perkins HT6.354 replacement

[candido]

Good day everybody.
I have a Birchwood 33 classic with two Perkins HT6.354 diesel 145 hp engines semi displacement hull boat both running well.
I have been thinking about replace these for a more economic and possibly more powerful ones. wonder if anybody can help me to clarify few doubts i have as follow.
1- does the hull perform better with more power?
2- will more power v performance v consumption worth ?
3 what sort of fuel efficacy and HP engines is recommended to take the best of this sort of hull?
The perkins HT6.354 they are strong but uses loads of fuel above 1200 rpm and are very noisy.
My engines are ok but need to be serviced spares are rare and probably expensive.

would like very much to have help on this issue thanks for everybody who have the knowledge to spare.

 

[mersey]

Might be worth contacting Broom Boats, the've re-engined a boat from HT6.354's to Yanmar's.

 

[Divemaster1]

Remember that fuel consumption is a direct result of how much HP you take out of the engines (propellor load... propellors move boats I've heard... ) .... so if you draw out 100 hp out of your old Perkins, you also need 100 hp out of new engines....(ok may be marginally less needed for given speed as new engines are probably lighter)..

New diesels are not that much more efficient than the old ones, so don't expect massive differences in fuel consumption (max 10% is my guess).... However new engines will smoke less and make less noize... but will be more expensive to service...

 

[Greg2]

Re-engining is likely to be very expensive and you are unlikely to recoup the cost in either fuel savings or increased value at the point of selling. If you do look into it be mindful that the Perkins are laid over on their sides and were usually fitted to save height in the engine bay so many newer engines will be too tall to fit.

 

[volvopaul]

Good day everybody.
I have a Birchwood 33 classic with two Perkins HT6.354 diesel 145 hp engines semi displacement hull boat both running well.
I have been thinking about replace these for a more economic and possibly more powerful ones. wonder if anybody can help me to clarify few doubts i have as follow.
1- does the hull perform better with more power?
2- will more power v performance v consumption worth ?
3 what sort of fuel efficacy and HP engines is recommended to take the best of this sort of hull?
The perkins HT6.354 they are strong but uses loads of fuel above 1200 rpm and are very noisy.
My engines are ok but need to be serviced spares are rare and probably expensive.

would like very much to have help on this issue thanks for everybody who have the knowledge to spare.

Broom boats and others have re engined the ageing 37 crowns, continentals and ocean models with the d4 volvopenta engines which would cost about the same as your boat is worth now, maybe even more.

Remember the HT version is in there for a reason being floor height is very low in a round bilge boat design , the D4 upright engine is sat level due to its down angle gearbox. The quotes would eye watering, you would be better to put the cash into a newer boat, all in my vp view of course.

Tom, Aquapower off this forum may explain at bit more as to what's required, it will consist of many new parts on top of the engines and gearboxes req as he has done a few.

 

[vorne]

I know of a Broom Continental which has changed the Perkins for a pair of 4 cylinder 200hp Nanni's he is very pleased with performance and fuel saving.

 

[aquapower]

The D4 will fit when using a down angle box, as said its an expensive job to undertake and you have to plan on having the boat long term to make it worthwhile. There's also other things such as exhaust size, water strainers, fuel lines, shafts & props etc to be considered, other thing is the wiring as you will normally find the 6354 is 24v. Lots to think about before committing to the project.

 

[No Regrets]

I would keep the Perkins!

A pair of new engines would cost more than your Boats worth!!

 

[oldgit]

I would keep the Perkins!

A pair of new engines would cost more than your Boats worth!!

If the engines are OK leave well alone.IMHO 50k worth of cash would better be spent elsewhere.

 

[candido]

HT6.354

If the engines are OK leave well alone.IMHO 50k worth of cash would better be spent elsewhere.

