I am looking at purchasing an older boat with twin Crusader 270 engines. During the sea trial, a problem developed in which the engines slowly lost rpm's without changing the throttle settings. During this time, the owner, who claims to be a mechanic, informs us that he has not put fuel in the boat in a couple of years and that it is probably just bad fuel. He is going to put new fuel in it and we scheduled another test.
The mechanic comes out and after starting and running the engines for less than a minute, he suspects a problem with the engines and checks the compression. Sure enough, the #3 cylinder in the port engine was building almost no compression. We put everything back together and start it up. Now this engine is making a lot of noise that was not present several days earlier. In discussions with the owner, he admits that he took the boat out again after the sea trial.
At this point, the mechanic tells me that we need to pull the engine to determine what is wrong with it. I make him an offer to take the boat at that time for the agreed upon price minus the mechanics cost for rebuilding to engine. He refused and said that he would keep the boat before giving it to me at that price. However, as we begin to leave that evening, the owner informs me that he may pay my mechanic to make the repairs and that we will talk when I return from vacation.
A couple of days later, I get a call from him telling me that he has already pulled the engine and torn it down. In his words, "Everything looks brand new except the one piston". I ask how he intends to proceed... Is he going to rebuild the motor or just the one cylinder. He indicates that he is going to repair only the one cylinder. Also, he states that he is going to take the block to a machine shop to determine if the cylinder was still round because there is some scoring inside the cylinder. I asked him if you could bore just the one cylinder without removing the crankshaft and the other pistons and he said yes. I told him to take the block to see the machine shop to see what they thought, but that I wanted myself and my mechanic to view the block and piston before they do anything to it.
I called him back four days later to find out that they have already bored the cylinder (without removing anything else) and are getting ready to put everything back together (with a new piston and rings for that cylinder only). Needless to say, I am not very happy as I have almost $1k in a survey, engine inspection, and boat lift at this point.
I have checked with several people who I trust and everyone agrees that you should strip everything down to the block to bore the engine. My feelings are that they will not be able to prevent the small pieces of metal that are honed off from getting down in the moter and that these will cause big problems in the future.
Does anyone have any experince in something like this? Would rebuilding only one cylinder make the others more likely to fail in the future. Do I run the risk of future problems from not tearing down the motor before boring it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Rodney
The mechanic comes out and after starting and running the engines for less than a minute, he suspects a problem with the engines and checks the compression. Sure enough, the #3 cylinder in the port engine was building almost no compression. We put everything back together and start it up. Now this engine is making a lot of noise that was not present several days earlier. In discussions with the owner, he admits that he took the boat out again after the sea trial.
At this point, the mechanic tells me that we need to pull the engine to determine what is wrong with it. I make him an offer to take the boat at that time for the agreed upon price minus the mechanics cost for rebuilding to engine. He refused and said that he would keep the boat before giving it to me at that price. However, as we begin to leave that evening, the owner informs me that he may pay my mechanic to make the repairs and that we will talk when I return from vacation.
A couple of days later, I get a call from him telling me that he has already pulled the engine and torn it down. In his words, "Everything looks brand new except the one piston". I ask how he intends to proceed... Is he going to rebuild the motor or just the one cylinder. He indicates that he is going to repair only the one cylinder. Also, he states that he is going to take the block to a machine shop to determine if the cylinder was still round because there is some scoring inside the cylinder. I asked him if you could bore just the one cylinder without removing the crankshaft and the other pistons and he said yes. I told him to take the block to see the machine shop to see what they thought, but that I wanted myself and my mechanic to view the block and piston before they do anything to it.
I called him back four days later to find out that they have already bored the cylinder (without removing anything else) and are getting ready to put everything back together (with a new piston and rings for that cylinder only). Needless to say, I am not very happy as I have almost $1k in a survey, engine inspection, and boat lift at this point.
I have checked with several people who I trust and everyone agrees that you should strip everything down to the block to bore the engine. My feelings are that they will not be able to prevent the small pieces of metal that are honed off from getting down in the moter and that these will cause big problems in the future.
Does anyone have any experince in something like this? Would rebuilding only one cylinder make the others more likely to fail in the future. Do I run the risk of future problems from not tearing down the motor before boring it.
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Rodney
