Tom,
Thanks for that link. I read through most of it and I now have
some perspective that I did not have before. I will look at boats the
same size range as mine in a whole new way.
I think that the 318's are great engines, I just wanted to get on the
fish faster and go farther but I will run the engines where they will
be happy for the long run.
I am lucky to be able to do all of the service work including
rebuilding them or the gears and I think that these engines have a
long life ahead of them. I think they have something like 700 hours on
the port and 600 and change on the starboard (rotted out Paragon raw
water cooled v-drive housing) so the boat was used on one engine. I
bought this boat for $2,500.00 missing a v-drive and the guy from the
non-profit that sold me the boat said "my friend is a certified marine
tech and he has a v-drive for this boat" so again I trusted a stranger
and what a shock the v-drive would not work. I bought the 318 and v-
drive combo mentioned in the opening post and put the v-drive in it
and made the trip of about 80 miles with one 1:1 gear and one 2:1
gear. I ran about 12 knots cruise so I would not beat the starboard
engine up. Anyway my point is that maybe I jumped the gun on the
diesels. I bought 2 1:1 gears so I am going to rebuild them and put
them in.
I took her down to the gelcoat and still in the process of a complete
Awlgrip paint job and interior remodel as well as windows. I really
like Uniflites and knew nothing of them until I stumbled upon one on
the Boat Angle site that needed one engine a Crusader 330 hp and some
"cosmetic work" I did not have the money at the time and I rangled up
some friends and motivated everybody to commit to the money for the
boat and repairs but the boat went for about $2,000.00 more than I/we
were willing to pay and boy am I glad now!! It was a 1976 34' Sedan
and it was rough (needed lots of love) I found key landmarks in the
photos and I used satellite pics to find it and went to the marina and
got in touch with the owner and it semed like they did not take very
good care of her so oh well. I was left with a desire to get a
Uniflite and I ended up liking the 31SS for my use and the manageable
size. I found this boat and it has been since October and I am not
dissapointed in the decision to get her.
I plan on building a hard top for her and making her different from
other 31's.
Sorry to ramble.
Thanks again for the tip and thanks to everybody else as well.
Ken
On Apr 14, 5:33 pm, john hamilton <[email protected]> wrote:
> 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
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