Propane Dinghy Motor??

What do you think about them?

We were looking at them today & it seems to be a nice setup.

Is there an advantage? Finding propane dock side may be a problem.

That's what I'm trying to figure out if they are more or less of a hassle than gas.

I guess I don't see the advantage. If propane is cheaper than gas then maybe, but I don't run my dinghy motor enough to consider the cost of O/B fuel a consideration. Again my concern would be obtaining propane in out of the way places, or even on a month long trip. Propane is generally not available dock side from my experience. Fuel almost always is. On the plus side, since propane is stored above ground as a liquid, it is unlikely to be contaminated.

According to the brochure at 3000 rpm a 10 gal tank of fuel will last 25 hrs.

I'm thinking 1 tank of fuel would be all you need to carry.

A 16.5 oz camping bottle lasts 2.5 hrs.

beachbum29 said:

According to the brochure at 3000 rpm a 10 gal tank of fuel will last 25 hrs.

I'm thinking 1 tank of fuel would be all you need to carry.

A 16.5 oz camping bottle lasts 2.5 hrs.

Click to expand...

If true then I think the availability of propane may be mute.

I'm a dealer for Lehr outboards and I own a 2.5. I haven't had it long but I like how easy it is to start. I also think handling propane is a lot cleaner and easier than gasoline. I haven't used it for dinghy duty but I've been using it on an inflatable to explore the shore line and get back up into the mangroves. The 2.5 really doesn't burn much fuel. At wide open throttle they say it will burn about a pound per hour. At about 3/4 throttle you get better than twice that.

I've run it on both the 16 oz. cans and an 11 pound fiberglass tank.

"According to the brochure at 3000 rpm a 10 gal tank of fuel will last 25 hrs."
That is 10 pounds not 10 gallons. Ten pounds of propane is about 2.5 gallons.

I can't speak to the availability of propane when cruising, but I can say I think it is a well made motor. I love how easy it is to start. My last outboard was a Suzuki that I had to clean the carb if I let it sit a month or two without starting. That shouldn't be a problem with propane.

Note the 11 pound fiberglass tank in the photo below.

You are correct that it's 10 lbs, not 10 gallons

Oops

It appears the 2.5 is selling for $1K?

To me the best fit would be on a diesel boat with a magma grill. I already carry a bunch of those small cans for the grill, so with one of those propane outboards I wouldn't need to carry gasoline. If you had a propane stove you might have a spare 10 lb bottle, too.

Those grill-size cylinders are available just about everywhere. Most department and hardware stores have them, as do many marina stores and even supermarkets. Granted they aren't usually at the fuel dock, but I've never felt like I couldn't get one if I needed it. If I was planning to buy a new outboard anyway, these would be on my short list. But no way can I justify it unless the 4-stroke gas outboard I have now dies.

I've got a 9.9 Merc two-stroke and a 9 ft. Caribe. When it's time to trade off for something else, the Lehr is a legitimate alternative for us. My Admiral can change out those 16.5 oz bottles a lot easier than she can lug around a gas tank, and I can think of very few instances where we'd be going somewhere that having a spare bottle wouldn't be overkill. In the Bahamas where you could spend hours transiting from island to island just to explore, something more than a 2.5 would help. Don't they have a 9.9 HP? How about the weight?

They offer the 2.5, 5.0 & a 9.9 which weighs 88lbs according to the brochure.

2.5 @ 38 lbs

5.0 @ 49 lbs

Sounds like a great idea. No gasoline fumes, spills in the dinghy, winterizing the carb at season's end, carbon on rings, valves, sparkplugs, no flooding. However tanks aboard should be in a proper propane locker but so should gasoline for that matter.

The weights seem as light as some 2 cycles ...

They offer a see thru 10lb tank so it's easy to monitor fuel level.

I'm pretty much sold on getting a 2.5

Healhustler, If you want to play with one, you can borrow my 2.5 for a few days.
The 9.9 won't accept the little bottles, it has to run on a separate tank.

If any of you guys buy one, have the dealer start it for you and show you how to bleed the air out of the system. It's real easy and you may never need to do it after the first start but it isn't in the owners manual. The dealer should also set the idle for you. The last couple I sold idled too fast out of the box. Again very easy to do.

If you want to buy one, ask for a quote from the dealer. You'll probably get a better price than if you order it off the internet. Lehr has a minimum advertised price that we all have to stick to. That doesn't mean we can't sell it for less.

HopCar said:

Healhustler, If you want to play with one, you can borrow my 2.5 for a few days.
The 9.9 won't accept the little bottles, it has to run on a separate tank.

If any of you guys buy one, have the dealer start it for you and show you how to bleed the air out of the system. It's real easy and you may never need to do it after the first start but it isn't in the owners manual. The dealer should also set the idle for you. The last couple I sold idled too fast out of the box. Again very easy to do.

If you want to buy one, ask for a quote from the dealer. You'll probably get a better price than if you order it off the internet. Lehr has a minimum advertised price that we all have to stick to. That doesn't mean we can't sell it for less.

Click to expand...

Where are you located?

beachbum29 said:

According to the brochure at 3000 rpm a 10 gal tank of fuel will last 25 hrs.

I'm thinking 1 tank of fuel would be all you need to carry.

A 16.5 oz camping bottle lasts 2.5 hrs.

Click to expand...

