New Engine Choice

[redcobra]

Hi,
I am going to repower a 1976 Pearson 39 Yawl. Currently has the old origianl Westerbeke 4-91 that is old and tired and overheats and hard to start.
I am looking at either a Vetus/Mitsubishi or a Nanni/Kubota engine with a Hurth ZF15MIV transmission.
Any thoughts appreciated. I need between 38-45hp.
Thanks
Alan

[skipmac]

Good friend of mine just repowered a Westsail 32 with a Kubota and he is very happy with the engine. Of course he does not yet have years on the engine but so far it is quiet, runs smooth, plenty of power.

I was on board during some test runs with the engine room open and even in the cabin looking at the exposed motor it was not loud.

He was also very happy with the service, support, price, etc from the dealer. If interested I will get the name and contact details of the supplier.

[David M]

Have you looked at Volvo or Yanmar? Or have you ruled those out for any reason?

[witzgall]

Beta/Kubota has a good reputation around here. There are many Westerlys in the Association, most of them overseas, that have done the repower with good luck.

Chris

[Jim Cate]

FWIW,

Insatiable II has a Nanni/Kubota 43 hp (2 litre tractor motor) that is now 18 years old and has somewhere in the order of 3-5k hours (PO didn't have an hour meter). Engine runs faultlessly, looks good. Only past problem was corrosion of the heat exchanger while the boat was on the hard for 2 years having a major refit. Wasn't drained, bad things happened! Had to replace seals in the water pump">raw water pump 1500 hours ago, no big deal. Love the fact that you can get engine (not marinization) parts from Kubota tractor dealers worldwide, and they don't know about boat units!

The ZF15 is about the right tranny for your application. Mine has the zf10 and it is a bit undersized... failed after about 3k hours.

Hope that this helps.

Cheers,

[redcobra]

David: Also looking into Yanmar.

[roscoe]

I repowered my P35 with a beta-kubota unit great people to deal with and a good product
Roscoe

[redcobra]

What is the difference between a Nanni/Kubota and a Beta/Kubota?

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by redcobra

What is the difference between a Nanni/Kubota and a Beta/Kubota?

Kubota is the manufacturer of the actual engine...Nanni and Beta do the marinization of said engine.

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by redcobra

David: Also looking into Yanmar.

I had a Yanmar 4JH2 44hp. in my 24,000lbs. Ingrid 38 and loved it. Quiet, reliable and not expensive for parts like those damn Volvo's.

[MarkJ]

Our is a Yanmar 56hp with 4,500 hours on the clock.

Our boat is a 7 1/2 tonne Beneteau 39 footer. And we just played Rain Boy and Puddle Girl and ran the at 7.8 kts at 2,800 rpm to find some clement weather

We never run it up to 3,200 rpm but I had it going over 8kts on the Panama Canal transit.

Great engine!

[cat man do]

These were my 2nd choice in engines over the Cummins I got

Marine Propulsion

Kubota were a very close contender

Dave

[donradcliffe]

Looked at the Yanmar, went with the Beta because Yanmar required a change to a larger diameter exhaust system. New engine and service have been great for 18 months now.

[tex105]

I went with beta too. great folks ,easy install, best thing I ever did to "Petrel"

[Marinheiro]

I went thri this decision making process a couple of years ago to get rid of my Golf diesel, seriously considered a Kubota marinisation (there is another very good marinisation from Witchard Marine in Sydney, Australia, www.wm-marine-diesel.com.au), but in the end I chose the Yanmar 4JH4 for the following reasons
- resale value, best known brand in NZ
- physical size - I had a length constraint
- mechanical gearbox, I wanted to avoid an transmission oil cooler
- direct injection, if the batteries are down have a better chance of getting it away
The Yanmar exhaust size was a major problem and I heard alot of nonsense from the distributors trying to justify it, but we managed to accomodate it in the installation.
Interestingly the installer (a Yanmar agent) said the JH series started off as a reverse engineered version of the Perkins 4.107, getting rid of the usual english oil leaks and other niggling problems - anyone confirm this?