Do you worry about your engines and driveline?

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burgundyben

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The other thread got me wondering, do you worry about your engines?

Mine are 1997 Cummins 5.9ltr. A brand new aftermarket block is £800, a kit of pistons and bearings etc, about £900. A heat exchanger about £900. The only killer is the exhaust manifold @ £2500 from Cummins, but I have a spare. Its a pushrod straight 6. No special tools needed. Weighs about 550kgs, so can go in the back of my van.

Worst case, one throws a leg out of bed or runs the bottom end, I lose best part of a season and I'm a couple of grand out of pocket. No biggie.

A gearbox is £300 second hand and its £150 for a clutch pack and seals. Drive damper plate about £200. New shaft is £500, a prop about the same. Not so sure about a P bracket, but I do know where the casting pattern is.

So, really, even under the worst case, my machinery isn't a disaster. I could easily rebuild after a sinking no bother.

I get the feeling some of big stuff, or the Yanmar or Volvo stuff, and outdrives, live in a world fearing mechanical failure.


(The rest of my boat falls apart as a hobby!)
 
No - don,t worry
As on other posts I carefully use them regarding load and EGT,s
Did quite a bit of reasearch before buying in terms of best fit -Hp /weight of boat ,etc
Run mine 16-1700 rpm ( wot 2150 ) + annual correct oil change etc .

Kinda figured that a big engine doing lower rpm would wear less than a little one doing more .
For a similar boat size -determined by a pre- purchased mooring it had to fit in 4.83 M beam and anything up to 15 M L
Looked at a Vp 480 hp powered Riviera ,a D9 575. fL targa 47 ,SS Porto various D9 ,s and they all need to be 2300/2600 rpm .
I wanted to nave away from 3-3400 rpm outdrive stuff .

How ever it's all in the mind as a leisure user can,t see me doing maga 1000 ,SoF hours like a fishing boat ,
It's all to do with the rating ,mines 1000 hrs /year it's a 2003 on 780 hrs .
I avoid prolonged D speed -soot build up and prolonged over 90 % load -excess EGT /cylinder pressure .
I can see the EGT and aim to keep it near 500 -550 degrees .

I can see where the "edge " is and don,t need to go anywhere near it

Can,t see what more I can do .

I suspect a lot of folks just run blind in hope !
 
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Yes, pretty much. A catastrophic failure of one of my 1989 TAMD61a's could easily see me out of boat ownership.
 
A little bit,but thats just boats for you,theres always the potential for a big bill. The bigger the boat,the bigger the potential bill.
 
Well I just had to cough up circa £4.5K to get my Volvo Penta D4 Sterndrive leg refurbished.

It had water contamination and bearing damage due to the exhaust seal leaking.

My boat was out of the water for 6weeks and I had to have the drive shipped from Loch Lomond to Dover for the refurb.

Ouch!

Hopefully it will last another 10years; in which case that's only £1.20 per day! So actually pretty cheap (I keep trying to tell myself) :-/
 
In all my 30 + years of boating never had a failure form outdrives that has made it impossible to get back.

Always have them serviced as per manufacturer schedules.

Did have an engine problem before but that can happen to any boat with any propulsion system.

Keith
CHI
 
kennyh said:
Well I just had to cough up circa £4.5K to get my Volvo Penta D4 Sterndrive leg refurbished.

It had water contamination and bearing damage due to the exhaust seal leaking.

My boat was out of the water for 6weeks and I had to have the drive shipped from Loch Lomond to Dover for the refurb.

Ouch!

Hopefully it will last another 10years; in which case that's only £1.20 per day! So actually pretty cheap (I keep trying to tell myself) :-/
Click to expand...

That sounds quite dear. I know IVSS will 'refresh' 290's for under £1000 and I believe that IVSS have an OK / good reputation.

I guess your drives were later ones and as you say damaged.
 
Must add the £4.5k was (hopefully) the total bill, including hoist / storage / local mechanic to do initial service, leg removal, then ship to Dover, refurb and final refitting etc.

Not cheap - but hopefully one cost I won't have to cover for a good few years.
 
I'm with murv when 4 new heat exchangers would cost us £10k+!!

Still, all is well currently so I just plan to use them as much as possible :)
 
Engines and drive not a problem, you would be extremely unlucky if one let go in an expensive way, what would worry me is owning a timber hull again, that's where serious amounts of money can be consumed when things start to deteriorate
 
A typical bus will likely have driven ~ a million miles + on a Cummins 6B-5.9 engine all over this World, so a 100 or so hours we use the things each year will barely see them run in after ~10 years. The bigger issues will be deterioration during non use, and excess times at too low power.

So use them and feel free to open the things up, thats when they work their best, and longest.

And as noted if you avoid Cummins OE parts they can be very cheap to maintain / replace.

I would expect a Bowman cooler stack might fit and would be a lot cheaper. But as they are well made in the first place simply keep the anodes serviced and you should be just fine.
 
Murv said:
Yes, pretty much. A catastrophic failure of one of my 1989 TAMD61a's could easily see me out of boat ownership.
Click to expand...
The TAMD60 series were I understand the best engines VP have ever made. I only had issues with peripherals when I had mine, although I do very much like the Cummins 6BTA5.9M's, and their openly stated intention of being simple to use, reliable and simple to fix.

Those million bus users can't be wrong.
 
I can cope with the occasional unplanned £1k bill.

But blowing an engine (D4 is "parent bore", so you can't just replace liners if things go bang, it's a short block and rebuild) would cause serious financial issues: Mrs FP's "extension" fund would be severely depleted, and I would be in the doghouse for years.

Searching the internet reveals very few D4-260's exploding in such a way, so I try and ignore that worst case possibility and focus on keeping things mechanically tiptop, and enjoying boating and exploring.
 
"Worry" is probably too strong a word, the engines are good, they passed a VolvoPaul inspection, they don't use any oil and run extremely well :)
But, it is in the back of my mind that if one were to go pop I'm not in a position to replace it or repower the boat.
I just look after them, use the boat as often as possible, don't run them flat out for more than a few minutes and keep revs at <2400 on long runs, usually at the lowest revs I can comfortably keep it on the plane at.
And, keep my fingers crossed!
 
There are plenty of people out there driving around in cars in which they couldn't afford to replace the engine if it suddenly went 'pop' without worrying about it.

Yes it could happen, of course it could. But so could very many other disastrous things, you can't worry about them all or you'd never leave the house (and would worry about falling down the stairs instead).
 
Worried about this with our previous boat which had two 27 year old Volvo AD41s.
Now have a 17 year old Mercruiser V8 and don't worry at all.
 
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