Umm.... somehow this math does not add up.


or my mental ratio calculator is broken

10 X 2.5 = 25
16.5oz X 10 = 165oz

1 gal is 132 oz

how many OZ is in a 10gal tank of propane?

can you refill from a larger tank to the boat tank?

like the unlimited storing of propane however

SCOTTEDAVIS said:

Umm.... somehow this math does not add up.

or my mental ratio calculate is broken

Click to expand...

You missed the correction;

10lb tank not gallon

Beachbum, I'm in Miami, come on down!

HopCar said:

Beachbum, I'm in Miami, come on down!

Click to expand...

Haven't been down there in 5 years...

beachbum29 said:

You missed the correction;

10lb tank not gallon

Click to expand...

Your are right I did, thanks.

Now it works

I see the price of these coming down in the future, if they go to E15 fuel then these will be very popular and in larger HP ratings for marine use.

SCOTTEDAVIS said:

Your are right I did, thanks.

Now it works

I see the price of these coming down in the future, if they go to E15 fuel then these will be very popular and in larger HP ratings for marine use.

Click to expand...

Ethanol & water is a bad mix.

We considered the 9.9 recently, but after doing the fuel calculations decided to get a Yamaha instead, which was within $20 of the Lehr. Our calcs suggested that a 5 HP Lehr would make sense from a fuel burn/storage perspective, but we needed the larger size.

Our dealer indicated that the Lehr is actually primarily made of Yamaha components, which I thought interesting.

Conrad said:

We considered the 9.9 recently, but after doing the fuel calculations decided to get a Yamaha instead, which was within $20 of the Lehr. Our calcs suggested that a 5 HP Lehr would make sense from a fuel burn/storage perspective, but we needed the larger size.

Our dealer indicated that the Lehr is actually primarily made of Yamaha components, which I thought interesting.

Click to expand...

That wouldn't surprise me. You can buy propane conversion kits for many applications.

beachbum29 said:

That wouldn't surprise me. You can buy propane conversion kits for many applications.

Click to expand...

True, but if you've looked at the Lehr, you gotta admit that it is tied together in a very nice, neat, compact package. I sure like the idea of grabbing a spare 16.5 oz bottle and heading for the dinghy dock. If I didn't have a good 9.9 Merc now, I'd probably have bought one from Hopcar at the Miami Boat Show.

Hopcar....I might take you up on your offer. A 2.5 should do anything we want to do with local cruising and the loop. For the islands, we'd probably go with a bigger dinghy and 15 hp. I've got a spare dinghy sitting on the dock now....could hook it up there for a test.

healhustler said:

True, but if you've looked at the Lehr, you gotta admit that it is tied together in a very nice, neat, compact package. I sure like the idea of grabbing a spare 16.5 oz bottle and heading for the dinghy dock. If I didn't have a good 9.9 Merc now, I'd probably have bought one from Hopcar at the Miami Boat Show.

Hopcar....I might take you up on your offer. A 2.5 should do anything we want to do with local cruising and the loop. For the islands, we'd probably go with a bigger dinghy and 15 hp. I've got a spare dinghy sitting on the dock now....could hook it up there for a test.

Click to expand...

Since I have to put anything I get on the swimplatform, a 2 person inflatable with the 2.5 should suit us fine.

Having only seen pics of the Lehr, I'm assuming it's a nice package.

SCOTTEDAVIS said:

Umm.... somehow this math does not add up.


or my mental ratio calculator is broken

10 X 2.5 = 25
16.5oz X 10 = 165oz

1 gal is 132 oz

how many OZ is in a 10gal tank of propane?

can you refill from a larger tank to the boat tank?

like the unlimited storing of propane however

Click to expand...

20 Gal = ~80 ltr
80 ltr = 40 kg of propane (~0.51 kg per liter)

165oz = 4.7 kilograms = ~2.3 Gal propane

"Our dealer indicated that the Lehr is actually primarily made of Yamaha components, which I thought interesting."
Lehr won't say that but I also think a lot of it is Yahama. Someone asked what flusher to use with a Lehr and Lehr gave me a Yamaha part number.

"You can buy propane conversion kits for many applications."
True but I don't think a Lehr is just a converted gasoline engine. They are designed to run on propane and you would need to lower the compression to get them to run on gasoline. Propane has an octane rating of 110 so they run the Lehrs at a higher compression ratio than an engine designed to run on 87 octane gasoline.

Healhustler, maybe next weekend we could throw it on your dinghy and go for a ride.
Your hatch lift should be in by now. I'm taking tomorrow off but give me a call on Tuesday.

I sure like the idea of grabbing a spare 16.5 oz bottle and heading for the dinghy dock.

Even better is the idea of taking the cylinder with you to increase the chances of your dink being at the dock when you return .

FF said:

I sure like the idea of grabbing a spare 16.5 oz bottle and heading for the dinghy dock.

Even better is the idea of taking the cylinder with you to increase the chances of your dink being at the dock when you return .

Click to expand...

+1 good point

Lehr 2.5 Propane Motor

I just purchased this motor and after several hours of trying to start it finally brought back to West Marine for a refund.
I t seems there is a fuel regulator and a banjo bolt that need to be bled if it won't start.
After watching a trouble shooting video that seems rather odd for a new product. The video shows the 5 horse which is different
And after talking to Lehr tech I found these devices impossible to gain access to with a paper clip and or open end wrench.
So I can imagine trying to do this bleed process while sitting in the dingy.

Too bad I thought the propane fuel idea was super.


JCD SAIL