RIVA Monte Carlo 40 Sports Cruiser

Very popular Med machine Tom. Has a bit of a cult folllowing: the Monte Carlo offshorer 27/30/32 series with the beautiful double stepped hull was a very popular med machine back in the day, and still is. I think Riva bought the brand from Crusader many years ago (not sure of details; iirc they were german owned) and the appeal of the monte carlo brand continued when the 40 was introduced

I'm only talking about the boat's general image, not specific mechanicals
 
Thanks John

I am going to take a look Sunday with Swmbo and see how it goes, I am looking for a sound Hull and good engines. is it likely that the engines got pushed?
I will check for osmosis, and would love to have a sea trial, but the boat is on the hard, so see how it goes,
Will report back,

Tom
 
mainshiptom said:
Thanks John

......... is it likely that the engines got pushed?

Tom
Click to expand...

Of all engines, the DD's does like to be pushed .... towards their envelope.... but the key with these, probably DD V6/92 series (same 9L V6 engines as is pushing the 48ft Hatt, Spotty Dog along), is that they reach max RPM... and are not over propped... and with a relatively light, well engineered boat like this one, they are un-likely to be over-propped.

Relatively compact (for a DD) and with about 61Hp/L taken out, they are pushing the design envelope of the DD's a bit, which puts a bit strain on the cooling system, so worth asking if Cooling system has been flushed recently...

At these ratings, and if the engine is pushed hard, it would not be totally un-usual for a rebuild to have taken place around 1,500 hours .... and if so, ask if paperwork exist ...

If no re-build and engines in the 1500 - 2500 hr bracket .... but boat is otherwise excellent, knock off about £1,800 x 12 (rough estimate of a re-build cost of two V6's) from the price of the boat and have them re-built to factory specs and re-painted over the winter. (oh and if you can do a re-build yourself, you can get away with a hell of a lot less than the estimate from a DD workshop .... but do take the engines out of the boat if you can ... :) )..
 
Thanks Alf

At this rate he will have to give me the boat for free,

This is what the owner said about engines:
We water ran the engines ( recorded on Ipad) three weeks ago for a total waster then lifted her out and started on the gauges. I am happy to dry start her for a short time but would not be happy to take her out without instrumentation. New waste and bilge pumps are ready to be fitted. I was planning to upgrade the breather system and new breather tanks are ready to fit.
The top end of the engines need servicing and all rubber pipes need replacing as there are some air leaks. The engines are getting to much fuel and not enough air.


Tom
 
Tom,

The only rubber pipes on air system should be some short set of hoses between Turbo and intercooler and Intercooler and heat blower. The pipe gap they are covering is typically less than 1 Cm (yes 10 mm), so pretty low probability that you will get a large air loss there ... you'll just about see the gaps the hoses are covering half way between the clamps between turbo & pipe and Pipe & blower here... (sorry, picture had to remain large to show the detail).

[ Taken the image out of thread ... you'll find it here ..... http://www.transdiesel.com/app_images/products/6vmarine 1.jpg ]

More likely that she is out of tune and over-fuel ... which is easy to set right through a proper tune-up procedure anyway (exhaust valves and injectors, fuel rack + some other minor stuff like idle) ... but there is a sequence to follow, and if you do things out of order, you will probably end up with over-fuelling... or if still not achieving max WOT, then she may be over-propped, which could mean a re-build is over due...

If start when on dry, then this should be done from bone cold to touch exhaust manifold (to verify compression) very fast ignition .... almost instant, without much hassle... if slow igniting, there is something else wrong ... (over-fuel, incorrect valve/ignition timing, or low compression)...

The breather system could be the crank-case breather system to get to a Walkers Air Separator, instead of venting into the air intake ... nice to have as makes for cleaner engine overall...
 
