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Engine life expectancy


I Spartacus

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Our Beta bv1903 engine (Kubota) is 24 years old and has so far done over 17,000 hours.

I have been advised that, with regular maintenance,  oil and filter changes, it will last forever......

Or at least as long as it takes to need replacing ;)

I hope for another 10,000 hours at least.

(Bet that puts a hex on it, ah well)

Rog

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Buy boat 1984 " engine needs a top end overhaul the bwb and willow wren thrashed it. ". nod wisely and carry on. after 6 years of use including towing butty bit smoky. clean injectors. Carry on  Sell in 2001 . Tell buyer it's a bit smoky could do with top end doing. He nods baffled. Caught up with next owner in 2005 " has top end been done?" No.  

21 years  without heads off mainly towing.

its now been done and as understand it "gives trouble"

change the oil and filters and leave alone.

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I think regular maintenance is very significant. We once had a shared boat with a BMC 1.8 which had done 18,000 hours, but it had a mini service (whatever that was) between each owner's use, and the oil & filter changed regularly.

We now own a 20 year old boat with a BMC 1.8 engine which has done 11,000 hours. It uses very little oil apart from loss through small drips which BMC's are notorious for. Except for a little white smoke on start up it doesn't smoke, and we've had it thoroughly checked and been told it's in excellent condition.

The previous owners faithfully had the oil and filters changed every 200-250 hours as we do too.

I hope I'm not tempting fate but hopefully it looks good for quite a few thousand hours yet.

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13 minutes ago, Grassman said:

I think regular maintenance is very significant. We once had a shared boat with a BMC 1.8 which had done 18,000 hours, but it had a mini service (whatever that was) between each owner's use, and the oil & filter changed regularly.

We now own a 20 year old boat with a BMC 1.8 engine which has done 11,000 hours. It uses very little oil apart from loss through small drips which BMC's are notorious for. Except for a little white smoke on start up it doesn't smoke, and we've had it thoroughly checked and been told it's in excellent condition.

The previous owners faithfully had the oil and filters changed every 200-250 hours as we do too.

I hope I'm not tempting fate but hopefully it looks good for quite a few thousand hours yet.

What on earth could a mini service include if it doesn't include oil and filter ..... check levels and top up, visual check and fix anything that looks untoward?

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From engines I have seen over the years, I am convinced that a lot of idling out of gear for charging etc is not ideal. It appears that diesel engines like a bit of load on them.

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25 minutes ago, Richard10002 said:

What on earth could a mini service include if it doesn't include oil and filter ..... check levels and top up, visual check and fix anything that looks untoward?

Yeah, that was my thought - but at least it got that, so the levels were always good and the untoward never became an issue. Many engines will be left unloved between infrequent servicing.

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6 hours ago, catweasel said:

From engines I have seen over the years, I am convinced that a lot of idling out of gear for charging etc is not ideal. It appears that diesel engines like a bit of load on them.

That is true but it  would be just as true for a constantly idling petrol engine.  You will notice a lot of old stationary oil/paraffin engines have a compression release mechanism/governor when idling with no load thus missing  a compression/ ignition cycle or two until the rpm speed drops too low.

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4 minutes ago, churchward said:

That is true but it  would be just as true for a constantly idling petrol engine.  You will notice a lot of old stationary oil/paraffin engines have a compression release mechanism/governor when idling with no load thus missing  a compression/ ignition cycle or two until the rpm speed drops too low.

Cheers I didn't know that. We live and learn ;)

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7 hours ago, Richard10002 said:

What on earth could a mini service include if it doesn't include oil and filter ..... check levels and top up, visual check and fix anything that looks untoward?

If its anything like when we had a managed share its a reason for charging the 12 owners more money, in our case the dumbo often manage to cause problems as well.

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10 minutes ago, by'eck said:

I'm hoping for another 200+ years on mine ;) It needed 1st undersize crank re-grind at 70 years leaving two more innocent.gif

I think the age is irrelevant, how many hours has it done ?

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On 18/04/2017 at 14:24, Tony Brooks said:

It also depends upon the design of the engine. I am not sure that I would expect a modern Mitsubishi or Kubota based engine to last as long as (say) a BMC or older Lister given the correct servicing. If you buy a proper marine engine rather than a converted industrial engine then its is likely to be lower stressed and thus last longer.

Sorry Tony I would put the Kubota way above a BMC for engine life it has tolerances and its not the most prolific diesel engine in the world for nothing, its because its the longest lasting reliable diesel engine  of the lot.

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45 minutes ago, Flyboy said:

I think the age is irrelevant, how many hours has it done ?

Personaly I would rather buy a liveaboard useage boat that is run nearly daily and with regular oil changes than a low hours hobby boat that is left festering with old engine oil in it all the winter months and never started until the start of the " Boating season " :rolleyes:

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Our Kubota now has 14000 hrs on the clock and no symptoms of old age. We checked the valve clearances last winter and they were all spot on. No oil is used /lost/burnt between services.

The BMC it replaced died at 9000 hours with worn camshaft lobes.

 

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6 hours ago, Cheshire cat said:

Our Kubota now has 14000 hrs on the clock and no symptoms of old age. We checked the valve clearances last winter and they were all spot on. No oil is used /lost/burnt between services.

The BMC it replaced died at 9000 hours with worn camshaft lobes.

 

Would it not have been much cheaper to replace camshaft? Or am i terminally stupid?

 

 

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1 hour ago, Peter Reed said:

Would it not have been much cheaper to replace camshaft? Or am i terminally stupid?

I was wondering the same myself. The first question of course, I'm not qualified to answer the second ;)

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The camshaft could have been replaced but really it was only the latest event in a sequence or reliability issues. Some of them were user induced, others were age related failures leading to drama. The engine had already been seized twice to my knowledge due to water loss. Amazingly it fired up again once it had cooled down. To replace the camshaft would have required the engine to come out due to space issues and then there was the consideration of well, while we've got the head off we might as well do a top end overhaul etc,etc. and is there any point doing the top without the bottom..............

Ultimately, people go boating to de-stress so they don't want the risk of the engine letting them down and within any group of people there is likely to be a wide range of technical competency. People started to get nervous so in the end it was an easy albeit expensive decision to take.

So far with the Nanni we have had two new hoses, a replacement waterpump and a replacement alternator. 

 

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If a car averages 40mph over its life, 250k miles is 6000hours. Which if used for 8 hours a day every other weekend of the year, is 14 years.

Assuming nothing untoward 10,000 hours is very reasonable for an industrial engine of the size we are talking about which should do 20+ years in a reasonably used narrowboat. With care it does not surprise me at all that double that is achievable.

I wish we had an rev or hour counter on EmilyAnne's  engine.

Daniel

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On 2017-4-23 at 10:48, Richard10002 said:

What on earth could a mini service include if it doesn't include oil and filter ..... check levels and top up, visual check and fix anything that looks untoward?

I expect exactly that but given how many boats dont get the recommended 'daily' and 'weekly' checks and or fail due to lost oil or similar likely well worth it.

 

Daniel 

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3 hours ago, DHutch said:

I expect exactly that but given how many boats dont get the recommended 'daily' and 'weekly' checks and or fail due to lost oil or similar likely well worth it.

 

Daniel 

Mine gets the levels checked every 2 days of being on board.... sad to say but I remember to check the levels more often than I remember to turn the stern greaser (and of course the bilge pump always reminds me of that at 3 in the morning)

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