.

[Guest]

magneto, points, condensers, luxury, all we had to make a spark when I was young was couple of flints and a cylinder and piston made from a couple of corned beef tins, ahh those were the days