Twin Ford Lehman 130hp

[robdyson]

does anyone have any experience with these. im looking at a 43ft albin trawler to buy, the owner says he gets 2.5gph at 7-8 knots on both engines (full displacement) are they a good reliable engine? it looks to have been well looked after as the cond of boat is excellent in general its a 1988.

[Mark Zarley]

Ford Lehman's are an exceptionally robust (lots of weight for the hp) eng. I have 2 -120's in my 49RPH Defever. Rebuilt the starb. one this Jan, darn thing only had 20,007 hrs on it. It had 4 pistons with broken rings, a wiped cam , and lots of wear on the bearings. At tear down it was still running, just had a lot of excess crankcase pressure (oil, oil leaking everywhere). Anyway enough with the dry humor. The eng was manufactored in England, and used in european farm tractors. Nothing metric on it, everything is standard. All parts are available here in the USA and competively priced. All maintance is straight forward, on mine the stbd engine oil filter and the on eng fuel filters are outboard , and a little ackward. But it is all do-able. We figure 2 miles per gallon at 1700 rpm spd 7 kts slack water. This figures out to a fuel burn of 3.5 gal /hr. Will be rebuilding the port eng this summer, so will have 2 fresh ones when heading south this fall. Would highly recommend these eng, and since I just noticed that you are in the UK parts should be cheaper as you can buy them at a farm equipment dealer, lucky you.