Seeking Opinions on Best Diesel Repower for Long-Haul Voyaging

[Celestialsailor]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

If that engine is a freshwater engine and only 1300 original hours it's a great candidate for overhaul.... probably only suffering from underuse.... and shouldnt need a complete rebuild...

Excellent point. I wonder what the symptoms are that it is being rebuilt in the first place. Those engines should go 10,000 hours.

[Cheechako]

Yea.. what are the symptoms/problems? I'm not familiar with that number Westerbeke.... is it a Perkins 4-108 block by any chance? Burning oil? Sometimes an engine that gets little use gets crudded up pretty bad. The upside is that a lot of things like camshafts, timing chains etc may have little wear with that low hours...

[Celestialsailor]

Yup...I'm thinking a hone job, re-ring and seat the valves. Personally I think he is being a little too scientific.

[Hurricane Harry]

Prices are high since the yencurrency is out of whack./ Harry

[cat man do]

Originally Posted by S/V Alchemy

I still worry that the engine itself is too light and runs too fast...if they still made the Cummins 3b3, that would suit me.

They do TAD for cummins engines, cummins diesel, cummins marine, Cummins 4B3.3M, 4b3.3m, cummins diesel

[bobfnbw]

I looked at the cummins 4b3 to replace our perkins 4-108 which is at TAD right now being rebuilt.
Talked to a enderavour owner also that did it. For his is was pretty much a drop in replacement. For us, no.
The mounts are not the same, the trans not the same... a total engine room rebuild.
Also since it puts our significantly more HP, it used more fuel. Plus a bigger exhaust.

Decided to keep the perkins. Save some money, put it into a genset if I can.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Celestialsailor

Excellent point. I wonder what the symptoms are that it is being rebuilt in the first place. Those engines should go 10,000 hours.

The "symptoms" were largely absent, except I know that on my watch (since we bought the engine in 2006) that water backed into the valve chamber due to a stuck relief valve on the anti-syphon loop. Several oil changes and a couple of "kerosene rinses" later, the engine was running well.

However, the two previous owners did 19 out of the 22 winterizations and I can't speak to their habits of maintenance. Here on the Great Lakes, the danger to diesels are underuse and long periods of lay-up (late October to late April, usually). The engine had just 1,100 hours in 2006, or about 80 hours per season. I don't know if this had been the typical "cold start to redline to get to the committee boat in 10 minutes" or not (which I would say kills more diesels around here than anything else), or not.

I do know that a proposed circ meant that a "prophylactic rebuild" was a good idea, and indeed, there is wear on the sleeves and pistons sufficient enough to merit replacement if replacements can be sourced that don't end up costing 85% of a new engine. Basically, in order to avoid a nasty surprise in some distant lagoon, I removed the engine to have it gone over with a fine-toothed comb: I would rather remove any doubts about its care and feeding in Toronto than throw a rod in Fiji because I just assumed a low-hours diesel was good to do 800-1000 hours per year of 2,100 RPM for five years in a row.

The mechanic has said that were it to continue to be used as a typical low-hours Lake Ontario sailboat auxiliary, it could be reassembled today as is, as the wear is not bad enough to make trouble for the piddly number of hours people motor here. But he said that "medium duty" use (1,000-3,000 hrs/year at 25% or less WOT) would require a rebuild...maybe not a full one.

[S/V Alchemy]

Originally Posted by Cheechako

Yea.. what are the symptoms/problems? I'm not familiar with that number Westerbeke.... is it a Perkins 4-108 block by any chance? Burning oil? Sometimes an engine that gets little use gets crudded up pretty bad. The upside is that a lot of things like camshafts, timing chains etc may have little wear with that low hours...

To my knowledge, it's a marinized Mazda S2 2.2 L diesel, and it was also badged as the Perkins 4.135 diesel.

A 4.135:


My engine, the Westerbeke W-52:

[ddsailor25]

I don't have much experience with many diesels, but we repowered out boat with a Beta marine diesel. Annual use is about 70 to 100 hours. She does have glow plugs, but they are not needed and she fires up on the second compression every time. I did look for filters and some extra parts for our engine at a local kubota dealer and they just looked at me funny. They did carry the filters, but they could not tell me what they filtered down to in microns. If you need parts you'll need the exact part number for it. Between other manufactures that were talked about I believe that any diesel engine should give you 5000 to 10000 hours of good use with minimal repairs. Most importantly is the annual maintance along with the manufacture valve maintance. Traveling long distances you should bring most parts that are considered wear and tear items with you incase something does break.

[osirissail]

Most of the Japanese brand diesels are sold extensively all around the world and parts should not be a problem is you have a complete set of manuals - parts lists, etc. However, engine "final assemblers" such as BetaMarine and many others hang the "marine" specific accessories on the basic engine such as heat exchangers, exhausts, raw water pumps and sometimes transmissions. These are not easily available away from the marketing territory of the final assembler of the engine. So take plenty of parts and spares for anything that is not show in the engine manufacturer's manuals/parts lists.

[Eric50]

Having a Yanmar aboard installed in 1990 (4JH 2DTE - 88 HP - turbo) with an approximate 6000 hours of use, this brand will definitely be the next one's choice as well.

Not only the engine is 100% trouble free, easy maintenance, but start immediately as soon as the key is turned...as its very first day !

The only main incident we had in 8 years is related here:
http://www.cruisersforum.com/forums/...urs-36343.html

As you'll see, it is not due to a Yanmar part anyway.

Moreover, we experienced recently some clogging in the separator filter (pardon my poor english vocabulary...we are talking about the very first filter installed on the fuel line that sort the water and the coarse deposits from the fuel) and engine stops.
That was my fault as I pourred 3 times more "fuel and bacteria cleaning product" in the tank than necessary...and it worked well, too well as all the mud from the tank clogged the filter!!).
Anyway, after we cleant the filter, we started the engine without the need to purge the fuel supply line at all !!!

So, this engine is able to start again on its own (I mean without specific air purging) after such incident, which is a great advantage and comfort.

Another point in favor of Yanmar is that on the local forums in France, most of the engine trouble posts are about other brands (The 2 most famous in Europe for leisure boat actually) and nearly never about Yanmar...

Last but not least, professionals in my country are always greeting Yanmar in the fishing and harbour activities and equipped with this brand most of the time with the same feedback from the users: reliable, trouble-free...

A recent feature that Yanmar has implemented on the engines is the "built-in" power plant for electrical power supply, inserted in-between the engine block and the transmision, providing alternative (and may be continuous, to be confirmed) current.

This seems to be a step ahead for on board power generation in a compact design.

So, for all of this we strongly recommand Yanmar, although other brands may be good as well of course.