Volvo Saildrive 7yr service - jeepers!!!

[seafox]

Hey Coops, can I interest you in some second hand oil and filters? Only used once by one careful owner A real bargin!!!!

[Alan Wheeler]

You could say they have been "Conditioned" :-)

[zephyr4]

Now I'm intrigued. Say one chooses a common industrial diesel, what goes into marinizing it? What would be required to mate it to a marine transmission?

I note that this is purely academic for me, because I am perfectly happy with my 30 year old, explosive gas burnin' Atomic 4. I know this makes me a heretic, but love is blind.

Mike

[never monday]

Mike,
If you can figure out the cooling system, the rest is easy. There are also some small things like corrosion, wire grade...etc

[seafox]

Yeah, Volvo haven't figured out the corrosion part yet. Their saildrive rings are made of mild steel.

[Seaquesta1]

Well, the good news is that I took the mild steel ring of the saildrive last night and after some wire brushing, it actually doesnt look to bad. I think a coat or few of paint should make it good for a few more years.

Also learnt that the global pricing on Volvo parts is all about the same, so at least the local agent isnt the price inflater.

Gotta say, that after bagging Volvo part pricing, the inside of my saildrive looks to be in mint condition and its 10 years old and done 2000+ hours. Lets just hope she continues running the way she has.

[hellosailor]

Seaquesta-
If the steel ring cleaned up well, you might consider having it plasma sprayed. That's a specialized welding technique, actually more like a cross between an acetylene torch and a paint sprayer, where they add metal dust into the torch and fusion deposit it as a metal plasma on your old metal parts. The result is that you have "grown" new metal with a bond at the atomic level. Shops use this to rebuild expensive rollers in the printing and elevator industries, among other things. You could call around to some welding shops to ask if there's one in your area, and to ask them about choices of different alloys they can spray to give you added corrosion resistance.
Or, perhaps have it triple nickel plated by a more conventional chroming and plating shop.

A good machine shop and machinist can work miracles on used parts. Even when they come from Sweden.<G>

On the rubber seal, if it is one piece, I'd suggest Armorall every time the boat is hauled. It really does help, by replacing the plasticizers that come out of rubber and plastics over time. If it is glued up (rubber tubing is spliced end-to-end to make large o-rings) I'd avoid the Armorall, it can make glues release. "Ooopsie."<G>

[cooper]

Now to cast a hand of frienship across the water to a certain foxy NZer. l have a 40 year old volvo single in my current, on the water boat. Raw water cooled and covered in rust (the welsh plug on the back and surrounds is so corroded that l have a steel plate with a rubber gasket bolted over the top). The fact is they dont make em like that any more. The flywheel alone scares the .....out of me. When that sucker gets a movin the whole boat gets a groovin......If the engine came loose for any reason , that motor would walk right through the hull. But with a can of "start you bastard" (yes it its a real brand name) l have never failed to start it and l go through 15 litres of diesel a week. In the past when l have asked about doing work on it the reply has been a curt "nice mooring block youve got there mate". And a couple of minutes later "when you get rid of it let me know, ll give ya 50 bucks for it" YEAH RIGHT.... The dyna start is worth a small fortune as is all the other "lm sorry sir volvo no longer keeps those parts" parts. Fair enough it is 40 years old. Give me a nice little Kubota based twin any day. Hey and foxy l dont need ya filters cause this Volvo engine DOSNT EVEN HAVE ANY !!

[seafox]

That sounds great Coops. You should approach Volvo to do some ads for them. There could be a buck or two in it for you. Maybe I should take my filters off and rubb away the paint and chuck a bucket of salt water over the whole thing. Might be the key to the whole thing.

[cooper]

hey foxy l guess that was a little white lie on my part it does have filters......theyre brass screens that you wash out...Now just imagine what it would do to the world economy if in the life of a 40 year old motor, nobody had to buy disposable parts..... whole countries would colapse. Hey and dont worry about the rust... the oil leaks that cover the motor stop the most important parts from disolving !, besides the inside is full of salt water so what does it matter if the outside has some too ? The bit l like the most is the incense we light followed by the prayer ritual to the great god "pleasedontletthefriginenginestopmidbloodychanelth istrip" before we take the plunge and throw the lines off. Quote The sailors handbook .."Sailors should always have the ability to control their situation as if the engine wasnt there" ................

