The Perkins Engines

As we worked on the boat and prepped it to receive the new engines, I also continued an email dialog with Edouard, the person from Saint Fons, France who was interested in buying the Perkins.  He had a 38 foot Italian boat, a 'vedette', he called it that he was restoring.  It had originally been equipped with a pair of Perkins TV8.510 engines, but one was missing

After the aborted sale to the guy in Florida, I had relisted the Perkins engines on Ebay and they caught Edouard's attention.  But, not enough attention that he placed a bid while the auction was still open.  He sent me an email some time after the auction had closed asking if they were still available.  I told them they were, and that he could buy them for the opening bid price, which was $1100.  He suggested that he pay for them with a letter of credit, an instrument I was unfamiliar with.  After a little research I found that I wasn't interested in that, and suggested he pay me with Paypal, which offered foreign exchange services as well as some protection and anonominity to both of us.  He agreed, and over the course of the next month or so he got an account set up and we exchanged a dollar or so to test it.

I also referred Edouard to a couple of international freight shipping websites, as he would have to foot the bill for their transportation as well.  He took a look at the sites, but then asked that I look into it, as his English wasn't good enough to follow along.  That seemed reasonable to me, and I got shipping quotes from two different companies.  Surprisingly, the rates were less than it was costing me to have our two new engines shipped across the country from Florida.  Ocean transport goes by cubic foot, not by weight.  For shipping it was required that the engines be drained of all fluids, and that they be enclosed in a box that could be maneuvered by forklift.  The winning bidder was Blue Sea Shipping, who quoted $640 for the freight plus $55 for documentation.  This was based on my estimate of 40 cubic feet per engine.  They did not pick up, so this price assumed the engines would be delivered to their Seattle terminal.  I forwarded the estimate to Edouard, adding $150 for the cost of lumber, plywood and screws to build the boxes around them, and another $100 to get them delivered to the terminal.  This was all agreeable to Edouard, and he said he would arrange to make payment.  I told him I'd get started on building the boxes, as there was a deadline date coming in a couple weeks to make the next overseas shipment.  I purchased the lumber, plywood and screws at Home Depot, taking advantage of my two free cuts per piece to get the wood roughly to the size we'd need to match the pallets.

The engines were already sitting on the wood pallets, although I needed to have Irv nudge them a few inches for better alignment.  We also needed to secure them to the pallet, and we used lag bolts through the front engine mounts, and through the bell housing to do that.  I don't think the connection would survive being hung upside down, or even dropped off a forklift, but our fastening job definitely provided an assist to gravity in holding them down. 

  Our plan was to first fasten a framework of 2x4s along the edge of the pallet, and then attach the plywood sheets to that, joining them at the edges with yet more 2x4s.  We cut notches in the plywood so that forklifts would still have access to the pallets after our box was attached.  Gallery Marine's crane parked next to the engines made a great work table for our trimming cuts.  The fit was very tight, and even after removing the turbochargers and tucking them underneath the engines, we had to cut holes in the plywood so some exhaust parts could protrude a bit to allow us to seal up the box.  We coiled up the remains of the old wiring harnesses, packed in the old gauge panels and put in the two shop manuals I had as well.

In a mildly stunning coincidence, both the payment from Edouard for the Perkins and our newly rebuilt Cummins engines arrived on the same day, July 29th.  It was truly a day of "Out with the Old, In with the New".

Don unloads on of the rebuilt Cummins

The Cummins came bolted to steel engine frames, with the exhaust elbows loosely attached so as not to damage the gaskets.  We had also ordered the transmission adapter plates seen bolted to the bell housings.  As it turned out, we didn't need these; we used the ones already on the transmissions as they were the same size.

Our new Cummins engines, with the boxed Perkins in background

We finished boxing up the Perkins in the next couple of days, piling in everything Perkins related on top before sealing the lid with more screws.  With my payment for the Perkins now in hand we enlisted Mike's help in getting them to the freight terminal.  He has a car trailer that can carry 4 or 5 tons, and we had just two tons to be delivered to a warehouse on 6th Avenue South. 

Irv from Gallery used the forklift to take them one at a time out to Mike's trailer, which was positioned out in the gravel drive through area.  It was much easier than backing into the dock area, and also provided more maneuvering room for the forklift.  We put one engine ahead of the axles and one behind.  Mike then strapped them down and off we went to the other side of town.

We backed up to a loading dock that was about 4 feet high, designed for semi trailers like the one next to us.  A warehouse worker brought a forklift around to take the engines off the trailer and lift them up onto the dock.  I got a dock receipt and that was it.  No payment required - I got a bill from the freight company a few weeks later.  We ended up making the boxes about 4 or 5 inches higher than my original estimate, and I was hoping that wouldn't catch their attention - but they definitely measured the boxes.  My extra few inches translated into another 10 cubic feet per box, at 8 bucks per cubic foot.  When I sent Edouard copies of the bill of lading I told him that was my error and not for him to pay.  I thought they would be loaded onto a ship at the Port of Seattle, but they were shipped by rail across the country to New York, where they were loaded onto a freighter to take them across the Atlantic and into the Mediterranean Sea.  The other freight company had quoted an extra $350 for rail transport to the east coast in addition to the ocean freight, so it really pays to shop around.

At last report, Edouard had installed our old starboard engine, the "good" one that didn't have any smoke or heat issues, into his boat and has had a successful sea trial.  We are very pleased that they will have a second life - one as the working engine and the other as a parts donor. This is Edouard's boat in Saint Fons, France.