Thanks everybody for all advices .

because both engines run well i will pull both out to service them as they start to leak oil and water, As for the smoke well maybe some fuel injectors replacement or whatever it will need ( a good mechanic will know what to do ) , and i guess i have engines for another 20 years .
As some say, fuel economy will be somewhere from 10% to 30% in new engines but the cost of new ones plus the work to fit them in the engine bay will make oit too expensive.
As for the speed, according to what i heard i should need something 300 hp to top the speed up to 18 knots and loads of fuel.

So once again thanks for the time to share your expertise, this saved me loads of work and money.

 

[oldgit]

You would need to upgrade shafts/sternglands and sort a new set of props with correct pitch and size.Suspect 5K plus there alone.
We must have at least 20 or 30 Moonrakers down here on the Medway,virtually all with original power plants.Cannot say have noticed any of them being particulaly smokey.
The same cannot be said about certain Turbo 36s and a Princess we follow every now and then.

 

[Greg2]

Oil leaks are common on the Perkins. We had them in a previous boat and I just resigned myself to mopping up periodically. The hassle to getting to the sump gaskets just didn't seem worth it........

 

[Latestarter1]

Thanks everybody for all advices .

because both engines run well i will pull both out to service them as they start to leak oil and water, As for the smoke well maybe some fuel injectors replacement or whatever it will need ( a good mechanic will know what to do ) , and i guess i have engines for another 20 years .
As some say, fuel economy will be somewhere from 10% to 30% in new engines but the cost of new ones plus the work to fit them in the engine bay will make oit too expensive.
As for the speed, according to what i heard i should need something 300 hp to top the speed up to 18 knots and loads of fuel.

So once again thanks for the time to share your expertise, this saved me loads of work and money.

Before you even consider pulling the engines for overhaul consider this.....

Your HT6.354's are well past their sell by date, all the talking up of T6.354's due to rose tinted glasses or just silly bravado, they are simply old money pits, they are certainly not good for another 20 years.

Even in its day T6.354 was never considered to have good head gasket integrity, and that was when the Payen aftermarket gasket was still available. Federal Mogul purchased Payen closed the factory in Slough and moved production to Germany, never re-started production of the Perkins replacement gasket.

Do not bother messing with the injectors, start up smoke goes with the territory.

I am old enough to remember that these engines were good in their time, head and shoulders better than say the BMC 5.7 or the Parsons Ford Dagenham motor, however we are will soon be in 2014 not 1964!

Horizontal versions of T6.354's are even more of a money pit than the verticals and if you have a contra engine parts situation is even worse. The raw water cooled exhaust manifold has now become an expensive consumable and sometimes dangerous nonsense particularly on HT's.

I am currently working on three re-power projects at the moment, two replacing 6.354's and another Ford Parsons, all 1960's classic boats. Consider this.....Vessel #1 with pair of HT6.354's total rebuild by Perkins agent in 2007 £14K spent, owner has yet to see a season without engine problems. Vessel #2 pair of vertical T6.354 175's one being a contra engine once again rebuilt at around £14K three years ago. Within three months of engine being installed water pump failed and it was only then that the owner discovered that parts support for contra engines ended near 20 years ago. This year one engine suffered head gasket failure in the middle of the season and saga goes on as now one engine is leaking from the rear main oil seal, another 6.354 known problem.

Also remember most of these engines used the hydraulically governed CAV DPA pump and Delphi withdrew support for fuel system components must be five years ago now, still parts in the system and some aftermarket stuff however it is drying up all the time. Finally the Holset 3LD turbocharger is no longer supported although plenty of spurious stuff available but rebuild costs higher than say the later Holset H1C.

Live with them or get rid of them, but certainly do not even think about spending money on them! Money down the drain.

 

[burgundyben]

Before you even consider pulling the engines for overhaul consider this.....

Your HT6.354's are well past their sell by date, all the talking up of T6.354's due to rose tinted glasses or just silly bravado, they are simply old money pits, they are certainly not good for another 20 years.

Even in its day T6.354 was never considered to have good head gasket integrity, and that was when the Payen aftermarket gasket was still available. Federal Mogul purchased Payen closed the factory in Slough and moved production to Germany, never re-started production of the Perkins replacement gasket.

