Repower on the A27

[SkipRocks]

Just put our '85 A27 Express back in the water after 9 months on the hard. The previous engine - Volvo Penta TAMD31 - swallowed a valve last summer and the cost to rebuild the Volvo seemed prohibitive, so I started looking around. Repowered with a zero hour Cummits 4BT (similar to the TAMD31 rebuild cost). And since I was already there... the repower project morphed into a few additional projects - some anticipated and some because it just seemed like a good idea. We had to widen the stringers, the slower WOT of the Cummins necessitated a different gear, replaced the shaft with a 1 1/2", bigger cutlass bearing, 4-blade 18 " prop,new stainless steel skeg and after a taking a close look at it we built a new rudder. The existing hatch would have lined up directly above the turbo, didn't want that, so we extended the 2" raised deck over the engine compartment aft about 16" and built a new hatch. I'll add a few more posts to cover some of the other changes. I've only run it a few hours for the break in, but I'm happy.