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Make no mistake about it;
replacing a large inboard engine from a boat is a major
undertaking.
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Of course, you could
elect to live like a
few sailing purists...
and have no engine
at all on board! |
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Engine
Replacement
"Fortunately,
my engine is running fine. I attribute this to
religious maintenance on my part. That engine gets
oiled, filtered, cleaned, and serviced several times a
year! I'm hoping that as long as I take good care of
it, it will take good care of me. I do this because
I fear the day when it will have to be taken out and
replaced!"
-
Yours Truly, written two years ago elsewhere on this site
I don't know what I was
thinking when I wrote the above. Quite frankly,
my old engine was always a pain in the ass. It leaked
oil into the bilge because the oil pan gasket was bad.
The only way to replace the gasket was to take the engine
out of the boat. The engine vibrated violently because its rubber mounts had harden over the years and
could no longer absorb the continuous shocks. The only
way to replace these mounts, of course, was to remove the
engine.
The engine was noisy,
smelly, and sometimes had to be hit with a hammer to get it
started. Because of the engine's age, it was getting
more difficult to find replacement parts. On a voyage
to Cuba a few years ago, the engine vibrated so badly that
it caused the alternator to shear all three of the steel
bolts that connected it to the engine block. This
caused the alternator (which has exposed parts that spin at
several hundred r.p.m.'s) to fly off the engine and do a
little dance around the bilge. It managed to sever
several electrical wires that could have easily started a
fire. It also ruptured the engine's oil filter, which
caused all of the oil to pour into the bilge. It took
nearly two days to clean up the mess and re-attach the
alternator!
In March of 2005, I wanted
to let the engine run for a while even though Candide wasn't
going anywhere. This is a good thing to do from time
to time...diesel engines shouldn't sit for long periods of
time without being run. I held in the start button, turned the
key, and heard a loud "click" from the starter motor.
Every time I turned the key I heard the same "clicking"
noise, but the engine refused to turn over.
This situation was not so
unusual, and I knew exactly what to do. I got a friend
on board and had her hold in the starter button and turn the
key. I assumed a position by the engine and as the
starter motor made its clicking noise, I gave the solenoid
gentle taps with a hammer. When these gentle taps
failed to engage the solenoid, I started to hit it harder.
Eventually, I was using the hammer to beat the living crap
out of the starter, but the engine still wouldn't turn over!
I thought that the starter
had simply gone bad (it's happened before). So, I
removed it and took it to the local repair shop to have it
rebuilt. A few days later, it was returned and I
reinstalled the completely rebuilt starter. Imagine
the disappointment I felt when I turned the key and heard
nothing but that same clicking noise! Out of
frustration, I foolishly turned the key a dozen times or so
before I smelled the smoke that was coming from the small
fire that had started in the engine room. I had
literally "fried" my starter motor by trying to force it to
start the engine. I started to get the feeling that
this was going to be an expensive problem to resolve.
Eventually, I wound up
removing the fuel injectors (to relieve pressure in the
cylinders) and tried to manually turn the engine's flywheel.
When this failed, I took the largest screwdriver I could get
my hands on and used the mechanical advantage that it
provided to force the flywheel to move. No matter how
much pressure I applied, I could not get the engine shaft to
turn.
Fortunately, a buddy of
mine is a diesel mechanic. I called him, explained the
situation, and asked for his thoughts. "You want my
professional opinion?" he asked without waiting for an
answer. "You're screwed!"
So, there was no
mechanic's "silver bullet" that was going to save the day.
The engine was dead. Apparently, one or more of the
cylinders had frozen...rusted...into place. There was
nothing to do except remove the engine and either have it
rebuilt or buy a brand new one.
In this section, we take a
look at the first step: removing the old engine from the
boat. You can enlarge any of the pictures below by
double-clicking on them.
Step 1: Removing the Old
Engine
Here's a view of the
engine before it was removed. What a mess! |
 | The Old Engine.
The photo at right shows the Yanmar 3QM-30
3-cylinder diesel engine that spent 20 years in an
engine room situated below the galley sink. We
had some good times together...I learned how to
bleed a diesel motor on this engine. I also
learned how to replace a high pressure fuel
injector. And I replaced the starter...twice.
The alternator was replaced once, too. Oh, and
the old air intake rusted apart and had to be
replaced. The remote cables for the throttle
and gearshift both froze up a couple of years ago
and had to be replaced. Notice the metallic
"radiator cap" (actually the cap for the heat
exchanger; most marine diesels don't have
radiators)? I believe that in 7 years of boat
ownership, this is the only part I didn't wind up
replacing! Time for the old Yanmar to go...
