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Advice sought re. Barrus Shire engine


Froggy

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Hi folks

 

We've viewed a boat we quite like but are a little concerned about the engine. The main issue is that the seller has no details regarding hours clocked up (the counter display appears to have been disconnected). It isn't the original engine and therefore we appreciate it might not even have been new when installed. We think, having posted a photo to Barrus Shire, who were very helpful, that it's a Shire 1950. When the engine was started and left running for a few minutes we did notice a little bit of light smoke from the exhaust. Should this be setting alarm bells ringing? Thanks in advance for any advice.

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What colour was the smoke, blue, black or grey ? A bit of smoke at start up is normal, you won't get any indication of condition until it's full up to temperature and given a good run under load. I suggest you get someone that knows about engines to assess it.

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What colour was the smoke, blue, black or grey ? A bit of smoke at start up is normal, you won't get any indication of condition until it's full up to temperature and given a good run under load. I suggest you get someone that knows about engines to assess it.

 

Thanks for your input Flyboy. The smoke definitely wasn't black and wasn't obviously blue, it was from memory a greyish white.

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The Shire is a Yanmar based engine which has excellent reliability and long life. These engines are plant engines and designed to work in harsh environments. I know of several in boats that have over 8000hrs without any major work done. Obviously longevity depends on how the engines looked after and regularly serviced.

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I think it is a direct injected engine and if so it may well smoke a little on idle because the swirl in the combustion chamber may not be strong enough to fully mix the fuel droplets with the air. If it clears when revving I would advise you to ignore it. It is a feature of direct injected engines and why indirect injected engines were designed.

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I think it is a direct injected engine and if so it may well smoke a little on idle because the swirl in the combustion chamber may not be strong enough to fully mix the fuel droplets with the air. If it clears when revving I would advise you to ignore it. It is a feature of direct injected engines and why indirect injected engines were designed.

Your absolutely correct, it is direct injection & doesn't need glow plugs. There is however a cold start device in the injection pump that increases the fuel slightly and advances the timing a bit.

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Thanks very much for your advice, guys. I've been lurking this forum for a week or so and have found it an absolute treasure trove of useful information. We are new to narrowboating, but the chances are that you'll be hearing a lot more from me over the coming weeks and months. :-)

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Topaz uses the 1800 version in a 50' cruiser stern Pinder. To my shame it can go months between starts but will fire and start within seconds every time. Can be (blue) smokey on startup - hardly surprising - but that clears when warmed up.

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If it has the Barrus Shire control panel and the hour meter is part of the rev counter gauge, it is very common for the hour meter not to display. However, it is probably still counting. My display suddenly comes on once or twice a year when it is very hot. I have now fitted an independent hour meter and that is how I can tell the Barrus counter is actually still counting, but not displaying.

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Topaz uses the 1800 version in a 50' cruiser stern Pinder. To my shame it can go months between starts but will fire and start within seconds every time. Can be (blue) smokey on startup - hardly surprising - but that clears when warmed up.

 

Those are the characteristics of direct injection engines. Very easy cold starting but a tenancy to smoke a bit on idle. Ever seen a bus depot a about 5.30 am?

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If it has the Barrus Shire control panel and the hour meter is part of the rev counter gauge, it is very common for the hour meter not to display. However, it is probably still counting. My display suddenly comes on once or twice a year when it is very hot. I have now fitted an independent hour meter and that is how I can tell the Barrus counter is actually still counting, but not displaying.

This may explain this very common problem that VDO Siemens have not addressed.

 

Most modern engines use a VDO tacho so will apply to them as as well, ie. Barrus, Beta, Isuzu, Canaline, Vetus, Volvo etc.

Repair of Yanmar Tach updated (2).pdf

Edited by Flyboy
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This may explain this very common problem that VDO Siemens have not addressed.