Do not bother messing with the injectors, start up smoke goes with the territory.

I am old enough to remember that these engines were good in their time, head and shoulders better than say the BMC 5.7 or the Parsons Ford Dagenham motor, however we are will soon be in 2014 not 1964!

Horizontal versions of T6.354's are even more of a money pit than the verticals and if you have a contra engine parts situation is even worse. The raw water cooled exhaust manifold has now become an expensive consumable and sometimes dangerous nonsense particularly on HT's.

I am currently working on three re-power projects at the moment, two replacing 6.354's and another Ford Parsons, all 1960's classic boats. Consider this.....Vessel #1 with pair of HT6.354's total rebuild by Perkins agent in 2007 £14K spent, owner has yet to see a season without engine problems. Vessel #2 pair of vertical T6.354 175's one being a contra engine once again rebuilt at around £14K three years ago. Within three months of engine being installed water pump failed and it was only then that the owner discovered that parts support for contra engines ended near 20 years ago. This year one engine suffered head gasket failure in the middle of the season and saga goes on as now one engine is leaking from the rear main oil seal, another 6.354 known problem.

Also remember most of these engines used the hydraulically governed CAV DPA pump and Delphi withdrew support for fuel system components must be five years ago now, still parts in the system and some aftermarket stuff however it is drying up all the time. Finally the Holset 3LD turbocharger is no longer supported although plenty of spurious stuff available but rebuild costs higher than say the later Holset H1C.

Live with them or get rid of them, but certainly do not even think about spending money on them! Money down the drain.

See that bloke there above me? He's right.

Keep them running for as long as you can stand the oil leaks, the fuel leaks, the air leaks and the water leaks, use secondhand parts and spend nothing, when the time comes, replace.

 

[kimhollamby]

We loved the HT6.354s in Formanda in terms of how they performed and sounded at sea when we first got the boat. A pre-sale survey had thrown up good compression and oil tests. They smoked a little on start up and left a tell-tale sheen of unburned diesel in the water if we idled too long in a marina with no current running through it. I did slightly panic once in the Netherlands about whether this would attract the attentions of the green police.

But then we started to hit some show-stopping issues, primarily rotting out exhaust elbows (for which we were able to get replacement parts from Lancing Marine). It was only the magic of chemical metal that got us home from the Netherlands one year when an elbow let go but we were then laid up six weeks back at home while sourcing parts.

That got us checking around for availability of HT6.354 parts generally, which in 2008 seemed to be getting harder. Cannot be any easier now. That was certainly a worry.

When the decks had to come off the boat anyway that got us thinking about making a change. Or to credit the real geniuses involved, it was my Mum and Dad that actually asked the question 'do you really want to put new decks over old engines?'

So started the search for the horizontal Perkins replacements.

By fabricating new engine beds out of steel (and fortunately because we had a little bit of spare height) we were able to install Perkins Sabre M135s which we thought would be a good match, albeit a notional 45hp per engine less than the old engines (probably much less as we wouldn't have pushed the old engines to anywhere near maximum). I fancied 5.9 litres of six-cylinder non-turbo lump over the much more compact fuel rail four-cylinder engines we could have fitted. Call me a luddite but cruising lazily at 1600rpm-1800rpm felt like it would be way more fun than 3000rpm+

So was it worth it?

When you do re-engine an old boat you cannot do a straight economics argument (i.e. will I get my money back in terms of increased value). Of course, you won't.

As if to illustrate the point (or at least to highlight how daft I am) rarely a visit goes by without giving the 'new' engines (now four years old) an ogle and gentle pat. You can still eat your dinner off the engineroom floor (I'll leave everyone to guess whether I actually do that), I can source parts cheaply and easily and still do my own servicing, but into the bargain have technically less challenging engines to work on with an oil sump I actually understand.

Like much else about boating the rationale of a re-engine is more emotional than fiscally sensible: such as the satisfaction of a clean engine room for the first time since the boat left the shed 39 years ago. Or the peace of mind from knowing you have an old hull (which is probably ultra reliable and built like a stone privy) mated to the same machinery as a sparkly new boat.

