There are a lot of comments about how noisy, leaky, outdated and inefficient Detroit Diesels are, and I agree with all of them. There is another side to that coin, however. I live in a small town in Alaska with a large commercial fishing fleet. Over the past five or ten years a lot of the fishermen have re-powered their boats with new John Deere high efficiency diesels. They have had no end of trouble. When the new engines work they are a marvel. They're quiet and fuel efficient. They also are absolutely ridiculous in their fuel requirements. An extremely tiny amount of water in the fuel destroys sophisticated high pressure injection pumps that require the local mechanic to replace them, which results in a $2000-$3000 repair bill. There are multiple boat owners in town that have done this FIVE times. They have also spent big bucks on very sophisticated fuel filtration systems in an effort to try and prevent the problem. Meanwhile, the guys who are still running Detroits have NO issues related to our crappy fuel for tens of thousands of hours of operation. They laugh all the way to the bank when people criticise their noisy old Detroits. When the screaming Jimmy's do wear out, they are easily rebuilt for very little money and easily serviced at the most remote little village. Something to think about. As someone who recently rebuilt his gas engine rather than convert to diesel I also looked at the conversion idea (27 Express Cruiser). My fantasy was to convert to a Cummins 6BTA. The reality is I didn't have the money to convert to diesel but I did have the ability and the budget to rebuild my own gas engine myself. I gained the additional benefit of eliminating most of the service/repair calls at the boatyard by learning to do it myself. It's better to have a gas boat you can use than a diesel boat the wife makes you sell because of the high loan payments.
John --- On Tue, 4/14/09, tomdepot <[email protected]> wrote: From: tomdepot <[email protected]> Subject: [UnifliteWorld] Re: Diesel Conversion To: "UnifliteWorld" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, April 14, 2009, 4:01 PM Ken, Some of the best (free) information I have come across on the web is from this guy: http://www.yachtsurvey.com/engines.htm He gives a more in depth analysis of the gas v. diesel question. His conclusion is that gas is best suited for boats under 36 feet, and above that diesel starts to make sense. I think he says that if you use the hell out of your boat (like a charter fisherman) you could justify diesels in a smaller boat. Obviously I ignored his advice. I am curious about Detriots more than ever now, I haven't been on a boat powered by any, but I have consistently heard the same things- noisy, leaky, and not efficient. Either way you will have fun repowering your boat, but if I had only planned on owning mine for two years I wouldn't go with the diesels either. One possibility I didn't consider for too long is to find a couple of Cummins from older Dodge trucks and marinize them. The only reason I entertained this at all is that I have a Dodge with the Cummins and its a great engine. I pull my boat with it. Good luck, Tom in Florida --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "UnifliteWorld" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/UnifliteWorld?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