[seafox]

Yeah I know the prayer. Usually I do it when the motor does stop and my a hole is doing the "one dollar/man hole/one dollar" thing.

[Elie]

Abusive cost for Volvo parts is a fact of life. Everybody complain about that for good reason. But little known is the fact that most parts of Volvo are made by someone else, for another engine: Volvo Penta do not make engines anymore: it buy blocks and whole engine elsewhere and paint then in green essentially. My Volvo MD22LA is a Perkins Prima, witch is found in many British cars(Rover, Morris, Austin and even a petrol version for the some minivans). There are tots of spares parts at reasonable prices compare to Volvo's. The injectors, injection pumps, alternators, starter, pistons, rings, connecting rods etc... are most of the time standard issue parts from specialized manufacturers as any injection or engine specialized shop will tell you. So is it for things like filters(I buy equivalent or better than Volvo's for less than half the price!) . The first job is to find exactly the source of parts for Volvo's engine. I had a previous boat Volvo engine (MD17HD) rebuilt locally at a big outfit and most of the parts except gaskets and cylinder liners of a better quality including rings, valves, guides, seals, etc. where outsourced. And so much cheaper. The gasket kit sold by Volvo cost me more that its weight in gold... literally!, and in fact was the most expensive parts of the whole process. Even when parts are shared with Volvo car(Belts for example) they cost much less than their Penta model, but still abusively expensive . I vaguely understand that the MD2-55 is a Peugeot diesel engine, found in many cars in Europe. So my general advice is that you keep your Volvo, they are after all good motors, And do some research to avoid the ripoff included into every price tag of those green engines(Even the paint is the most expensive that I ever bought)...

[gramos]

Originally Posted by Elie

Abusive cost for Volvo parts is a fact of life. Everybody complain about that for good reason. But little known is the fact that most parts of Volvo are made by someone else, for another engine: Volvo Penta do not make engines anymore: it buy blocks and whole engine elsewhere and paint then in green essentially. My Volvo MD22LA is a Perkins Prima, witch is found in many British cars(Rover, Morris, Austin and even a petrol version for the some minivans). There are tots of spares parts at reasonable prices compare to Volvo's. The injectors, injection pumps, alternators, starter, pistons, rings, connecting rods etc... are most of the time standard issue parts from specialized manufacturers as any injection or engine specialized shop will tell you. So is it for things like filters(I buy equivalent or better than Volvo's for less than half the price!) . The first job is to find exactly the source of parts for Volvo's engine. I had a previous boat Volvo engine (MD17HD) rebuilt locally at a big outfit and most of the parts except gaskets and cylinder liners of a better quality including rings, valves, guides, seals, etc. where outsourced. And so much cheaper. The gasket kit sold by Volvo cost me more that its weight in gold... literally!, and in fact was the most expensive parts of the whole process. Even when parts are shared with Volvo car(Belts for example) they cost much less than their Penta model, but still abusively expensive . I vaguely understand that the MD2-55 is a Peugeot diesel engine, found in many cars in Europe. So my general advice is that you keep your Volvo, they are after all good motors, And do some research to avoid the ripoff included into every price tag of those green engines(Even the paint is the most expensive that I ever bought)...

great! now lets all put in the relative engine type used by volvo for our particular units - mine are md 2010,s anyone know what these are based on ? i, d love to know , i need 2 waterpumps and volvos prices are incredible ! compared to a car type waterpump

[David M]

Buying a Volvo is much like buying a printer. They don't make the big bucks on the printer, they make it on the ink.

[MidLandOne]

Originally Posted by seafox

Has anyone ever had a good story to tell about a Volvo?

So far no problems.

NOW I know am just tempting fate saying that .

For reasons I have never followed up on Yanmars do not seem to be popular choices for smaller commercial vessels here, whereas a lot of Volvos (or if not those then into the more expensive breeds).