Marine Diesel Engines: Maintenance and Repair Manual
Marine Engineering Diesel Engine Maintenance Boat Owner Reference DIY Marine Repair Nautical Technology Mechanical Troubleshooting
Marine Diesel Engines: Maintenance and Repair Manual by Jean-Luc Pallas is the gold-standard reference that cruising sailors, charter skippers, diesel-instructor classrooms, and naval-engineering libraries keep within arm’s reach. Published in 2008 by Rowman & Littlefield, this generously sized 238-page paperback (30 cm tall, 894 g) packs a lifetime of hands-on French marine-engineering know-how into one highly organized volume. Every page is photo-illustrated with crystal-clear close-ups, torque-spec tables, and step-by-step captions that walk you through bleeding a Bosch injector, adjusting valve lash, or troubleshooting smoky exhaust on Yanmar, Volvo, Perkins, or older Sabb power-plants. Owners consistently report that following Pallas’s sequence once is enough to turn “mystery black iron” into a serviceable, reliable auxiliary.
What sets this manual apart from the generic “owner’s handbook” crowd is its systematic diagnostic philosophy: learn to listen, smell, and feel what a diesel is telling you, then confirm with simple tools—no $500 gauges required. The author’s background as a French marine-engine instructor shines through in the classroom-style checklists at the end of each chapter, making the book ideal for night-school courses or self-paced certification prep. Whether you are repacking a stern-gland in a rolling anchorage or rebuilding a seawater pump in a yard upriver, the exploded diagrams and part-number call-outs eliminate guesswork and expensive re-orders.
Collectors and practical cruisers alike prize the 2008 first English edition (ISBN 9781574092363) because later reprints were trimmed to a smaller, less detailed format. This copy is clean, tightly bound, and free of notes or dog-eared pages—only a touch of edge-yellowing on the first two leaves keeps it from mint status. At just under a kilo it is built to live in the engine room; the laminated cover wipes clean of diesel fingerprints and the spine is sewn, not glued, so it lies flat on a manifold while you work. Secure this sought-after reference now and you will head offshore knowing that every rattle, knock, or drip has a tested cure within easy reach.
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