Can anyone ID this Thornycroft engine?

havardr

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This engine is in a boat I am considering to buy. Current owner have noe idea what engine model or year this is.

The ad says that the engine is 78HP

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This engine is in a boat I am considering to buy. Current owner have noe idea what engine model or year this is.

The ad says that the engine is 78HP

Hi I would say its a Thorneycroft 230 and whatever age the boat is I would say its the original engine

Cannot see if it has a borg Warner 71CR or a PRM 310S gearbox, the PRM with engine being the heavier of the two.

The Thorneycroft is a very reliable engine if looked after and spares still available

Hope this might help

Mike
 
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It's not the same looking as my old Thornycroft 230 and the 230 was rated at 74hp not 78hp. It looks much smaller than my old 230 as well - Thornycroft covers a wide range of different base units.

Thornycroft played games with HP ratings, they changed the governor settings for marine use to allow faster revving and therefore about 10hp higher; but stated that WOT should only be used for a maximum of ten minutes in any one hour. Not really much use, particularly as most boats with that sort of engine are deliberately over propped so you never get to WOT anyway. Parts are readily available for some Thornys but not others - beware that if I'm wrong and it is a 230 then they have wet liners. Somewhere in the murky depths there will be a plate on it with its model number.
 
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An interesting thread - the Cummins 6BT5.9M (6 cylinder Turbo 5.9 litre marinised) on my boat are marked as Thornycroft, who marinised the original Cummins 6B series bus engines to an excellent standard.

The trick with Thornycroft is to identify the base engine they modified. Cummins actually recognise the original engine by their own serial number, but not the marinising extras Thornycroft supplied such as the Bowman coolers, or their excellent header tanks, embossed with Thornycroft. Annoyingly Thornycroft insisted upon applying their own part numbers to everything without cross referencing Cummins part numbers, so cross referencing from the Thornycroft manual can cause issues when trying to find service parts direct from Cummins, requiring both Cummins and Thornycroft manuals and an ability to interpret how these manuals have been presented.
 
Hi. Your engine looks to be either a Thornycroft 140 or 150 model. The two engines were identical I believe, but for the 150 having slightly more HP.
My father had the 150 model brand new in his Hillyard, in 1988, so I recognized the distinctive rocker cover shape straight away. Around 62 HP as I recall. I can never get pics to work very well on here, otherwise I'd show you a comparison pic of our engine!
It is indeed the Land Rover 2.5 engine, as also used in the FX4 London taxis for a time, and the big Sherpa Freight Rover 300 vans for a while too. I think the base engine model number for this engine was 15J. There were a few similar model designations though. I think position of the fuel pump was one differential, for example. The Land Rover Turbo D of the period was again based on this engine, but designated model 19J.

I stand to be corrected on details, but I'm pretty sure these are correct, and should help you with parts, if you do buy the boat.

Good luck!

Doug
 
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To me the one thing which stands out is the engine has a Rotary Diesel Pump instead of the ordinary In Line one
Also the Rocker Cover being that shape indicates a Land Rover Engine.
Even If your boat was new in 1980 the engine could be from the 1960.s (or before) as Rotary Pumps are VERY OLD.
They pre-date from before Lucas bought out Simms. (1968)
And one of the reasons I sold my last boat (Thornycroft Engine) was that parts are hard to find. (I wanted a spare Water Pump and could not find one)
I would try ringing a Diesel Pump Reconditioner and asking if they keep Reconditioned Rotary Pumps for a start
 
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