Our
2010 cruising year was taken up with mostly maintenance, with the
aforementioned exhaust and injector pump problems consuming the majority of the
time. In between those maintenance tasks
we did manage to squeeze in a three week trip to the Gulf Islands, during which
our port engine would occasionally leave a trail of white smoke, overheat at
any speed above about 1300 rpm and developed the injector pump fuel leak that
sidelined us for the rest of the year.
We could go into more details here, but that's already in another book!
We
were certain of one thing - that we had squeezed the last pleasure trip out of
our Perkins engines. The white smoke
hinted strongly at either a blown head gasket, worn rings or burnt valves -
none of which would be an easy repair or even possible given the scarcity of
parts for this particular model of engine.
The engines were 40 years old and had already been obsolete long enough
that replacement parts were not only no longer being made, they just couldn't
be found anywhere.
That
fall I began doing research on repower projects in general, as well as on
likely candidate engines to use as replacements. If at all possible we wanted to retain our
existing running gear - shafts, propellers and transmissions. Those items alone could cost as much as the
engines themselves to replace. This
meant I'd want to find engines that not only had a similar horsepower rating to
the Perkins, but that also developed that horsepower at around the same rpm. The Perkins were rated as having 225 horsepower
at 2500 rpm, so right away that ruled out engines that developed their
horsepower at much higher or lower rpm, as that would require different gear
ratio transmissions and/or propellers.
Marine
diesel engines are expensive; brand new from the factory typical engines to
meet our requirements would cost in the neighborhood of $25,000 to $35,000
apiece - and that doesn't include installation costs. We hoped to find either RTO (Running Take
Outs) engines with low hours, or get rebuilt engines to reduce our cost. Both Craigslist and Ebay became regular
shopping sites, and early on I found a pair of John Deere 6 cylinder engines
that were to be removed from a fishing boat in Westport at the end of the
season. Although they had higher hours
on them than I'd like, the top ends had recently been rebuilt. The owner, as a matter of course, routinely
replaced the engines every 5 years or so.
I was invited to not only come hear them run, but to go along on a
fishing expedition for the day. I
didn't, but I did investigate John Deere engines further and discovered they
were very highly rated and in general trouble free. I shopped around to see if I could find some
rebuilt ones, and discovered that rebuilts seldom found their way to the
market. If one was ever rebuilt, it was
so the owner could keep it for himself for another 20 years.
The
John Deeres were still in use, and I wasn't real keen on engines from a charter
fishing boat no matter how well maintained as they put on at least 2000 or 3000
engine hours per year. So, my shopping
and research next led me to consider the Cummins 6B series of engines. They are also highly regarded, and definitely
plentiful as they're not only used widely in marine applications but are also used
for industrial purposes and in Dodge Ram pickup trucks. The 6B engine displaces 5.9 liters, and can
range in horsepower from 180 to 370 - the more air and fuel that can be shoved
through it, the more power they have and, not coincidentally, the quicker they
wear out. We focused on the 210 and
250hp models as likely candidates for us.
They have the reputation of being more 'bullet-proof', serving 15,000 to
20,000 hours or more without a rebuild.
In recreational use that is a lifetime.
Sometime early on in our Cummins research a pair of used 250hp engines
showed up on Ebay. They had around 1100
hours on them and were going to be removed from a boat to upgrade to larger
engines. They were located in Florida,
about an hour's drive south of my brother Jim's place. Jim went down there to take a look at them,
and even sent back a video clip of them starting up and running. They had a reserve price of $10,000 for the
pair, and in hindsight I probably should have bid but we weren't quite ready to
take the plunge.
By
fall of 2010 I had located a shop, also in Florida, that had quite a business
rebuilding these engines, and they also had a supply of the 210hp models that
had been removed from military boats.
Their procedure was to test these engines on a dynamometer - if they achieved
their rated horsepower and rpm without a lot of smoke or blow-by, they would just clean them up, service and
repaint them and sell them as used with unknown hours for $6000 apiece. Those that had problems with the dyno test
would be rebuilt and would sell for $9000.
They also offered a rebuilt 250hp version for $10,000. The rebuilt engines were offered with a 6
month warranty. Locally, I could get the
same engines for about $15,000 to $18,000 apiece with a two year warranty. I still wanted to do a little more research
as well as some measuring in our engine room, but considering the cost savings
versus some risk of a shorter warranty period and a provider on the other side
of the country we thought that risk would be worth it. This seemed to be the way we would go for our
new engines.
We
first conjured up an ambitious plan of repowering through the winter/spring of
2010/2011, with all being ready for the 2011 boating season. That didn't happen. Turns out it's cold, rainy and dark through
those months, and I probably wasn't quite to Stage 5 Acceptance yet
either. Instead, we decided that we
should fix the leaky injector pump in the port Perkins engine, as it would be a
bit easier to sell those engines if they were both in running condition, albeit
with their other existing problems. This
we managed to do, ultimately with the 69 cent O ring mentioned previously. We made a sea trial run in Lake Washington in
March of 2011, and both engines performed well with even the port engine
overheating problem at least partially resolved, although it would still billow
out the white smoke at certain throttle settings. The blown head gasket / worn rings / burnt
valve problem was still with us but at least they were both in running
condition. This was the last trip the
Potentate made under Perkins power; in April we began disconnecting them in
preparation for their removal.
Since
we would not be changing our shafts or propellers we planned on doing the
engine exchange with the boat in the water.
We are moored at Washington Boat Center in Lake Union, adjacent to
Gallery Marine Services. They have a
hydraulic crane capable of lifting our engines, and the boat could be
walked/poled from our slip to their work area, so the logistics were quite
convenient. We planned to do as much
work as we could ourselves to keep costs down; and when I say we I'm referring
to Erin's dad Ray Ames and myself. Ray
is a retired tool & die maker and machinist as well as an excellent
woodworking hobbyist and is well equipped to make and shape all sorts of things
of metal or wood. As for myself, I'm the
other member of the team.
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