What can be done about the oil that comes from the valve cover/rocker cover vent hose. Engine is a Universal 5444 (maybe an M50?) and the vent hose routes from the aft end of the rocker cover to the air intake (not the intake mainfold). It makes an oily mess in that area. Is there anything that can be done to deal with the oily mess?
Tap a fitting into the air intake and connect the hose there, route it to a filter? I read that someone stuck the hose into a 1 liter plastic bottle with foam wrapped around end of hose. He periodically empties the oil from that bottle. The air intake is just a right angle chamber that connects to the air intake manifold. It just has a screen that gets crudded up with oily/dust gunk. I'm going to replace that with an actual air filter and would like to do something to not have an oily mess from the breather hose output.
I have no idea how many times this has been cleaned, if ever, or how much oil gets blown through the breather hose. For all I know, this is a 30 year old oil buildup.
Thanks
I would start thinking about retro-fitting your engine with a PCV valve. This should help to regulate the amount of blow by coming out of your crankcase. Especially at low RPM and idle.
Some sort of baffle on the inside of valve cover around the output tube might help too. The 15 degree down angle of the Pearson engine bed cant be helping either. You could move the vent to the front (highest) point, over cylinder #1 on the rocker cover. Oil will not be pooling up as much up there. Pete
Thanks Pete, I'll look into that.
The engine in my boat is a 5444, and it has this on the engine. The M50 dealt with some of the overheating problems of the earlier engine. They came with a larger heat exchanger, and a larger cam in the sea water cooling pump. Mine already had the larger heat exchanger, so I installed the larger cam in the Oberdorfer pump. This might help you identify the engine.
My engine was totally worn out, so I removed, and rebuilt it. When I did this I didn't notice any build up of oil, and this boat had little maintenance done in the years before I purchased her. I also painted the area under the engine a light grey, before reinstalling, to make oil leaks more visible, and to date have not noticed anything. This may indicate that yours is a long term build up, but a container to catch any drippings would let you know for sure.
My engine doesn't have an air filter, and I considered installing one, but decided against it. According to the information I could find the builders decided that the engine compartment was dust free enough not to need a filter. It also mentioned that, if you install a filter, be careful not to limit the air flow. If the filter has a large surface, and is checked regularly, it shouldn't be a problem.
Hopefully this will give you a little more information to help with your decisions.
Vince
Thanks Vince.
Mine has the 3" heat exchanger, but not sure about the cam in the pump. PO replaced the oberdorfer (with paper gasket) with another oberdorfer (with o-ring seal). I'll compare the two cams.
I have a generator in the stern cockpit locker and its air filter was dirty, that's why I'm thinking of a filter. How does one know if a given filter is too restrictive? Is there an air flow value (cfm?) for these engines and do filters have cfm ratings?
The boat's an '82, right on the borderline of 5444/M50 production lines.
If the only difference is the cam and heat exchanger, it's probably not worth ascertaining whether or not it's M50 or 5444.
I've got a ways to go before I need to decide about vent/air filter. There is a lot of other deferred maintenance I'm working on.
Thanks for your advice.
I installed an air filter on my Westerbeke 40, since there are plenty of things that can be sucked into the intake.
I used a K&N rubber elbow to point it horizontally forward for clearance, Punched a hole in the elbow and added a barbed fitting to attach the crankcase vent tube. For the filter used a round cone shaped oiled permanent K&N filter designed for a diesel dragster.
The oiled filter also keeps moisture and salt air out of the cylinders.