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This is the engine
after we removed whatever we could to make it lighter. |
| Making the
Engine Lighter. According to the
mechanic's manual for this engine, it has a dry
weight (before oil, water, antifreeze, etc., is
added) of 627 pounds. In order to remove it,
we had to lift it straight up out of the bilge
eleven inches and then slide it forward about two
feet. It would then be lifted about 9 feet
through Candide's butterfly hatch and moved
horizontally about 12 feet to reach the marina
dock. That's a lot of moving for a heavy piece
of machinery, so we decided to make it as light as
possible. We removed the headers, starter
motor, heat exchanger, exhaust manifold, and
separated the transmission from the block.
Anything that we could unbolt, pry apart, or knock
off with a hammer...was removed to lighten our task.
We estimate that we removed about 200 pounds of
miscellaneous parts. By the way, if you click
on the picture to the left, you'll notice rust in
the #1 cylinder. According to our post-mortem
analysis, water had leaked into this cylinder
(probably through backwash coming from a water lift
muffler) and ruined the
engine. |
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The bar, the chain, the
shackels. |
| Starting to
Lift the Engine. In order to lift the
engine, we had to find a way to attach a 3/8" chain
to it. A friend of mine took a couple of the
header bolts to work and had a welder attach 2"
washers to the end of the bolts (click picture to
see details). We screwed the bolts back into
the engine with the washers on top, attached
heavy-duty shackles to the washers and chain, and
wrapped the chain around a heavy steel bar.
The bar was supported by floor jacks, and we used
muscle power to move one side of the engine up a bit
and adjusted the jack accordingly. Then we
went to the other side and used our strength again
to lift the bar and adjust the jack. We placed
wooden blocks underneath the engine mounts to
provide extra support. |
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Looking down through
the butterfly hatch. |
| Adding a
Safety Measure. The next step was to move
the engine forward and place it on the sole of the
cabin (note that with Candide, the large saloon
table can be removed, along with part of the
settee). Since this would be the first time we
had to deal with the entire weight of the engine
without any mechanical support, we thought it would
be a good idea to have a safety rope. We
attached Candide's outhaul (a pulley system) to the
boom and then attached this to the engine. As
we lifted the bar and moved the engine up and
forward, I would have a friend keep tension on the
outhaul. Hopefully, if something went wrong,
the engine wouldn't come crashing down onto the
boat's sole! |
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The engine is on the
cabin sole! |
| Engine Block
Removed. This was a major milestone!
Three big friends and I managed to use brute
strength to move the engine forward enough to rest
it on the cabin sole. Two of us grabbed the
steal bar on one end, and the other two grabbed the
other end. After a couple of "Heave!
Hoe's!" we had it out!
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The engine said, "Look
at me! I'm flying!" |
| Lifting the
Engine through the Hatch. As you can see
from the photo, Candide's butterfly hatch had been
completely removed to open up a large hole through
which we could lift the engine. This was a
particularly nerve-racking part of the operation
because it was the first time that the entire weight
of the engine had to be supported by the main
halyard. Sure, we had the outhaul hooked up as
a safety measure...but the entire procedure made me
sweat! |
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I just realized that if
we ever need to hang someone at the marina, I've got
the perfect spot! |
| Clearing the
Hatch. Wow! It's almost out of the
boat! Should the 3/8" chain snap in half, note
that my friend Michelle is in position to catch the
entire engine with her bare hands. My friend
Tom can be seen in the far left, behind the boom.
Somehow, he got the enviable position of using
Candide's main halyard winch to crank up the engine
bit by bit! The winch made some very strange
noises while it was put under this strain, but it
seemed to come out just fine. Mike, in the red
shirt, is ready with a line to start walking the
engine over to the dock. |
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Calculated effort to
move engine sideways to the dock: 68 pounds.
Actual effort: "Oh, about 66 pounds." |
| Moving Off the
Boat. My friend Michelle is an engineer.
As such, she likes math and physics. As we
were planning this endeavor at our favorite watering
hole, she used a cocktail napkin to make a few
calculations. According to her, if we used the
mechanical advantage of the 57' halyard, it would
take 68 pounds of effort to move the engine from the
centerline of the boat to the dock. When I
asked Mike how much effort he had to apply. He
said, "Oh, about 66 pounds." Just goes to show
that all those numbers and calculations are just a
waste of time. For the record, I am now
operating the winch and controlling the speed at
which the engine is being lowered to the dock.
Tom probably could have done it, but it was a bit
tricky and he didn't want to risk making a mistake.
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This is the crew!
Thanks, guys (and gal)! Hope to see you again
when it's time to put in the new engine! |
| The Crew.