 

Most modern engines use a VDO tacho so will apply to them as as well, ie. Barrus, Beta, Isuzu, Canaline, Vetus, Volvo etc.

Back in the 90's there was a very similar problem with some very expensive Sony broadcast quality VTRs. These things cost over £30,000 so you wouldn't expect them to go wrong but in manufacture they had glued some large filters to the pcb to give extra mechanical strength. Over the years that glue dried out and became conductive. The fix was to de-solder the filter, clean off all the glue residue with Xylene and then resolder them without any glue. A cheap and quick fix that brought an expensive bit of kit back from the grave.

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This may explain this very common problem that VDO Siemens have not addressed.

 

Most modern engines use a VDO tacho so will apply to them as as well, ie. Barrus, Beta, Isuzu, Canaline, Vetus, Volvo etc.

Thanks for this, we'll look into it. cheers.gif We've decided to take a bit of a leap of faith with the engine and have put down a deposit for the boat, but will have the engine included in the survey.

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If the tachometer is working, the hours will be stored in its memory. It's the display that gives problems, usually in cold damp conditions. If you do buy the boat you could put the tacho in a nice warm airing cupboard for a couple of weeks which may bring the hours display back to life.

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  • 9 months later...

After all these months I've managed to get a reading off the tachometer - by shining a very bright led light at the display at a slight angle. It's a whopping 43,173! This suggests the engine has been very well used and gives me cause for concern. However, on the bright side it doesn't appear to have burned a single drop of oil in what I would estimate to be 80-100 hours of running since we've had it. Any thoughts? We have no record of what refurbishments, if any, might have been done on the engine since manufacture.

As an aside, how many hours do you lot tend to run the engine each day to maintain the batteries, since we're now out on the cut?

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If it starts easily form cold, makes minimum smoke when hot (a Shire may smoke a little on idle as its direct injected) and it burns no oil the engine shoudl be fine. If you want reassurance get hot oil pressure readings at idle and about 1200rpm.

You run the engine at least once a week until the ammeter reads about 1 to 2% of battery capacity. Ideally once a day but often two to four hours each day and 8 hours plus at weekends.

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1 hour ago, Tacet said:

Many hour counters including some Barrus,  display to 1/10th of an hour, so you might want to take a another look.  43,000 hours is the boating equivalent to a million miles or more in a car; possible - but very exceptional

Yup,

It is much more likely to be 4317.3 hours. Not many diesel engines last more than 15-25,000 hours without a rebuild, many less.

Most modern cars store average speed in their "computer", and it is typically somewhere beteeen 30 and 40mph, which if your reading is true is over 1.3 million miles.

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8 hours ago, Tacet said:

Many hour counters including some Barrus,  display to 1/10th of an hour, so you might want to take a another look.  43,000 hours is the boating equivalent to a million miles or more in a car; possible - but very exceptional

That's what i like to hear! About half an hour after posting, this exact thought struck me. Unfortunately, when i tried a second look at the display it was completely invisible, even with the torch. I guess i'll have to tolerate the vagaries of the VDO display and await the second visitation. :lol:

6 hours ago, cuthound said:

Yup,

It is much more likely to be 4317.3 hours. Not many diesel engines last more than 15-25,000 hours without a rebuild, many less.

Most modern cars store average speed in their "computer", and it is typically somewhere beteeen 30 and 40mph, which if your reading is true is over 1.3 million miles.

This is a good point, although to be pedantic many of those hours may have been clocked up while the boat was moored up, and we know that the last owners, after extensive cruising, spent the last two years on a marina.

Does anybody know whether the 1/10 hour would be clearly marked with a decimal point on the display?

EDIT: I was watching the England Womens' football game against Holland whilst typing this and wasn't thinking clearly. ;)  But in the clear light of, er, night, i don't understand your reasoning. A narrowboat is likely to average less than 3mph so the miles clocked up would be much nearer 130,000, and this doesn't take into account the many hours with the engine running whilst moored up..

