michael_w
Well-Known Member
What about the BMW/Hartz single cylinder diesel? A true contender for the prize of worst small marine engine ever.
Old Engines talk (or sing!) to you...
- Thread starter TiggerToo
- Start date
rotrax
Well-Known Member
No-they are paragons of excellence when compared to the awful Ducati!
wombat88
Well-Known Member
In its defence (why do I bother?) the Ducati did always actually work. This was a great problem, if it hadn't worked I would have got rid of it a lot earlier.
rotrax
Well-Known Member
Sure, they were reliable enough, but were so noisy and harsh running.
At the time they were popular I had a 40 foot Milton Keynes built narrow boat with a Yanmar 12 HP single cylinder donk. The only problem was the raw water cooling-the muck from the canal water would allow the valves of the simple piston water pump to hold open and not seat.
Apart from that it was faultless and far, far quieter, smoother running and less intrusive on the countryside than the Ducati powered vessels, of which there were plenty around in the early 70's.
Corribee Boy
Well-Known Member
I've got the little one of those in my boat, and it rarely gives problems. It can even be hand started. The weak point was the charging system - I uprated to one from a Ducati motorbike.
jamie N
Well-Known Member
I've the Reault version of this engine, the RC8D Renault Couach, which is positively a space age advance in turbine like smoothness, over the Ducati!
rotrax
Well-Known Member
A biker built several Diesel powered bikes using the Hatz engine in Indian built Royal Enfield chassis. His personal bike used a Matchless chassis.
They were pretty dire. As a power unit on a building site powering mixers and gensets, constant rpm, OK.
In a bike, their only atribute was economy-over 140 MPG was achieved.
A boat engine will normally be pretty much constant RPM-or at least it wont be speeded up or slowed down as much as a road vehicle in traffic conditions.
Your Renault sounds good-I bet its economical too.
They were pretty dire. As a power unit on a building site powering mixers and gensets, constant rpm, OK.
In a bike, their only atribute was economy-over 140 MPG was achieved.
A boat engine will normally be pretty much constant RPM-or at least it wont be speeded up or slowed down as much as a road vehicle in traffic conditions.
Your Renault sounds good-I bet its economical too.
LittleSister
Well-Known Member
That sounds a bit half-baked. Surely you need a Sabb engine for the ultimate slow-revving big single motorbike?
