Unknown Engine Hours

Looking at a 30 year old trawler with original engines. Hour meters are non functional. I rally like the boat. Should I run?

Hard to tell. But we did walk from two boats we liked due to unknown hours.

Flip a coin. A simple non-turbo engine should be able to last anywhere from 10,000 to 50,000 hours before rebuild. Key is frequent oil changes and unless there is a maintenance log the frequency will be unknown. Overall condition of ER can be an indicator.

I would expect a 30 year boat to have 3000 hours as a rule of thumb. If it was maintained well then there should be many hours left. Note that external items such as starters and water pumps may have a much shorter life.

Running the engine to operating temp is probably the best way to determine it's health. If black or blue smoke is pouring out then I would keep looking.

100 hours a year is a good rule of thumb. Also, check for other hour meters (furnace, genny, etc) as they can indicate a low minimum. For example if the genny has 3000 hours on it the engines will have many more.

Keep in mind you will be inheriting this issue when you sell the boat in the distant future.

If the hour meter is working when we see a boat, how do we know the meter has been working it’s entire life? Could be the engine (s) has 10,000 hours when the meter reads 2,500. Get the maintenance records...

Price may be one consideration. If the boat is great except for unknown engine hours and the price is down enough to cover some or all of the replacement/overhaul, it may still be a good boat to buy.
My current boat, besides it's age, had engines that needed overhaul. The price negotiated was much less than the cost for me to overhaul. So now I have like new engines, good for the rest of my life.

You might negotiate a discount based on unknown hours, worth a try.

But a trawler engine that checks out in good shape is in good shape whether it has 5000hr or 15000hrs.

Rare for recreational trawlers to have more than 15000hr.

Unknown engine hours wouldn’t bother me. I wouldn’t trust a working hour meter anyway, unless fully backed up with log books. M
An engine with 10,000 hours may be in better shape than one with 1000 hours. I’d rather know how well it was serviced or many times it has overheated.

I would not be concerned with the number of hours, but rather the condition of the boat. A lot of time low hour engines just have been sitting and not taken care of.

I'm in the camp of not worrying too much about hours. If you are, a good mechanic familiar with that particular engine can often pick up little tell tales and give you a thumbs up/down etc. There are oddities to many engines that can can be sorted out by the right guy. Mani coolers on Hinos are a good example. If there is any decent evidence they've been serviced, I'd take that as a good sign about the rest of the engine.

To make the point, when I purchased our Camano, the boat was 20 years old, but the engine had less than 600 hours on it. I still had a number of "issues" I had to deal with despite the engine just being a teenager.

toni

Have an oil test done and a survey by a good diesel mechanic. Don't forget a good sea trial putting the engines under high rpms for a long enough period of time to show problems there. Have the mechanic aboard for the sea trial. The combination of these will tell the overall health of the engine. House keeping in the engine room is another clue.
Agricultural diesels in horrible conditions easily go 10,000 hrs before they begin to show problems. They experience bad fuel, shock loads, constant variation in rpms and some serious lugging along with a hostile working environment of dust, heat, cold, mud and water. They still have an amazing lifespan. A diesel being 30 years old has nothing to do with it's overall health. Here on Lake Erie thirty year old boats usually show less than 1200 hrs. So if the boat doesn't have a history of extensive long distance cruising, it's hours are most likely fairly low.
Our West Indian 36 was repowered 27 years ago with unknown hours. The Perkins runs flawlessly. Oil test showed very low wear. A reliable mechanic was quite happy with the overall health of the old girl. We purchased the boat 3 years ago and have put 360 trouble free hours on the engine.
The crankcase oil should have some hours on it show the engine wear, so that is a consideration on having the test done. The military was the first to use these tests on jet engines. They were so reliable in showing overall engine condition that the test has since become commonplace in the open market. While the purchase of your dream boat is in the end and coin toss, at least these considerations will put the toss in your favor.

An owner not replacing hour meters probably didn't do other maintenance either.

My first two boats had no hour meters at all.

My present boat came to me with one functional hour meter. I added a second, then after 1500 more hours, I replaced both engines with newer, that had their original hour meters. Up top, I had to buy two more tachometers, each with an internal hour meter. those have numbers on that don't relate to the engines they are now connected to.
You need to use whatever other clues you can find to determine the health of the engines, as hour meters are more likely than not, to be misleading.

