Want to check valve seals on 6LP-STE

[gfuller]

Hello and thank you in advance for your help on this one. I just took delivery of a boat that potentially needs the valve seal upgrade. I´m planning on pulling the valve cover this evening to check and see if they are green or brown.

My question is, Can you even see the seals through the valve springs??

Thanks!

[Tree]

I don't believe you can - not easily anyway?

[gfuller]

Well that's disappointing. So there is really no way to tell if this has been done without pulling valves?

[MadMoney]

It's been a few years but I remember doing some searching online and being able to determine based off the engine serial numbers if the engines were produced before or after the valve stem seal upgrade. Have you tried this route?

What year engine is this? How many hours?

Lastly, Boatdiesel dot com is an excellent investment.

Hope this helps,

Anthony

[gfuller]

The serial shows that the engine falls in the problematic era. I'm balls deep in it right now and I can see through one of the 24 springs just at the right angle and the seal looks green. I'll report my findings later.

[gfuller]

So I've heard time and time again that you cannot see the valve seals through the springs. I talked to my local mechanic, to mack boring, searched boatdiesel, everyone said it's really hard or not possible. I just had my new-to-me Albin 28 TE delivered yesterday and I decided I had to dig into it and get a bit familiar with the engine. In this case, it was a relatively small task by all means and only took a few minutes to pull the valve cover etc... great opportunity to get at something that is completely accessible on this engines in this boat configuration.

Below are my findings... I don't think I'm color blind but I'd love some confirmation that I'm looking at the correct part here and that it is indeed Green. I checked a few valves and they all looked the same. Getting a pic was a challenge in it's own.

Tools used:

6-pack of craft beer
socket wrench with 10 and 12mm sockets
LED flashlight
Wife's dental mirror or whatever it's called

This picture looks far worse than on my phone where it clearly looks more "greenish" but you can still see here where it appears to NOT be brown or whatever colors the bad seals were.

To any extent, let me know what you think!

Thanks all!

[MadMoney]

The picture is not working for me.

[gfuller]

[img] https://goo.gl/photos/h4bEKYvTRUKWoFT76
[/img]

[Tree]

Looks green to me.

[Pitou]

Though I've never been affected having Cummins power plants in my 2 Albins, I've been following the Yanmar valve seal issue on AOG for years and there has been lots of discussion. Using the "SEARCH" function I came up with a couple of links for you to read and one picture of the replaced seal.

A couple of other forums to get involved with for specifically for marine diesel discussion and advice are Seaboard Marine's Community Forum and Boat Diesel.

Scroll down to a good description of the problem by RobS (an active participant on the Seaboard Forum):
viewtopic.php?f=29&t=2873&p=17335&hilit ... als#p17335

Scroll down fr picture of "new" green valve seal:
viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3392&p=20133&hilit= ... als#p20133

[gfuller]

Thanks Kevin!

I appreciate it you doing a bit of research for me. I have actually seen the pics from RobS which is what I used to determine what the color should be. It was a pain to get the pic of the mirror but it looked pretty much spot on in person.

[Russell]

Looks green to me too and no plaque.

[WillieC]

The photo with the mirror is a nice piece of work! The other pics seem to confirm it. Now go worry about the next thing. (So Doc, what do I do about these green teeth? Wear a brown tie!)

[gfuller]

Haha- Thanks, Willie! I almost didn't even attempt to get a pic but was surprised it actually came out decent. I haven't seen really anything on AOG or Boatdiesel where this has been confirmed so hopefully this will help someone out in the future.

yes... the next things.. Valve adjustments, timing belt, water pumps, heat exchanger cleaning. There will be plenty to keep me busy from now until May.

[RobS]

But it's not just the color, there a 10 digit number on the green seals that you need................. just kidding, nicely done! Here's your pic