Engine hours!!

[christoph]

Hi, can anyone help? I am thinking of buying a motorboat with both saloon and outer steering positions. The problem is:- both positions have instruments, and both have rev counters with the engine hours shown digitally. However, the outer position only, shows the hours. The inner position reading is blank even with the instruments turned on.
My question is this - are the two rev counter engine hour readouts connected or do they only show the hours completed when the boat is navigated from that position?
The impression I got was that the engine had undertaken many more hours than indicated by the one working odometer on the fly bridge (around 500). My suspicions aroused by the copious amounts of smoke emitted from the exhaust and deposits of either oil or diesel in the water (Volvo TMD22). Needless to say there are no service records or invoices of any kind.
As an ex yachty mobos are a bit of a mystery. Any help gratefully received.

 

[Whitelighter]

It's not uncommon for the lcd read outs to fail in VP hour meters, though the actual hours are still logged.
Unless switching helm positions isolates the instruments at the non-control position the instruments should still record hours. You will notice that the Rev counters and pressure guages are showing info at both stations when the boat is running.

 

[christoph]

Many thanks for that Whitelighter. Only thing is when the engine was running none of the instruments were live on the inside control position! The salesman found a switch, when I wasn't looking, and they sprang to life, that's when I found the odometer not working. It was afterwards my train of thought turned to the possibility of both control positions being isolated from each other.

 

[Whitelighter]

Hmm, unusual but it does sound like the switch does isolate the instruments.
I think the hours on that age of engine are stored locally in the guages rather than on the engine side of things, in which case I would suggest that the actual readout on the gauge cannot be relied upon to give accurate hours.

Fwiw, hours are not the best indicator as to how an engine is. You can have a low hours boat where no work has been done and the engines cause many issues or you can have a high hours boat where everything has been done on the button and there is no problems.

How old is the boat? You mention no service history so you have to go back to basics and try to ascertain the condition of things by inspection. Oil sample analysis can be helpful - to get a full idea of the results ideally you should know when the oil was changed and how many hours since but even without this information it can give you an idea of what wear metals exist in the oil and where they might come from. If it comes back full off contaminates regardless of hours it's not good. If it comes back clean without the hours/time info you may have to continue looking.

You mention the boat is smokey on startup? This could be a number of things from nothing to worry about to run away. A good marine engineer will be worth his salt and not expensive £200-300 per day plays expenses to do a sea trial and really test/ inspect the mechanicals.

What type/age of boat is she?

 

[CX54WEK]

If the boat has been used inland then it will have a tendancy to smoke as it will have done little work. A good blast every now and then to clear things out is the answer.

I wouldn't worry too much about the hours run and concentrate more on finding out how well maintained it has been.