You really aren't telling us much but there must be a logbook. A conscientious owner tracks his travels and his maintenance. Any owner whom has had a failed system or device on a boat for any length of time, for example, not having a clue how many engine hours? How has scheduled maintenance been done? How would you know? This boat has not been maintained. POS.

"You need to use whatever other clues you can find to determine the health of the engines,"


Its a very rough measure but a cold start , watching the exhaust smoke , as you watch the coolant temp , underway, can easily show a shot , low compression or oil eater.

When i purchased my boat the hour meter had stopped at 850hrs on a 2000 Cummins 6BT. The boat was still in shrink wrap and the oil had been changed at layup so an oil analysis was not an option. The boat cranked quickly with slight smoke at startup which immediately cleared. The owner authorized a 5 minute WOT at dock. and a sea trial that included incremental throttle up to WOT with infrared temp readings at each stage. I have put 450 hours on the engine since 2016 with no issues except a starter. I think TedTed, the guy so nice they named him twice, makes a lot of sense with his observations. Hour meters are excellent in letting you know how many hours are on the meter but an oil analysis and overall performance are better indicators IMHO. Good Luck!

May I suggest, you get a certified diesel mechanic to do an engine survey.
It will set back more than a few buck but, may save you money in the long run.

It would help to know what engines, if they have a reputation for longevity that would help. Getting them surveyed is your best course.
My reman Onan genset showed 1326 hours when I bought the boat 9 years ago. Good, I thought,but later I noticed the meter never changes. It`s still a good genset, 9 years on, hours nk.

BruceK said:

It would help to know what engines, if they have a reputation for longevity that would help. Getting them surveyed is your best course.
My reman Onan genset showed 1326 hours when I bought the boat 9 years ago. Good, I thought,but later I noticed the meter never changes. It`s still a good genset, 9 years on, hours nk.

Click to expand...

Guess you could put a new hour meter on and estimate the number of hours. When you sell the boat, you can explain it to the new owner.

Mechanical engine hour meters are right up there in accuracy with marine fuel gauges. Even sellers that stand by theirs will have a purchase and sales agreement that sports language along the lines of; "engine hour meter reads....." which doesn't say how many hours are on the engine, it says how many hours the meter shows.

Newer electronic displays with engine hours are a bit more believable.

Bottom line though, as others have stated - blind yourself to whatever "hours" advertised and look at the engine itself and other ancillary indicators as to the condition.

We just repowered an Onan generator with something like 19,000 hours on it. It was still running like a top, but freeze plugs and other circulating water system problems were showing us a failure in the near future.
A well maintained and often used (absolutely the most important factor) diesel should easily last in excess of 12000 hours. Thing is, unlike road vehicle engines, marine diesels spend most of their time operating at a constant speed in pretty much the same conditions. No high mountains with steep grades or freezing temps, to desert heat in a day or two.
If you like the boat enough to spend some money finding out the engine's condition, find a very, very well recommended diesel mechanic and have him take a look. Let him take it out for a test run if he wishes and he will get an oil sample off to a lab!
Engines are really easy fixes compared to osmosis, soft deck coring, electrickery problems and other problems with an older boat.
Good luck.

I was looking a perfectly fine older boat from a quality builder. When they redid the interior ($$$) they removed all hour meters (2 engines, 2 generators). None in the engine room either. How do these people perform maintenance? The answer is, they do not.

I'm fine with replaced hour meters that have been used to keep track of maintenance for several years. Ideally, the owner would keep the old defunct hour meters to provide some history.

Newer engines, of course, keep total fuel and run-time in the ECM.

From the comments it seems many people don't care. This might be ok for smaller boats but once you get to the 60' range with $200+k machinery it is a show stopper.

gsholz said:

I was looking a perfectly fine older boat from a quality builder. When they redid the interior ($$$) they removed all hour meters (2 engines, 2 generators). None in the engine room either. How do these people perform maintenance? The answer is, they do not.

I'm fine with replaced hour meters that have been used to keep track of maintenance for several years. Ideally, the owner would keep the old defunct hour meters to provide some history.

Newer engines, of course, keep total fuel and run-time in the ECM.

From the comments it seems many people don't care. This might be ok for smaller boats but once you get to the 60' range with $200+k machinery it is a show stopper.

Click to expand...

