Blower output on 10M International

gardnersf · Post by **gardnersf** » Mon Mar 30, 2009 10:49 pm

I have a 1986 10 meter mid cabin express. The outlet from my engine room blowers go to the port side aft section. I think they may have been done as a retro fit as I see no other 10M with this arrangement.

Where were they piped to originally? I have included two pictures. In the first one you can see two of the ports had vent covers (Which were lost as you can see in the second picture) I bought some grates to go over the holes but I thought the arrangement was weird.

RWS · Post by **RWS** » Tue Mar 31, 2009 7:14 am

Hi Scott,

O the Express Cruiser (not mid cabin) a curved stainless grille is located at the top of the gunnel close to the base of the radar arch.

Rectangular plastic painted grilles, same as on the mid cabin are located on the sides,

The port side stainless grille serves as exhaust drawn through the "dryer vent hose" at the bottom of the bilge, through the blower, mounted high on the port side and exiting through the port side stainless grille.

A second vent hose leads from the bottom of the bilge up to the starboare side where the stainless grille has two openings, one of which is dedicated to the vent hose, the other as I recall was fitted to allow the blower to suck air from the seperate lazarette/fuel tank area also.

During the diesel refit I removed the hoses but kept the blower as a source of evacuating heat from the engine room should that be necessary after engine shutdown.

The arrangement of the mid cabin is different.

Yours may be especially unique, especially as identified in the photos.

In the express cruiser the engine room is under the cockpit. The forward bulkhead seperates the engine room from the cabin and just behind the engines is another bulkhead that seperates the engine room from the single fuel tank and lazarette.

Are there any other bulkheads other than the aft cabin bulkhead?

I wonder if yours was owner modified or perhaps it came from Lancaster that way?

Are the engines and fuel tanks in the same "space"

Looks like you should have adequate ventilation, but do check for cracks or seperations in that vent hose.

In the event anything was owner modified it would be a good idea to check the integrity and operation of the vent system. I believe the blower actually works on a vacuum, not really blowing air into the space, but pulling it out of the lowest spot in theb ilge where the heavier than air gas fumes would be collecting.

Scott, I don't know how much this info helped, sorry it didn't really answer your question.

RWS

gardnersf · Post by **gardnersf** » Fri Apr 03, 2009 9:48 am

Thanks for the reply, There is only one bulkhead, the forward bulkhead. This is basically just aft of the helm and companion bench. You will see a step up which is the aft wall of the mid cabin.

I need to trace out the hoses a bit better. I know the blower exhasust well but will check the hoses. I suspect that one is an intake to pull fresh air in. Not sure why I have three though as I think I only have one blower.

There is no lazerette and I have two fuel tanks mounted aft of the engines (kind of over the transmissiosn) You can get out board the fuel tanks which is nice for inspection.

When I start the spring engine work, I will take a picture of the whole compartment opened up for comparison purposes. I'm just not sure why anyone would modify the blower system in such a way.

RWS · Post by **RWS** » Mon Apr 06, 2009 6:33 am

Scott,

there are vents for the blower, which require a certain amount of air CFM.

Then there are vents to accomodate the egines need to intake air, which would be 454 cubic inches x 2 engines x RPM (or some similar formula)

On the express cruiser w/o mid cabin, air gets into the engine room via the two rectangular vents on the sides of the boat. The mid cabin shares these same vents.

The express crusier also has the stainless grilles on the gunnel forward of the teak, near the arch. Those are the ones that the mid-cabin model does not have.

With the exception of your particular vessel, what is the arrangement on other mid cabin models?

This may shed some light on why yours is different and is yours a factory or a user modification?

I don't recall seeing a photo of a mid cabin with your vents, do you?

RWS