Perkins Prima M60 with 3500 Hours - Is it Too Much ?

[surfmachine]

Ahoy, now looking at a 36' steel sloop with a perkins prima M60 with 3500 hours on the clock, is this too many hours to go cruising in tropical waters where its mainly motor sailing? Its pushing a 36' french steel sloop, 10 tonnes wet displacemnen. I read that they will do 10,000 hours with regular maintenance?
What type of gearbox are they married to?
What preventitive work should I do before setting off? I was considering getting the injectors cleaned and recalibrated, plus overhauling the injector pump and water pump">raw water pump. It comes with a spare alternater and lift pump. What about a spare water pump and starter motor?
Cheers from Keith.

[skipmac]

A diesel, with a little luck, properly maintained and run carefully but regularly could give you 10,000 hours. Lacking any one of these it could die at any second.

I would have a mechanic check it over, test oil pressure, compression, seals (engine and transmission), injectors and injector pump. Then hope your luck holds.

[Pete7]

Keith, looks quite clean and tidy, so I would suggest a sea trial is in order to see if it smokes and performs okay. Assuming it runs okay, it wouldn't put me off. Afterall if it fails, well sail to the shore and get it fixed, but it could go for years before you have problems. My volvo is 21 this year.

Buying a spare starter motor might be a little over the top but if your worried, take it off and run into town and find a local electrician to overhaul it.

Not sure I like the position of the fuel filter though, fiddly to change and you want room to get a drip tray under the filter if possible. Move it to eye level if you can. Also that oil filter will be fun when you are changing it because its going to run everywhere. Nappies and plastic bags will be the order of the day.

Pete

[never monday]

you should replace the timing belt

[Dockhead]

Originally Posted by skipmac

A diesel, with a little luck, properly maintained and run carefully but regularly could give you 10,000 hours. Lacking any one of these it could die at any second.

I would have a mechanic check it over, test oil pressure, compression, seals (engine and transmission), injectors and injector pump. Then hope your luck holds.

A rather pessimistic view! We had a Perkins (Westerbeke, actually) which had nearly 10,000 hours on the broken hour meter when we bought the boat. God knows how many hours were put on between the time the meter broke and the boat was sold to us. I wouldn't say that this engine was either properly maintained or run carefully. The primary operator of this engine, a relative of mine who will go unnamed, ran it for thousands of hours at idle charging batteries (we spent most nights on the hook and had no other power source), and believed in "warming it up" by letting it idle for an hour before we would set off, ignoring my warnings that this could be harmful, and that diesels don't even warm up at idle anyway.

Twelve years later that engine still runs like a top, not ever having had the slightest work done on it other than oil changes. The gearbox flew apart at one point, but that doesn't count, does it? It leaks oil like a sieve, but no more than it did when we first bought it.

Those Perkins diesel engines are tough pieces of kit.

[never monday]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

0
Those Perkins diesel engines are tough pieces of kit.

this one is a Mitsubishi IIRC

[Pete7]

Originally Posted by never monday

this one is a Mitsubishi IIRC

Are you sure? Volvo used it and ran it both with and without a turbo, a max of 105hp I think in the TAMD22. Also British Leyland used a variant in a small van and a couple of cars.

Pete

[Marinheiro]

In fact, shock horror, this was originally a British Leyland "O" series motor converted to diesel. They are an entirely different engine to the older Perkins 4/99-107-108 series.
I think they hold together OK but apart from all the above recommendations, especially the timing belt, if you were to proceed with purchase (what happened about the Pacemaker?) I would add check/replacement of the glow plugs. As Pete noted above these were also sold by Volvo as the MD 22 series up until the early 2000's

[Boracay]

It's possible the engine is as good as it looks.

So, provided you have the cash to replace it when it fails, why not?

I would not suggest spending money on other than routine services or essential repairs though.

[skipmac]

Originally Posted by Dockhead

A rather pessimistic view

Well, not really. Maybe you got lucky. I was a yacht broker for a few years and sold a lot of boats. I sold one with a Perkins 4-107 with 4000 hours that was about dead. Smoked like a chimney, low compression, would barely crank. Had a friend that threw a rod in a Perkins with about 2000 hours.

Then there are plenty that go for years and many thousands of hours.

Just good sense to check out an engine with that many hours.

[surfmachine]

Ahoy, this one is less than half the price of the pacemaker, and it turns out the pacemaker has had a lot of the good gear stripped off of her as she was a deceased estate! If it is a mitsubishi, then great, as most of the Indonesian boats use mitsubishi engines and plenty of spare injector pumps, not like for my nanni 3 cylinder diesel that was lost partly because of a faulty injector "cam box" injector pump that no one could supply proper springs for. Thanks very much for all the comments. Just awaiting a reply from the seller to my last offer!
Keith,

[surfmachine]

Looks like I am buying it at 31,000 euro, hope that I get lucky? Off to Langkawi on friday morn.