It's that we don't care, it's that it is pretty easy to find out if an engine is in good condition. It may be costly, but you can remove a head, check a piston or shaft bearing in less than a day.
As for engine hour meters, we haven't had functioning ones for the genset or the ME since we bought the boat. How do we keep track of engine hours you ask? With an engine room log book. Pretty easy actually. And the servicing records of the engines is in there too!

Finally did get the Onan a new engine hour meter last month, but that was just because I ran into a good deal on it. The ME would require a new tach, which other than the engine hours, runs just fine.

Like many others, I wouldn't be afraid of the engines because you don't know how many hours are on them. The best advice from what's already been posted, IMO, is:
- Research the type of engine - some have good reputations, some do not.
- Find a mechanic who knows that type of engine very well (ask some questions of the mechanic, don't just take them at face value), and have them onboard for the survey. Make SURE the engines are stone cold when you arrive for the survey, and have the mechanic watch and hear and smell everthing from start-up to full throttle.
- If you're still OK with things after the survey, get an oil analysis. Yes, they are far more meaningful if you have a history of them, but if there is 30 x the amount of copper in the sample that's supposed to be there, you don't need a history to tell you some bearings are on their way out.
- Can the engines be rebuilt "in frame" (I think that's the term). i.e., w/o being removed from the boat? If so, it'll be MUCH less expensive to rebuild one or both than if they have to be removed.

Our first big boat was a 40 year old Gulfstar with twin Perkins 6-354's with over 6,000 hours on them (if the meters were accurate). it's still going strong 4 years and several hundred hours later.

ERTF said:

Looking at a 30 year old trawler with original engines. Hour meters are non functional. I rally like the boat. Should I run?

Click to expand...

ERTF
Three questions:
- Why aren't they working?
- What engines?
- Why do you like the boat?

I agree with the above answer theme as well.

When I purchased my 1986 Tollycraft, the hour meters read around 300 hours. They obviously had more. The owners told me there had been several hour meters in the life of the boat and actually had recorded the hours the previous 2 times that the meters failed.
I settled down after hearing that these hour meters are not as bullet proof as the odometer of a car and fail frequently - makes since in the corrosive environment they live in.
In my case, I had a good survey and the boat was cared for on the same maintenance schedule as the Charleston Harbor Pilot boats.
Since purchasing the boat, one of the meters failed and I replaced both with Hobbs meters - which have a good reputation in the marine and aviation industry.

I also had a small engraved plastic plate made up that I posted over each hour meter reporting the known hours of each meter when it failed with the total at the bottom.

This plus my maintenance records should help when I sell the boat.

I agree with a previous poster that the main concern I'd have would be the maintenance habits of an owner that did not replace a failed meter.

When mine failed I couldn't stand it till I had it replaced...

If your decision is already made then ignore this.
Hourmeters often fail. I'm on my third now although I did log the replacements and have kept the failed units. The worst are those built into some other device such as a tach or a panel. They are expensive to repair if at all possible .
I prefer the separate units.

My previous boat didn't have meters untill I installed them.

Have you asked to see the log? Maybe noted , just not done.

I have seen several people who finally had to give up on boating that failed to deal with stuff like that even though the boats major stuff was actually maintained well. They lived with the expense of oil changes and repairs done by hire but balked at the expense of relatively minor things as the running time can be kept with a proper log and a watch/clock. In fact that is how we figured out the two meter failures, from the logging and then realizing the meter had goofed up.

A good surveryor, both for the hull and especially in your case, the engine can tell a lot by appearances and testing.

Just be sure about how much you like the boat.

ORIF said:

When mine failed I couldn't stand it till I had it replaced...

Click to expand...

I know that feeling. When the LED meter in my Tach became Extremely hard to read, I purchased an external Hobbs meter. Hooked it up to a 12v battery and ran it up 1600 hours until everything matched. No secrets.

On another note, my '88 boat was sold in '99 with 120 hours on it. Sat on a lift in Florida and obviously was used very little. That '99 purchaser was putting in a new engine in 2002. I can't help but believe that light use over many years contributed to the failure and eventual re-power..

"I can't help but believe that light use over many years contributed to the failure and eventual re-power.."


More likely that never putting the engine into storage mode, preserving , pickeling , not doing what the engine mfg sez to do when out of service is cause for early death.