Rough runnin 7.3 idi

My uncles got a 87 f250 with the 7.3 idi with about 450000 miles on it. It was starting then running rough then it would die. It sounded like a fuel issue so I started with the fuel system. I first checked the filter and noticed that the bowl was empty so it wasnt getting any fuel I started checking the lines back I found the problem like there next to the bowl. The feed line was cracked so I changed that and the fuel filter cause it looked dirty and cleaned the bowl out also cause it looked like no one had ever cleaned it before. So that was about a 4 hour job. He also had me do the wheel bearings, and change the diff fliuds which was about anouther six hours
Tot hours 183

Lube service

the next day after working on that gear i went down to our seiner and full lube oil service for our main engine, gear, and auxillury. the main runs 15w-40 and takes just a little bit under 10 gallons to fill along with one spin on filter which your supposed to fill before installing. i also changed the primary fuel filter on the engine and the two racor filters. They one was fairly dirty and the other wasnt too bad and drianed the bowls to check for water and found none. Then I also cleaned the crankcase breather. Next was the gear on the main. Its a twin disc 514. I did a fliud swap and filter also. All together it was about a six hour job

Tot hours 171

about two days after that my uncle was moving his seiner around the harbor and all of sudden he lost the ablility to shift so he managed to get it over to the dock and he gave me a call to come look at it. i get down there and the first thing i do is check the oil level in the gear. ( its an 514 twin disk gear too) the oil was not even showin on the dipstick so we started to fill it back up. i added about 3 gallons and but it still wasnt showin up on the stick so then i figured i should check the bottom of the gear and the fittings down there for leaks. but before i could do that i had to get all the water/oil/ whatever else  out of the bilge since it pretty much sat right in it. so after pumping out enough stuff that filled up two 55 gallon drums i was finally able to see the bottom of the gear to inspect it. and the very first thing i saw was the draw for the pump which was a 1/2 inch pipe 90 regualer black steel with about half the side of  it just corroded away. so after getting that off and replacing it with a stainless steel one. we drained the oil changed the filter and reflilled it and ran it for 10 min. then drained it and changed the filter again and filled it and and ran it for about hour then i noticed two of the hoses were leaking so we had to change those out ( none of the fittings or the hoses looked like they had been changed in a very long time). after that we took it for a sea trial and ran it for 5 hours and came back in and changed the oil and filters agian. then did one more sea trail for 8 hours and came back in and changed it it came out looking clean. we will probably end up rebuilding it during the winter after fishing season.

time total for job: 44 hours

total hours:165

while i was doing our power skiff the shaft for the other skiff came in so he just hired some guy that he thought knew what he was doing, well he was wrong. after he had finished we went over and checked it all out. for starters the rudder was at hard to port while the steering ram as about center the rudder post was not sealed he didnt set the carter key on the shaft correctly and it was not on straight. so we had to pull everything back off and found that the bolts holding the rudder post on were crossthreaded. so we had to cut those off. then when pulling the prop back off we managed to ding the threads up on the shaft so we had to file those smooth enough to allow the nut to go back on so after that we reseated the prop back on correctly, realigned the rudder and sealed the post up correctly and also replaced the bolts holding it in place.

so total hours for this one was 30hrs give or take

total hours : 121 hrs.

after i finished with the steering on our seiner i moved back to my power skiff project. this envloved running new wires for the starter and accsorys, putting in a battery switch,  installing a switch panel, installing a new tachometer,change belts, and cleaning and painting the engine. i started by running all the new wires to the blige pump, gps, hot wire to the starter ( old one was rubbing on an edge. re ran the new one a different route.) then removed all the old wires and connected the new ones with butt connecters and heat shrink. then installed a battery shut off switch.( it never had one before.). Then cut out a spot on the steering console for a waterproof switch board. that job took about 10 hours. the tachometer was a little difficult because it was a mechanical gauge finding a replacement was the most time consuming part beacuse it required about six trips to tricounty to get the right kind of guage and right angle drive set up. that one took about 7 hours. after that changed out the two belts, removed the airboxes for cleaning and prepped the engine for painting which took about 6 hours including the painting. did some varuous welding around the hull including new zincs, a couple of broken handles, and a little hanger for the beard. which was an exta 8 hours.

total hours for job: 31

total hours after this: 96

sorry about the gap in between blogs but anyways after we got the engine installed we sent the prop sent in to be re pitched and and new shaft to be made because the old one was slightly bent. which was going to take about 2 weeks.

while that was being done i switched to finish the autopilot on our seiner and reinstall that uni block we had worked on in class. they decided that they wanted to replace our Wagner autopilot with a new comnav system. the new comnav was 12v instead of 32v like the Wagner was. so it required a new distribution box, rudder follower, head unit, new actuators installed on the uni body, and new wires ran to the various components. it took about 4 hours to run wiring from the stern to the box in the bow for the rudder follower. then i replaced the 32v actuators(actually they were 110v solenoids on the actuators but i guess that's what they used to for 32v caused they didn't actually make 32v solenoids) on the uni block with new 12v vickers actuators and solenoids and ran 14 gauge wire from the distribution box in the top house to solenoids. and bled the system. which took about 6 hours. the next step was to wire in the rudder follower, the two rudder indictors, jog sticks, the actutors and then hook it up to the head unit and run the setup on it which took about 8 hours

total hours for job: 18 hrs

total as of 6/24/13: 65 hrs.

after class ended i started doing an engine swap in a power skiff. the skiff had a naturally asperated 3208 caterpiller with 2000 hours on the meter. the engine we were swapping in was a 3208 turbo out of a dump truck with 75000 miles on it. removing the engine took about 6 hours. after the removing the engine i removed the exhuast manifolds, heat exchanger engine mounts, and the twin disc gear of and mounted it on the other engine which took 25 hours. we also had to have up pipes fabricated and we fabrictaed our own throttle cable mounts on the engine as the one off the other one didnt fit due to the engine manifold. then we instailled the new engine and then went for a sea trial which took 10 hours. we had also installed new exhaust pipe because the old one didnt fit anymore so we welded a new one up. after the sea trial we had to remove the shaft and propeller because it was underpitched by 4 sizes. while trying to remove the shaft i found that the coupler that attaches to the shaft had corroded on there. so we had to cut it off after trying to heat it up and every other trick we could think of to get it off which to 6 hours.

total hours for job: 47 hours.