well maintained Lehman engine. If you had to replace it what would you
be looking at in terms of price - rebuilt or if you had to a new one?

I have been told by people like Bob Smith at American Diesel that people
have gotten as much as 25,000 hours out of a Lehman 120 before it needed
an overhaul..  I believe the engines cited in these examples were in
constant service, as opposed to being run every now and then.  That,
plus the proper servicing and maintenance, is better for an engine than
occasional use.

But for "normal" use in boats like ours, I've been told by the engine
experts I know that a properly run and maintained Lehman should be good
for about 12,000 to 14,000 hours.

I have no idea how much it would cost to zero-time a 120 Lehman.  A lot,
I'm sure.  I assume it's far more to do with labor hours than parts,
although I'm sure the parts aren't cheap, either.  I would hazard a
guess of $10,000 to $15,000, but I could be amazingly far off one way or
the other.  We're having the thirty year old engine mounts replaced on
our two Lehmans in another month or so, and we're figuring the cost to
be about $5,000, most of which will be labor.

As to replacement engines, I don't know too much about that.  I'm hoping
the Lehmans in our boat continue to run until I'm dead (after which I
probably won't care much what they do), but if we had lots of money to
throw at our boat and I decided to re-power with something more modern,
I would probably take a good look at Lugger.  There is, I believe, a
very comparable model Lugger to the Lehman 120 in terms of power and
being naturally aspirated.  I think the Lugger in question has more
power-- perhaps 150 hp or so-- but its attributes sound quite similar.
The Grand Banks semi-planing hull can be driven at considerably higher
speeds with large enough engines, but I don't much see the point.  In
the case of the GB36 and GB42, the company's own literature stated that
increasing the speed by half quadrupled the fuel consumption.  Given the
price of fuel and the direction it's headed, I'm perfectly happy going
slow.

But the Lugger I would use is a six-cylinder in-line engine, which is my
favorite engine configuration, and it isn't turbocharged or
supercharged.  I have nothing against superchargers-- I fly an airplane
with one.  My dislike of turbochargers and superchargers does not stem
from their usefulness--they're great ways to get more power from a
smaller, lighter engine-- but when it comes to boats (or planes I have
to pay to fix), the fewer number of systems it has, the better.  So I'm
a big fan of naturally-aspirated engines.

I assume the Lugger is smaller and lighter than the Lehman, which would
maybe be good and maybe not.  Ours is one of the first fiberglass Grand
Banks.  They changed the molds in 1988 and the GB36 and GB42 (and
perhaps other models, too) got a bit bigger, taller, and (I think)
lighter.  Anyway, I'm told-- perhaps erroneously-- that the pre-1988 GBs
have a lower center of gravity than the post-1988 models, which helps
contribute to the boat's stability.  Having two ship-anchor Lehmans down
low in the hull helps, too, I'm sure.  But having slightly smaller
engines down below would be nice in that there would be a bit more room
to maneuver while servicing them.

I don't know how much the Luggers cost, but I would hazard a guess of
about $20,000 each plus installation.  Not cheap, which is why I hope
our two Lehmans have a lot of life left in them, which is why I deal
immediately with any problems that come up so they don't have a chance
to turn into big problems.

C. Marin Faure
GB36-403 "La Perouse"
Bellingham, Washington

Faure, Marin wrote:

There is NO way replacing the engine mounts for both engines should be more than
about $1K, $1.5K TOPS!

That's total for BOTH engines!

$5K should get you solid gold engine mounts, and Rudolf Diesel himself would
return from the dead to do the work.

Regards,

James

$5,000 to replace motor mounts???  Ya getting the solid gold ones?!  They'll
look nice but I'm not sure they're hard enough to support the weight of the
engines! :>)

This sounds VERY high to replace 8 motor mounts... suggest you get another
estimate, as they shouldn't cost more than maybe $1,000 at most, including
parts and labor, and thats if alignment takes a long time!

Ray B.
m/v MOJO

Bob McLeran wrote:

Start here: http://www.yachtsurvey.com/alignment.htm

then: http://www.yachtsurvey.com/Alignment2.htm

Both by David Pascoe.

Regards,

James