Plus if you stay involved in the work you'll know the new installation inside out.

I don't have accurate numbers to hand but I guess we spent around £40k by the time we finished, on the engines, gearboxes, shafts, seals and props. That included labour from an engineer for some of the hard bits and engines bought at standard boat show discount type deal pricing, but doesn't reflect the many hours we put in, nor the costs of lift / store ashore which we were incurring anyway.

We did get a couple of thousand back by selling the old engines.

It's right to say you can instead take just buy a younger boat - but winding up with, say, 10-year-old engines in a 10-year-old boat might not be the complete route to sanity either.

As with all of these things had we stuck with the HT6.354s I've no idea whether we would have got the same amount of boating in (around 400 hrs to-date, most of it in the last two years) for £40k less, but I know that we saved a tiny proportion of that in not sticking white wine vinegar in the washing machine every time I came home with a bin bag of oily clothes and overalls! And we've certainly taken on a few passages that I would have been less inclined to do with older machinery.

Fuel is probably very similar, perhaps a touch cheaper. Oil consumption is less.

What I would recommend if you do go through with an engine change:

1) plan everything immaculately...how you are getting the old engines out and where the new ones will fit. Mistakes are easy to make - we looked at the project a million times (seemingly), measured more than thrice and still nearly wound up with the wrong gearboxes and an exhaust elbow that made a late attempt to get intimate with the aft companionway stairwell.

2) when you get the old lumps out check absolutely everything that is normally hard or impossible to get at / remove / change with the engines in. It was only a decision to change engines that uncovered a problem with the Formanda's aluminium fuel tanks (yes all right I know I should have guessed these would be trouble). With the tanks out we then found a problem with the mechanical steering that was a similarly ticking time bomb. These discoveries were nasty at the time, but way, way less nasty than discovering them later.

3) plan enough time (ie three times more hours than you think you need) to thoroughly strip the engine room back to bare GRP, then freshen it up. Don't attempt to flo-coat the engineroom with gelcoat - however well you think you cleaned all that residual oil from many years it will react and leave you with a sticky mess and a very uncertain set of options thereafter. Do use Danboline, the bilge paint that was sent from the gods (although after much time head down in a bilge you might have thought they could have made it smell a bit nicer). If the Danboline doesn't go off on the odd patch then clean it back with acetone in that area and recoat. Acetone will probably already be your best friend anyway on this part of the project...

4) plan to inspect and clean tanks and to upgrade the fuel system, water intake and electrical systems if necessary (see 3 above) - no point in having shiny new engines if they don't get essential supplies.

5) take a careful look at what air the new engines need. Back in the 1970s builders didn't worry too much about the fact that engines get hot and consider you a nice owner if they have air to breathe. If you want to stay in warranty on new units expect that you might need to be looking at some extra ventilation, even for the same horsepower.

6) if you take older engines like the HT6.354s out - virtually anything you change them for will be lighter. Which can be good for speed but could alter stability characteristics.

7) strip out the old sound proofing and renew. You've come this far, you might as well do just a bit more to improve the look of the engineroom and perhaps improve the sound deadening.

8) do also check the exhaust runs. If your boat has 1970-1980 or so vintage Elastomuffles then assume they are living on borrowed time and are about to spread black oily water all through your bilges. You can get close equivalent in-line silencers in GRP from Centek (perhaps Halyard also, not checked). Ditto the actual exhaust pipes. In an aft cabin boat this is never easy, but it is ever so slightly easier with the engines out...

9) don't get so carried away with your new maintenance free engines that you forget to maintain them.

My final thought in a v long waffle is I really wouldn't push a Birchwood of that vintage too hard - I don't know about the 33 but some of the semi-displacement designs from that yard flopped around horribly on their keels at the adventurous end of their speed range and hence it might make sense not to get too fixated on entering the next Cowes Classic.

 

[Robin B]

Interesting; however if you decide to yank them out, I could be interested in taking them off your hands...