Diesel outboards?

[Harro]

Just wondering, is their a diesel outboard motor suitable for a tender?
Would be great only having one fuel type on board.

[Benz]

I looked into these when building my boat. Evidently they are heavy when compared to gas outboards, and they are not available in all places (could have got one if I'd been in Scotland, but no chance in California). Never seen one in actual use.
Ben

[StuM]

Don't know where you would find them in Aus, but Klaxon are about the only makers of sub - 15HP ones that I am aware of:

Klaxon Diesel Outboards Features

Depending on the size of your tender and how fast you want to go, Yanmar makes a D18 (18HP) but it comes in at a hefty 84kg

[Harro]

Originally Posted by Benz

I looked into these when building my boat. Evidently they are heavy when compared to gas outboards, and they are not available in all places (could have got one if I'd been in Scotland, but no chance in California). Never seen one in actual use.
Ben

Thanks for the info, it's a great pitty no one manufactures a small light weight out board in diesel. It would be well suited to us yachties.

[Harro]

Originally Posted by StuM

Don't know where you would find them in Aus, but Klaxon are about the only makers of sub - 15HP ones that I am aware of:

Klaxon Diesel Outboards Features

Depending on the size of your tender and how fast you want to go, Yanmar makes a D18 (18HP) but it comes in at a hefty 84kg

Thanks for your reply. It's a great pitty no one manufactures a small light weight diesel outboard motor. It would be perfect for us yachties

[Pete7]

There used to be an Italian one of 15hp, Lambardi or perhaps Ruggerini something. Nearly bought one but the bloke wanted me to walk along a dark London canal tow path at night with cash to pay for it. Thought better of it and told him as much.

Pete

[Harro]

Originally Posted by Pete7

There used to be an Italian one of 15hp, Lambardi or perhaps Ruggerini something. Nearly bought one but the bloke wanted me to walk along a dark London canal tow path at night with cash to pay for it. Thought better of it and told him as much.

Pete

Thanks Pete
It seems they are all too heavey. It's a great pitty no one manufactures a small light weight diesel outboard motor, it would be perfect for us yachties

[SV Bacchus]

Do "light weight" and "Diesel" go together?

[Adelie]

Originally Posted by SV Bacchus

Do "light weight" and "Diesel" go together?

No but "Diesel" goes with both "Fuel efficient" and "Rugged/reliable".

[chris95040]

Several years ago I was gassing up some farm equipment and accidentally put in diesel. It was one of those small honda OHV gasoline engines.

Anyways I didn't realize it, and it ran fine all morning! I stopped for lunch, but then I couldn't get it started again... Took about a half hour before I figured it out.

I suppose the gasoline sitting in the carb bowl got it started in the morning, and once running it was happy to continue to run on diesel. After lunch, when the engine was cold and the bowl was full of diesel, no luck.

(Fun fact- prior to the mishap, that engine always needed a little choke to run right. After pouring out the tank and replacing with gas, it runs great, no choke, I guess running the diesel cleaned out the jet?)

My dink's outboard has a tiny little tank on the engine, as well as an external tank, and a selector valve. Sometimes I think it'd be neat to try and use the little tank full of gas to start it, but keep diesel in the external tank. Even if it worked I'd be too nervous about what it was doing, though.

[Harro]

Originally Posted by chris95040

Several years ago I was gassing up some farm equipment and accidentally put in diesel. It was one of those small honda OHV gasoline engines.

Anyways I didn't realize it, and it ran fine all morning! I stopped for lunch, but then I couldn't get it started again... Took about a half hour before I figured it out.

I suppose the gasoline sitting in the carb bowl got it started in the morning, and once running it was happy to continue to run on diesel. After lunch, when the engine was cold and the bowl was full of diesel, no luck.

(Fun fact- prior to the mishap, that engine always needed a little choke to run right. After pouring out the tank and replacing with gas, it runs great, no choke, I guess running the diesel cleaned out the jet?)

My dink's outboard has a tiny little tank on the engine, as well as an external tank, and a selector valve. Sometimes I think it'd be neat to try and use the little tank full of gas to start it, but keep diesel in the external tank. Even if it worked I'd be too nervous about what it was doing, though.

Thanks Chris
It's a real shame no one manufactures a light weight diesel outboard. If I win the lotto I'll have one made.

[UNCIVILIZED]

With a diesel in this application, I'd be concerned about cold weather starting & performance. Plus, since they're so rare, getting spare parts could be difficult. So, sadly, it's back to the lowest common denominator, gas OBs.

BTW, from time to time you hear about OBs that have been converted to propane. Though I'm not sure if that would help, big picture wise. Since you'd probably need to get fuel for it a bit more often than with a gasoline one. So you still have multiple fuel types onboard, with propane being "scarier" than gas, to me anyway.

[a64pilot]

Originally Posted by SV Bacchus

Do "light weight" and "Diesel" go together?

Yes, no, sort of.
The Germans in WWII flew an aviation Diesel, but it was too heavy for its power output.
Since then many have tried to build an aviation Diesel, some more successfully than others.
Still not really there, it's my belief it could be done with a common rail engine, but it ain't going to be cheap. I doubt the need is there.
What is pushing the aviation Diesel so hard is fuel, 100 LL is hard to come by in many parts of the world, but Jet-A is plentiful, and a Diesel is happy with Kerosene

[John Holbrook]

Yes they do. Many car manufacturers have hi-performance lightweight diesel engines now.

Originally Posted by SV Bacchus

Do "light weight" and "Diesel" go together?

[a64pilot]

Auto engines for their size, weight and power output are heavy beasts.
Outboards by comparison are lightweight hot rods.
A little out of this league, but the 400 HP Mercury Verado is only a 2.6 L engine and weighs a little over 650 lbs, I think. Of course that is the whole package, transmission and all.
My Duramax Diesel is about 850 lbs, but that just the engine.
Diesels are going to be heavier I think, compression ratio will make it so, and pull starting a Diesel can be interesting.
We had German Hatz Diesel generators in the Army when I was in Germany, they were hand crank started, took a compression release to get them going, then when that compression release caught, there was not mistaking it.