Now this group is what one would call "Good
Friends." Tom is on the left, Mike is in the
red shirt, I'm resting my foot on the engine, and
Michelle is standing to the right. After many
hours of preparing, a lot of cuts and bruises, the
engine is finally out of the boat. And all
they wanted in return was beer and pizza! The
only problem that remains is what to do with the old
engine. My thought was, "Well, it's on the
dock now. It's not my problem!"
Michele pointed out that the dock master would
probably have me hung by the neck from the spreaders
if that engine was still on the dock when she
returned to work on Monday morning. So, I
called a junk dealer who was very eager to take away
the engine for free. |
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Step 2:
Knowing Your Limitations
This is the empty
engine room. To install the new engine, I'd need
professional help. |
| Facing
Reality. Originally, I had planned to
install the new engine myself. I figured that
it would be a simple matter of reversing the process
of taking the old one out. As I talked to
people who'd been through the process before, I came
to the realization that it wasn't a job I was
qualified to tackle. Even with the help of
knowledgeable friends, there were huge tasks to
complete like creating new motor mounts, re-wiring
the engine electrical system, creating a
larger-diameter exhaust system, et. al. I
needed the help of a professional.
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| Getting
Quotes. There was never any question as to
who would install the engine on Candide; Joel Stuart
of Stuart Marine (904-269-2599) is a mechanical
genius and is everybody's first-choice for this type
of work in the Jacksonville area. Fortunately,
he had some down time over the Christmas holidays of
2005 and agreed to take the job. But I was
told that the boat couldn't stay in the water, it
would have to be hauled out. I requested a
quote from my current marina to move the motorless
Candide to the service slip, hauled out, blocked up
on land, and have the bottom repainted (once a boat
is removed from the water for more than three days,
new bottom paint needs to be applied. You can
read all about this process by
clicking here).
On Joel's suggestion, I also got a quote from
Holland Marine which is about 11 miles down river
from my current marina. Much to my surprise,
the quote was about $700 less. In addition to
this initial savings, Holland Marine doesn't put a
surcharge on the work that Joel does. If the
work had been done at my current marina, Joel would
have been charged a 20% contractor markup fee which
would have been passed on to me, of course!
This saved an additional $3,400. |
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On the day of the move,
about 15 of my fellow dock-mates helped out. |
| Moving a Boat
with No Engine. Since I'd be saving over
$4,000 by moving Candide to a different marina, the
decision was a no-brainer. Holland Marine,
here I come! Now the challenges were to get
Candide out of her slip, sail down river for 11
miles, and then dock at the new marina. The
sailing part would be easy, but maneuvering a 15-ton
motorless boat in and out of tight slips at two
different marinas was not a task I relished.
Fortunately, I had a lot of friends lend me a hand.
The picture to the left shows how we did it (click
to enlarge). Two friends were in dinghies that
were tied to Candide. This gave the forward
momentum needed to move the boat. I was at the
wheel steering. Several friends were on the
docks holding lines to keep us straight down the
fairway. Once we got going under the power of
the dinghies, these lines were let loose and I was
able to steer into open waters. Once in the
river, I raised the main and we had a beautiful sail
to the new marina. Stopping the boat at the
end of our journey was hair-raising. We sailed
into Holland Marine and were met by friends
alongside a floating dock. After I dropped the
main, we were still being blown along at 3 knots or
so. I threw a stern line to my friends who
can't catch. Shit! There was a boat tied
to the dock in front of us, and we had no way of
slowing down! I threw another stern line to my
friends, which they also managed to miss, but one of
them quickly grabbed it out of the water. They
quickly tied the line to a cleat, and Candide came
to a stop. Her bow-sprit was literally hanging
over the stern of the boat tied in front of us, but
we never hit. Had my friends not been able to
secure that stern line, we would have collided with
the boat in front of us and would have caused
serious damage to both vessels. Once we were
securely tied off, I went down below to change
underwear. |
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Step 3:
Purchasing and Installing the New Engine
This is the new engine,
still in its box! |
| The Decision.
I decided a long time ago that if the old engine
was ever removed from Candide, I'd never put it back
in. After all, it was twenty years old and
spare parts were becoming difficult to find.
When folks found out that I was purchasing a new
engine, the unsolicited advice started rolling in.
"You're sticking with Yanmar, right?"
"Westerbeke makes the best engine!" "Volvo is
the only way to go!" I had been leaning
towards Westerbeke engines since seeing them and
talking to the manufacturer at the Miami Boat Show
in 2005. They have a very "clean" design
without a bunch of wires and hoses running around.
They're made to be easily serviced; the models I saw
even had built-in hand pumps for removing oil during
changes. After spending a lot of time doing
research, I finally decided on a Yanmar 3JH4E.