8 hours ago, Tony Brooks said:

If it starts easily form cold, makes minimum smoke when hot (a Shire may smoke a little on idle as its direct injected) and it burns no oil the engine shoudl be fine. If you want reassurance get hot oil pressure readings at idle and about 1200rpm.

You run the engine at least once a week until the ammeter reads about 1 to 2% of battery capacity. Ideally once a day but often two to four hours each day and 8 hours plus at weekends.

Tony, thanks for your continued valued advice. :)

Edited by Froggy
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11 minutes ago, Froggy said:

 

Does anybody know whether the 1/10 hour would be clearly marked with a decimal point on the display?

Mine is (Barrrus Shire 1552, 4025.1 on the clock, 17 years old).

I don't think you could easily miss the decimal point but then again, I know it's there. Maybe a quick glance, if you didn't, and you could miss it.

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7 minutes ago, MrBeethoven said:

Mine is (Barrrus Shire 1552, 4025.1 on the clock, 17 years old).

I don't think you could easily miss the decimal point but then again, I know it's there. Maybe a quick glance, if you didn't, and you could miss it.

.....especially if the display was almost invisible even when shining a 950 lumen torch at it!!  :)

I'm now awaiting the second coming with great anticipation to see if there is any 'point' to it.  :lol:

Edited by Froggy
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Doing much more than 1000 hours a year is serious boating, like full time liveaboarding and moving almost everyday in summer and running to charge batteries almost everyday in winter. I know this because this is what we do. Even if we say 1500 hours per year then your 43173 is 29 years of boating. 4317.3 makes much more sense. The optimist would say this engine is barely run in. The realists would say its probably still not half way through its life.

................Dave

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1 hour ago, dmr said:

Doing much more than 1000 hours a year is serious boating, like full time liveaboarding and moving almost everyday in summer and running to charge batteries almost everyday in winter. I know this because this is what we do. Even if we say 1500 hours per year then your 43173 is 29 years of boating. 4317.3 makes much more sense. The optimist would say this engine is barely run in. The realists would say its probably still not half way through its life.

................Dave

I'm going to hang onto this thought until i get another chance to view the display, Dave. It's annoying that the VDO counter is so erratic. We know that the engine was fitted in 2002 to replace the original engine fitted in 1997, so your supposition does seem probable, but maybe the replacement engine was a reconditioned one rather than new. If it was fitted with its original control panel perhaps this might make the higher figure viable?

Edited by Froggy
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9 hours ago, Froggy said:

EDIT: I was watching the England Womens' football game against Holland whilst typing this and wasn't thinking clearly. ;)  But in the clear light of, er, night, i don't understand your reasoning. A narrowboat is likely to average less than 3mph so the miles clocked up would be much nearer 130,000, and this doesn't take into account the many hours with the engine running whilst moored up.

The speed the boat averages, or the time spent running the engine whilst moored up does not matter.

Engines wear when running, so it is the time spent running that counts. Industrial engines have engine hours counters,  cars don't because they are used by less technical users,  so the car manufacturer bases his service intervals on an averge of 30mph, because on average the car will travel 30 miles for every hour run. 

Sometimes you can get the display to work again on VDO meters by taking them out of the cold damp boat, and putting them in a nice warm airing cupboard for a few days to dry them out. If this works,  then make it an yearly routine.

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My take on this is you are over thinking, re engine hours/condition is, as Mr Brooks says if it starts easily each time idile's with no (hot) minimum ( cold) smoke ,runs with no unusual noises & has if you can check good oil pressure, & uses no or very small amounts of oil, enjoy your boating, you say the engine was replaced ,was the control panel the original engine panel ? if yes it probably includes the hours for the original engine. If the engine has been looked after & serviced  it is likely to be a better bet than a newer less hours neglected unit Modern marine unit get treated like royalty compare to the same base unit used in plant equipment & they last well in that setup

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