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Offshorer Marine was a brand owned founded by Carlo Bonomi (Seatek and designer), who was dating or married to one of the daughters of Carlo Riva.
If my mind is being correct he later on joined Fabio Buzzi to found Seatek and FB Design. He was recently also responsible for founding and co-designing togather Luca Santella. the Blue Game range of boats. Since a few years co-owned by San Lorenzo.

JFM is correct Offshore has a cult following around Monte-Carlo. I think at the time 1976 or 78 the 27 Offshorer was the first production motor boat with two steps.
 
mainshiptom said:
.........The top end of the engines need servicing and all rubber pipes need replacing as there are some air leaks. The engines are getting to much fuel and not enough air....
Click to expand...

Just thinking about this statement ... I'd ask him why he makes that statement ?....

These engines inject "full" diesel at start-up, so is natural with a bit of a puff of smoke ... if he say that "she is slow starting at cold (UK)... but when she starts it is a lot of grey smoke .... which does disappear...."... then I'd suspect compression. These lumps are not fuzzy ... lube, fuel and air and they will run ... if you have two good cylinders, she will fire on them, they in turn will speed up the RPM and thus generate heat in combustion chambers... once combustion chambers are heated, the others will fire, burn off the excess fuel and idle clean nice and smooth .... and if treated gently, she'll run like that for years... but gradually get more difficult (and un-sociable) when starting.

Remember my re-build here ? ... I had four out of six holes with damaged compression rings ... and more than one had two compression rings broken (these lumps have five rings... two oils scrapers and three which can be called compression... top is actually called "fire ring" in the manuals... no, no.... not "ring of fire" :) )... and mine, once started ran nice and smooth with no smoke once warm, but at start-up she was a bit less "enthusiastic" than the other ... sort of rolled into starting, instead of instant firing.

Don't want to scare you here, just give you the possible low-down in case you love the boat. The beauty of these engines is that they are fully re-buildable and plenty of cheap parts available... up to complete re-built engines...
 
I'd say yes ... with the proviso made above ... if you suspect a re-build, then calculate with a rebuild...

Call Mitchells Powersystems .... they should be know if you have a local DD engineer (they do roam around on commercial vessels etc., all over UK)..

Oil change I'd expect you to manage yourself, but the tune-up etc., is always good to have done by someone you can watch the first time around...
 
Would you buy without a sea trial ?? ... if there are no water-traps, the exhaust of these lumps will be loud and you need to know if you/SWIMBO accept this ....

Engine should fire almost instantly ... certainty within 2 - 3 seconds if battery, and all other is good ... if 5 seconds + and I'll start to suspect tune-up +++ ... if more attempts are made and fiddle with throttle etc., then you most definitely have an out of tune engine, and possible compression/fuel supply issue. If she then smokes like a good old Ford Dover, but with heavier smoke (grey in colour) and people come running with fire extinguishers, then you do not have a fuel issue, but a probably a poor compression to be suspected...

If all is normal, you should have:

1) near instant and eager ignition (as in kick-in on all cylinders) with a slight up-rev ... to 6 - 700 RPM (imagine a engine where you start with some throttle and pull back instantly ... but in this case the engine should back off itself...this is the "full fuel" at start-up I mentioned)
2) Puff of grey/white smoke which should disappear quick ... (not a Ford Dover or V... TMD40/41 lookalike)
3) Slight hunting until governor have taken control (from full fuel at start-up, back off and pick up again etc.) for a couple of seconds ... perhaps 5 - 7 or so runs with RPM fluctuations with slowly decreasing differences as the mechanical balance weight governor find the "idle" point around 550 - 600 RPM (Just an educated guess)
4) Smooth idle within 10 - 15 seconds, which to a person used with 4 stroke engines will sound like 1000 RPM (She'll fire on each stroke so will sound different at idle compared what you are used to )..

... you need a more detailed description ???
... alternatively, go to youtube and search Detroit Diesel V6-92 start-up and you should see some of the workshop start-ups after rebuilds ... :D

... not sure, but she may have V drives, so you could probably do this with hatches open and have clear view of the lumps at start-up... ...
 
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