Yanmar is recognized as the de facto standard in
marine engines for cruising sailboats, and parts are
available everywhere. So while it might not be
as neatly packaged as the Westerbekes, I'm pretty
confident that I'll be able to find parts and
knowledgeable mechanics to fix it wherever I sail in
the future. |
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Here we see the new
engine mounts, the 4" exhaust, coupler, shaft, and
water lift muffler.
The new engine,
installed at last! |
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Installation Problems.
Once Candide was hauled out of the water at
Holland Marine, Joel Stuart had time to really look
things over. He wasn't pleased with what he
saw. Originally, he was going to replace the
old propeller shaft (a 7' long stainless steel rod
that connects the engine to the propeller) because
the new engine is so much smaller that the old shaft
simply wouldn't reach it (it would need something
closer to 8'). Unfortunately, we discovered
that the old shaft simply couldn't be removed from
the boat without being cut into multiple pieces.
The new shaft would also have to be cut into at
least two parts, which would weaken the overall
system. After a bit of searching, Joel was
able to find a massive coupler that was so thick
that it would bridge the gap between the existing
shaft and the new engine transmission. The
shaft problem was solved. The next issue was
the exhaust hoses. The purpose of these hoses
is to move hot engine exhaust and water outside the
boat. Unfortunately, the existing hose was old
and cracked...and only 2" in diameter. Yanmar
states that in order for the warranty on the new
engine to be honored, the exhaust hose would have to
be a minimum of 4" in diameter. The old hose
was a tight fit to begin with, and Joel had to use a
lot of ingenuity to run the new exhaust. To
make things a bit more challenging, Joel decided to
use solid fiberglass tubing for the exhaust, rather
than traditional reinforced rubber exhaust hose.
Once in place, the fiberglass exhaust system would
be much less likely to fail than rubber. Plus,
the fiberglass tubing was MUCH cheaper than the
rubber hose (about $4 per foot versus $36).
The engine mounts presented a bit of a challenge.
The new engine is about 2/3 of the size of the old
one, and simply wouldn't fit on the old mounts.
So, Joel crafted new ones out of aluminum.
Finally, he had to construct a custom water lift
muffler out of fiberglass. The old muffler had
been made from steal and had several cracks that I
had patched over the years. In all, it took
Joel three solid weeks of work (120 hours at $60 per
hour) to install the new engine. No one ever
said this was going to be a cheap project! |
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Afterthoughts:
As I update this Web page,
Candide and I are docked at the Black Sound Marina in Green
Turtle Cay, Bahamas. My friend Michelle and I didn't
have cooperative weather getting here; the wind was on our
nose for the entire four-day voyage. We were forced to
run the engine for the entire passage...and we didn't have a
single engine-related problem. The new Yanmar
performed perfectly! Had we come here using the old
engine, I'm quite sure there would have been some
interesting motor-related catastrophes along the way.
I'm pretty sure that the curse of the old engine has finally
been lifted!
If I had to do it all over
again, I wouldn't do anything differently than what I've
described above. When I turn the key, the engine fires
up instantly. There's no oil in the bilge. I've
got about 30% more power than I had before, which is great
for moving through rough weather. Because I have
faster access to more power, it is much easier to maneuver
in tight places (like marinas). When the engine is
running, I can actually hear myself think down below because
it's so much quieter than its predecessor. I LOVE my
new engine!
Some of my happiness,
however, is clouded by the contractor requirements at my
current marina. As I described earlier, my marina
wanted to add a 20% surcharge for work performed by the
mechanic I had chosen to install the new engine. When
I found a different marina that didn't have this ludicrous
policy, I took the work elsewhere. As a result, my
marina lost out on a haul-out and bottom job. They
were none to happy about this and actually said something to
me. Apparently, it is their belief that if I rent a
slip from them, then they're entitled to some of the action
for work that is performed on my boat...whether or not they
actually contribute anything towards that work. I'm
still pissed off about this event; it's left a bad taste in
my mouth for doing any future business with this marina.
Please
drop me a line at:
robert@sleepingwithoars.com
©
2006 by Robert Doty
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Diesel engines are made
to be run, and it's not a good idea to let them sit
idle for weeks at a time. This is why you'll
often see boat owners starting their engines and
letting them run for a while even if the boat isn't
going anywhere. If you're going to leave your
boat unattended at a marina for more than a few weeks,
it's a good idea to pay someone to go on board once a
month, start the engine, and let it run for an hour or
so.
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Thinking of having a
contractor work on your boat while she's docked at a
marina? Be forewarned! Many marinas
(including the one I currently use) put surcharges on
TOP of whatever the contractor charges! To
replace my engine, this would have amounted to about
$3,400 that I would have had to pay my marina...for
doing absolutely nothing at all! Fortunately, I
found a different marina that doesn't have this awful
policy.
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