My Engine Saga

[Captain Ralph]

It s insane

11 months ago we did an inframe on the port MTU 16V2000 on the 116 i run for $181k. We re about to rebuild starboard… same work, same guy… estimate is now $230k. 25% increase in under a year

That is insane.
Did he under bid the first time or some BS excuse he wants more money?

 

[Pascal]

No. It was inline with other estimates I got at the time. This is not the kind of job I want to use the cheapest guy on anyway. Fuel alone has doubled in a year, that has a huge impact on shipping cost and these 16 cylinder kits aren’t exactly light. We re doing a complete job incl alternator, starter, and heat exchanger plate seals… all 71 of them Do it right or do it twice as this thread demonstrated

 

[cww]

It s insane

11 months ago we did an inframe on the port MTU 16V2000 on the 116 i run for $181k. We re about to rebuild starboard… same work, same guy… estimate is now $230k. 25% increase in under a year

Pretty much the only silver lining is I did both of them at the same time. One engine was trashed, there was no question with that one. The other one wasn't quite as bad. It was damaged, but the smoke did clear under load and stayed mostly cleared up after it warmed up. They were saying I could nurse that one along. Between inflation and the supply chain shortages I was afraid of this problem. For once in my life, it looks like I was actually right about something money-related.

Sorry you're going through that, it costing $50k more than you budgeted sucks especially when it is for reasons you can't control. We are reaching a strange place in this economy. I think there will be problems when interest rates get high enough that it starts taking a bite out of real estate values. I feel like the only thing propping everything up is cheap money.

 

[Pascal]

Pretty much the only silver lining is I did both of them at the same time. One engine was trashed, there was no question with that one. The other one wasn't quite as bad. It was damaged, but the smoke did clear under load and stayed mostly cleared up after it warmed up. They were saying I could nurse that one along. Between inflation and the supply chain shortages I was afraid of this problem. For once in my life, it looks like I was actually right about something money-related.

Sorry you're going through that, it costing $50k more than you budgeted sucks especially when it is for reasons you can't control. We are reaching a strange place in this economy. I think there will be problems when interest rates get high enough that it starts taking a bite out of real estate values. I feel like the only thing propping everything up is cheap money.

Well being my “office” it s not like I m paying for it . Not a big deal for the owners…. I don’t want the boat being disabled beyond late July because of hurricane season so that’s why we only did one last June. Starboard had a bit a fuel dilution in the oil but it’s gotten worst and now we re getting bearing material creeping up in the last lab report.

 

[cww]

Conclusion to the saga - the boat runs well again after inframe rebuilds and new stuffing boxes, straightened shafts, 6 new cutlass bearings, exhaust blankets, basically on the driveline you name it and it was done. Some of this stuff was past due anyway like the cutlass bearings which were original to the boat.

Here is a video and GPS screenshots. The cutlass bearings made a big difference, more power around the dock and the engines don't stall anymore when I switch to reverse while the boat has forward motion or vice versa. 2100rpm used to be close to wide-open throttle now it's like 3/4. The boat runs 17 knots at 2100 and 20 knots at wot at 2300. The performance now matches that 53' boat test article from the 1980's when they were new so I think it's running like it's supposed to finally.

I had about 2/3 water and 3/4 fuel onboard although I'm sure that's dropped substantially since he made me run it on plane at or near full throttle for almost 3 hours. Also says until it gets up around 50 hours I need to run it up when I take it out. Which at $7/gal *ugh*, but I will take the advice. I switched her back to the OEM 28x31 props. Once I realized the problem was the engines and cutlass bearings I put them back on and decided to fix the actual problems rather than reducing pitch to get to 2300. It hits 2300 with the factory props on it and nearly full fuel and water, so I think it's fine for the time being. Luis at J Diesel made it much less of a hassle than it could have been, he finished the rebuilds in less than 2 months and the last 2 months has just been waiting on the marina doing their thing.

17.4 Knots at 2100:



20.3 Knots at +/- 2320 rpm:



He's coming back to fix one problem because the throttles are weird. At wot both run 2300+ and at idle both are at 550, but at almost anything in between you have to advance one throttle more than the other to get the same RPM. Not sure what that's about but he says he'll take care of it. Also my glendenning and autopilot and gps receiver aren't getting power. There's been like 2 dozen people crawling through the boat over the last 4 months so who knows who broke what at this point, I'll just get it fixed and quit worrying about it.

 

[Captain Ralph]

Conclusion to the saga

Out Standing Great News.
Thx for keeping us up.

 

[edward]

Congrats ! Impressive performance .