A27 - Engine Room Refit

[JT48348]

This is my Albin 27 Engine Room Refit thread, where I will chronicle pulling my Nissan Ld28 diesel, the rebuilt, and then the eventual engine room cleaning and refit. I've stripped pretty much everything else off the boat and the engine room remains. Once I have the engine out I can can strip out the remaining wiring and systems from the engine room.

I removed the engine bay hatches. I got all the electrical and plumbing disconnected, labeling and taking pictures as I went along. Now I have to do the coupler. Has anyone gotten the shaft coupler separated from the transmission and can you walk me through the process?

Also in looking at the engine mounts everything looks really good, but what do I unbolt? The single mount for the shock absorber or the actual engine bed mount ( 2 bolts per mount?).

[JT48348]

Here's some of the reasons I decided to do an engine room refit. Since I already pulled out the broken fresh water tank and the too small waste tank, new plumbing will be a necessity.

The rats nest of wires left behind has to go. Some wires are connected to nothing at all. Just zip tied in place. Some are in bad shape. Any painting inside the engine compartment needs to start with bare walls so this will eventually all be pulled out.

[Vic K]

RE: Removal of shaft from tranny.

Getting the coupler loose from the tranny end was no problem. Just a little knuckle busting wrench work. The hard part was the separation of the 'adapter' from the shaft. This was just a hunk of rust. I had to finally cut through the shaft and remove it as a unit. Since I was replacing the shaft anyway this saved doing an almost impossible job in a few minutes.

On removing the engine mounts. Mine were bolts that screwed into receivers that were glassed into the stringers. Use a lot of penetrating oil and go slow as you try to remove the upper adjustment nuts. You can twist these bolts off.

Good luck.

'Just one old codgers opinion'

Vic

[JT48348]

My coupler looks pretty good. I briefly tried to get it off this past weekend but couldn't get the shaft to stop spinning. I put transmission in gear but I think I still need a piece of wood to block the propeller so I can lossen coupler nuts, right?

Upper adjustment nuts on engine mounts is where I was going to start. Do you recall was that metric or English. My manual shows standard 3/4" but when I tried with a 3/4" wrench it seemed off

[Vic K]

Amen on the block. Can't recall the size of the socket. Do use a lot of penetrating oil and patience.

[JT48348]

Got the shaft off and everything disconnected. Decided to remove the heat exchanger so I'd have more room for pulling engine. Obviously it's been leaking.

Then as I sat pondering my purpose in life I noticed easyoungs home made exhaust riser and I wondered why I could only see 3 stainless bolts holding it on. Poked around and decided let me pull this off and see what's going on here.

The missing 4th bolt was sheered off on install I'm guessing. The manifold is looking rough.

This does not bode well for the Nissan. I made some inquiries about rebuilding but this seems like a loosing battle. The engine is in rough shape.

[Beta Don]

You have all of the marine bits - How about finding a Nissan Maxima diesel, rebuilding that one (if it needs rebuilding) and installing it with your marine manifolds?

Don

[JT48348]

Idk if that manifold is worth it

[sail149]

Did you check out the earlier post
viewtopic.php?f=28&t=6888#p40728
Some good stuff here

[DesertAlbin736]

Warren/Sail149

I went back and looked at your earlier post in that manifold riser thread from 2 years ago. In looking through the maintenance records & receipts provided by the previous owner of our boat it seems the elbow/riser on my Yanmar 3GM30F was last replaced in 2001 at about the same time a new engine hour meter was installed. A lot of the time the previous owner ran the boat in fresh water on Lake Powell and a local lake in Idaho, and a couple times in salt water in the Pacific NW. We acquired the boat boat with 530 hours on the meter in 2014, & now it has 774 hours (engine already had about 2500 hours when the new meter was installed according to maintenance log), a good portion of that 240 hours we've added was in salt water. Guess it would be a good idea to take the time pull that elbow & inspect it? If your last one failed at 5 years & 750 hours it's a fair guess that mine might be getting a little long in the tooth now. It looks like some sort of silver anti-seize/sealant compound was used on the RH/LH pipe nipple, so hopefully it won't be too hard to unscrew (fingers crossed). Getting the rubber exhaust hose to come loose might be another matter. We've run the boat about as half as many hours in the two years since we took possession as the previous owner did in 12 years

The receipt for the one in 2001 showed the cost as $121. Found an Ebay seller out of Vancouver, WA that sells aftermarket stainless steel 180 deg elbows for 3GM30F compatible with the part #128370-13600 for $155 + shipping. Maybe I should go for it before we end up broke down in Desolation Sound?

[JT48348]

FYI

Size of the wrench needed for removal of engine mount nut: 15/16"

Turns out the wiring harness was damaged at engine. Once nuts were cut off the harness, opening the connector revealed corrosion and at least one connector pin pulled out. This is an item to check if you gave a Nissan Ld28 in your boat as the wiring harness sits almost right under the aft edge of the engine room hatches and any water can collect and run down on top of wiring.

[DesertAlbin736]

Sail149,

Pulled the 3GM30F elbow/riser today to inspect. It looks fine. No signs of heavy rust, scale, or break through corrosion. So we dodged that bullet. But thanks for your post which reminded me to check in out.

[sail149]

Glad it looks ok for you!

[sail149]

JT
Not sure where you got to with you manifold etc
There is a manufacturer near me , (might be out of business but don't want to spread romors)
Osco motors , they make replacement cast iron water cooled exhaust manifolds and risers for mainly Gas engines.
Here are some on a manifold seller site, I could not find a site for Osco motors in Hatfield Pa.
http://www.marinemanifold.com/osco/osco33.aspx
I suspect the riser and possibly the manifold on the Nissan is a stock unit used on some other engine and possibly with an adaptor plate.
If your manifold was still good you could probably use one of these risers with an adaptor plate.IF that's all you need!

As an aside I was talking to the owner of Osco many years ago to try and get pattern work to make the tooling to make these water cooled parts. The job is very complex and they made their tooling in house and took many months over it as its critical to get right. All sorts of cavities and wall thickness issues.tricky stuff. While I was their I talked boats , my real reason to be visiting! And asked why they did not make manifolds for Diesel engines and he said there was very little demand.
He told me that the gas engines burn up the manifolds much quicker than the diesels, something to do with the different corrosive effects of the different combustion gases and operating temperatures. I mentioned this on an another forum and was jumped all over as not knowing what I was taking about , bla bla bla, But Osco still don't make manifolds for diesels as there is not enough demand!
You might disagree too looking at you riser and manifold!
Warren
Ps I have another idea l'll PM you about.

[sail149]

Fun fact about the Nissan LD28 Marinized Diesel engine found in the Albin27.
I was looking to see if the engine used A 6cyl GM block making a replacement water cooled manifold easier to find).
The same Nissan L28 engine was orriginal designed to also be a Gas engine!
(The Peugeot based 4D61 was also available in a gas and gas turbo version too for road use)

The Nissan L28 gas version was used in various cars but was the engine for the venerable 280Z sports car from the 80's. Who knew!
'These engines are known for their extreme reliability, durability, and parts interchangeability and the 7-bearing main crank makes it extremely robust'.
Nissan sold a bare version for marine and other stationary engine applications.
I wonder if there is a common marine version of this engine that you could get water cooled manifold parts from.
The LD28 did come in as LD28T , diesel turbo version but not for USA market.

Apparently the Z car tuners will use the Diesel engine crank to increase the compression ( wiki says displacement which does not make sense unless they over bore).

Lots more imformation here

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nissan_L_engine

Fun stuff if your a Motörhead !
Warren