Boat Forum / Building / June 2007

Wall of text:

I had one of the engines (it has dual Perkins Prima 500 Series 50 HP
Marine Diesel engines) on my 44' Catamaran dump its lube oil suddenly
on me the other day on my way up the IWC.  I did as much tinkereing as
I was capable of and managed to find what has good potential of being
the cause.  I'm no expert so I'm sure this description is gonna be
ugly at best, but here goes:

I test ran the engine a couple of times after cleaning the
compartment, and noticed oil dumping from a plate between the raw
water pump and the Cam Shaft area on the engine.  So I removed the
pump, removed the plate, and with the use of a mirror and flashlight,
saw what looked to be a shredded seal that sealed the gap between the
camshaft and that plate.

After a bunch of calling around, I built enough confidence to loosen
(not remove) the camshaft cover and pull out the seal and here it is:

http://picasaweb.google.com/catsailor44/CamShaftSeal

Now my question is: what would be the quickest way to find a
replacement?  I feel as if I'm getting a sort of runaround using the
archaic phone + yellow pages technique calling boating stores.  My
most promising response was to wait for a shop in England to ship it
to me here in Daytona, Florida... ideally this is not my only hope.  I
also heard that I may be able to have a bearing shop(???) possibly fix
the seal?

I'm in sort of a time crunch really, wanna get my second engine alive
again before I continue my transit.  To continue on one engine due to
a $2 seal and have my working engine fail is a dumb move obviously.

Any help is greatly appreciated.