I'm not familiar with Tom's setup. On my M35, the breather tube is routed along the side of the air cleaner intake so that it ends right alongside the air intake. Any gases coming from the crankcase are sucked into the air cleaner. I've never noticed any odor from the blowby gases, so I'd say that's pretty effective.

Greig,

Not sure where your breather hose terminates but, it should be laying up agianst the airfilter as Plaineolde suggests. It yours is not you will be blessed with crankcase fumes in the cablin.

I too considered tapping a hole in the intake to accect the breather hose, should have done it when I completed my overhual. You could remove the oil filter canister and drill and install a fitting there, this would prevent any drilling debris from getting into the intake. If you do that make sure any hardware used is saftied, or bonded in place as you do not want any loose hardware going down the intake, thought this too would eliminate crankcase fumes as the engine will be trashed.

After reading what Tom did to his. I did the same and the smell went away. I never removed the intake and did it in place. What I did was to take a cloth shop rag and stuffed it back into the intake cavity so it was past the hole that was to be drilled into the breather. Then make sure the hole and tap are the proper size. I then marked where I wanted it and did a pilot drill hole while I had a vacuum close to the intake hole. But not close enough to suck the rag out, But the rag was packed in tight. So the vac as creating enough vacuum that the chips were sucked in. Then once drilled and taped. I remover the rag with needle nose pliers. I have done this many of times in my past industrial career and never and issue. But it is up to the individual. Just passing on a tip here.
Good luck
Randy

It is extremely easy to tap into the top of the airfilter. Screw a threaded 90° fitting into the hole. I added jamb nuts on both sides, using locktite on the inside, probably overkill because the wire mesh should catch the nut if it falls off. Slide the breather tube over the other end of the fitting.

There is an article in the tech notes of the current Mainsheet about this issue (actually for C34's but excellent article nevertheless ;~) The author points out that by running the breather hose directly into (or near) the air intake, there is a risk of a runaway engine as diesels can run on the oil fumes in the air intake (even when the fuel is shut off). This is a very dangerous condition obviously and the author concludes that the risk of a runaway engine outweighs the smell from the breather hose.

There is a solution, however. The previous owner of my boat was a Boeing engineer who devised a very clever solution. The hose from the manifold runs into a device that consists of two PVC pipes...the outside pipe is 4" in diameter and the inside pipe is 1 inch in diameter. The entire device is approximately 6 inches long and is mounted above the engine. The inside pipe has a series of drilled holes; there are caps on both ends. The hose from the manifold feeds into the inner pipe; the hose from the outer pipe goes to the air intake. In this way, the oil fumes condense and deposit in this PVC device eliminating the risk of a runaway engine but the smell is also eliminated. I rebuilt this device last year....its easy to build and costs less than $5. I can post some engineering drawings if anyone is interested....

Ted K.
Sea-STAR

Yes, Ted, please post. Someone in our nearly-600 Membr group will be interested.

Any photos of your mods, anyone???

Ted,

It sounds as though you have created a nice air oil seperator out of PVC pipe.
Nice idea. It made me wonder if the stock installation with the breather just lying against the out side of air filter was disigned to do the same. If the oil mist is heavy the build up would likely run down the outside of the filter element and drip off. If routed directly into the intake heavy mist could cause a run away.

One of our guru's came up with a very easy suggestion over 20 years ago. Put some absorbent pads in a beer can and run the breather hose into it. I use Excedrin bottles with a rolled up small bunch of absorbent pads. No engineering drawings needed. Your choice of container.:):):)

[QUOTE=stu jackson c34;6313]...Put some absorbent pads in a beer can and run the breather hose into it....:):):)[/QUOTE]

I asked Stu what type of absorbent pads he recommends for this situation, and he said...Depends. :p