A27 - Engine Room Refit

[WillieC]

Thanks for the comment on the BoatDiesel site. I have debated joining, this is actually the only site I have "paid" to be a part of, well worth it. Saved me some bucks. Thanks!

[JT48348]

I'm going through one of my parts bins and I found a bag of hardware for the engine hatches. I'm wondering what everyone has for an engine room hatch latch? Looks like I have half a latch that either attached to deck or one of the hatches and I'm wondering what the other half might be. Or maybe you use something else.

Looks similar to the cockpit hatches but it's slightly smaller.

[tego]

Joe, My ER hatches have no latches, just two hinges and a flush lift handle on each one. Those things are heavy and I don't think you really need an actual latch. That one you show would be a real toe stubber anyway. Ben

[Sprig1]

I had that latch on my Alberg 30. On the cockpit seats.

[JT48348]

Thanks guys. That's my thought too. I took it off thinkinking it was a toe grabber. I don't see how the hatches would move around much anyway

[JT48348]

Working through the engine parts bin, I came across the raw water strainer. After disassembly, I realized the gaskets were shot and it was filled with 20yeads of crud. From measurements and the perko website I determined it's the #493-500 series 7 with the 1 1/4" outlets. That yielded the correct gasket kit and once the parts came, unit rebuilt.

[JT48348]

Working my way through the engine room parts bin. I was skeptical the Morse controls would clean up as everything seemed to be covered with pitting and tarnished. But a little elbow grease and a run on the polishing wheel produced amazing results.

[smacksman]

I've always wondered why you have seperate throttle and direction controls in America when for donkeys years we in the UK have had them combined in one Morse lever.
Much more control in tight spots.

[sail149]

The latch you have is the same one used to hold the fold down helm station / wiring access on later '88+ models.
A nice modification to avoiding doing all you wiring they a small access hatch!

And Smackman , fortunately most engine controls are now one lever combo, and my boat was converted by a long gone PO I'm happy to say. The twin lever can really get you into trouble if you run multiple boats that have both types. How do I know..... To embarrassed to say!

[Mad Dog]

Have you gotten a ballpark quote on a Beta 38 repower? I'm researching these boats for a purchase. I've read about some issues with the Isuzu diesels and I'm finding that a lot of the Albin FC's I see on the market have them. I considered a Cummins Swap, but as I get older I recognize the value of Beta's repowering support instead of Yankee Engineering a Cummins. Since you indicated the price of the two is comparable, I wanted to know about how much it cost.

[smacksman]

Off topic Mad Dog, but I bought 'Sylvia G' an old Bristol 30 sailboat on Ebay in 2012 and flew to the USA to pick it up at Burrs Yard, New London. She had been donated to the Sea Scouts. If you go there at 'happy hour' say Hi from Roger Walker to the lovely people there. They were very good to me.

[Mad Dog]

Small world. Those guys have some tempting ads on Craigslist. I don't know them, but if I get over there I'll give them your regards. Interestingly, there's an A25 FC that has been on the hard in Ft. Trumbull Marina for quite some time. I think that's what piqued my interest in the FC's I had a Luhrs 32 at the time and thought it was quite fugly, reminded me of a Good Humor truck; but the more I studied it the more I appreciated the functional utility.

And on another note... got to get out on water in Weymouth on your side of the pond last September. I was doing some cross training with the Royal Engineers at Camp Chicerell.

Apologies for the thread hijack... I would really like to have an idea what a Beta repower costs

[Beta Don]

I repowered with a 100 HP Turbo Intercooled Yanmar that I bought rebuilt from the local Yanmar dealer for $10K. Sounds like a lot, but they threw in a brand new Hurth ZF hydraulic transmission worth $2500 because they had it left over from another project *and* since I didn't have the Yanmar panel and cables for the engine, they threw in that too and it had a list price of $2K, so the $10K total was actually quite reasonable. The engine had a brand new heat exchanger, turbo, injection pump and injectors, pistons and all bearings and seals. The head had been completely rebuilt with new valves by a local machine shop

Anyway, after that $10K, I was looking at custom motor mounts, shaft coupling, shaft seal, new prop, all new hoses including exhaust hose and fittings, new shift and throttle cables, etc, etc. Then, there was the forklift to set in in the boat to design the motor mounts, set it back out while the motor mounts were fabricated and then back in

My guesstimate for a repower if you do everything yourself would be $2500 to $3500 (and you might even hit $5K) plus the cost of the engine . . . . and then a hundred or more hours of work - Repainting the engine room while it's out, redoing some wiring and cabling and so forth

If you buy the engine and then contract with a professional to do everything, the bill for the work might equal what you paid for the engine, so in my case, $20K for a repower with a rebuilt engine

It's not a decision to be made lightly. If you commit to this, you need to LOVE the boat, plan on keeping her for an extended period, plan on using her a LOT, and admit upfront that when you go to sell her, you're going to take a financial bath. True, the biggest 'plus' any old boat can have come resale time is a newish powerplant, but you'll never raise the resale value of the boat by more than about half what you spend on the repower

If you're not going to keep her forever and don't plan on putting a couple thousand hours on her while you own her, it almost always makes more sense to spend $3K, $5K or even $7500 to rebuild the current engine rather than spending very big bucks to repower

Financially, the best decision would almost always be to find a boat you love which someone else has already repowered with an engine you like and then pay a premium price to buy the boat after someone else has taken the bath on modernizing her - You could save a BUNCH

In our case, we had never used the boat with the original engine and then after spending the big bucks we discovered than an A27 just wasn't the type of boat we wanted for the boating we wanted to do, so it was a VERY expensive lesson for us

Don

[DesertAlbin736]

Many a time I've thought we paid too much for our boat. But previous owners had thoroughly restored the interior, and owners prior to the last PO had repowered with the Yanmar 3GM30F complete with AquaDrive CV joint. That has saved me countless hours of work, and maybe some money compared to paying less for a boat with a worn or dead engine. Since then I've done a number of other projects that have been described elsewhere on the board. We've put over 400 hours on the engine over 3.5 years and gotten a great deal of enjoyment out of it.

[smacksman]

Just broken my leg! That's the end of my 2017 sailing season. Damn!
Keep posting guys and I will be dreaming of your adventures/workload in stead. Roger.