Engine Loud at idle - is this right?

[wdbriner]

I'm a new C34 owner and new to this forum. My previous boat was a C25 so I'm a neophyte still on diesel engines.  What I'm wondering about is that at idle the engine makes a very loud noise with a 'clanking' sort of sound. This is at about 1000RPM, at just a little throttle - perhaps 1200 RPM the noise goes away and the engine purrs very nicely. 

Is this normal?  If not then do you have any suggestions?

[Ron Hill]

WDB : Give us your production year, hull# and which engine you have.  That info is vital to anyone giving you a correct answer.
Is that normal? - I'd say no!!  It sounds as though your idle is set too low and diesels tend to jump around when idling too low.  Could be that your drive shaft is hitting the side of the molded tube coming thru the hull!?!  If you've got an older boat (10 yrs or so) you might also think about some new engine mounts after you set up that idle. 
To set mine up, I just put a small chair tip in the throttle stop!
A few thoughts.   

[canuck]

Was your boat surveyed before purchase?
Did you go on a test sail?
Need a lot more specifics and info before we can assist you.
Thanks and welcome to the forum. No such thing as a stupid question as we are all learners here!

[wdbriner]

Sorry for the missing info... I thought it was displayed from my profile.  Got Wind is a 2006, hull# 1753.
Thx

[Stu Jackson]

Bill

Glad to see you here.

Try this for identification: http://c34.org/bbs/index.php?topic=1506.0

We'll help you sort through this.  I'll work on finding some specific links for you.

[Roc]

You then have an M35B Universal engine.  At idle or in gear, it does make a clanging/chattering/chugging...(how ever you can decribe it) sound.  As soon as you give more throttle, it should go away. Mine does the same.

[Stu Jackson]

Bill, one of the best things about this message board is the search engine.  One of the not-so-nice parts is that once a search is performed, the URL can't be copied and pasted here in a reply message.

I recommend that you type in the word "idle" in the search box at the upper right of the screen, and you'll find many previous posts on the subject.  Any more specific questions would be most welcome.

One of the things you'll find here, that's somewhat different that the C25 forum you're used to (and that I still participate in) is that instead of retyping material over and over again, many of us will suggest searching.  That's because the search engine here is much better than the old C25 forum search engine (before they went to Google it was very slow and timed out a lot, as you may remember).

In addition, try this:  http://c34.org/bbs/index.php?topic=3362.0

As for the idle, we have the same issue, and anything below 1100 rpm on ours is just horrible, so we just back it off to 1100 and nothing less.  I still have to go down and make the adjustment noted in one of the search result posts.