On the boat I ran in Antarctica, the “tell tale” of water to the cockpit was led high enough to get a small bucket under it. Great for cold weather, when motoring we always had a nice warm bucket of salt water in the cockpit for warming hands, washing stuff with, or defrosting anything.

The cooling was always blocking with kelp in the Chilean channels so it was always reassuring to be able to look down – and see that stream of warm water.

It’s good to see the bolts wired on the drive, I had the Drive Saver bolts come out once when on a freind’s boat, we went astern, there was a bang…and then water started pouring into the boat! The still spinning shaft coupling had totally undone the stuffing box packing nut, easily fixed but…

So now I keep a close eye on them; maybe I should also wire them.

I think you are right that a pre-lube system might be worth it for a larger engine.

The Perkins has an upside-down filter too but it has a check valve in it that stops it draining when the engine is stopped. The result is that oil pressure comes up very fast, a matter of less than five seconds, even when just cranking with the starter motor.

On the flip side, the upside-down filter is messy to change, but not as bad as the side mount filter on our generator. Engine designers should be forced to do a few oil changes on their creations. On the bright side, Perkins provides an oil change pump as standard.

I’m glad to hear it all worked out in the end. You are very fortunate to have found such a meticulous team of technicians to put it all together.

As for the pre-lube stuff, I’ve never come across it on any engine I’ve personally encountered. I can see the possible benefit on a very large engine, but with modern oils (which tend to cling to rings, cams, etc. for a very long time) and a smaller motor (which will likely achieve OK oil pressure in the two or three seconds of cranking before it catches) it’s not something I’d worry about too much. Unless you have one of those Yanmars with the upside-down filter that drains every time you shut it off.

In most of the engines I use, we change the oil because of age or convenient timing long before the required intervals are reached. Sure, you end up spending an extra few dollars on oil and having to carry a bit more back to the recycling depot, but I suspect it’s still cheaper/simpler/has fewer failure modes than bypass filters and such, at least for smaller engines (say under 8 litres or so).

I’ve been complaining about cramped, badly installed sterndrive engines at the last few boat shows…it’s nice to see you showing off a setup that, although certainly not simple, is relatively organized, accessible, logical and soundly put together.

Do you use an oil bypass filter with dryer and if so what brand?

Have you considered using an electric oil pump to pre lubricate the engine before starting? I think I read somewhere (Calder?) that most engine wear comes from the debris that the standard oil filter doesn’t filter and the first minute of running your engine when it is poorly lubricated.

Since I’m asking questions: Do you pre heat your engine block and fuel in Arctic conditions?

No we just have the standard Perkins oil filter installed.

We have considered a pre-lube pump, but did not install one. If the engine has not been used for more than a few days we pre-lube it by turning it over on the starter motor with the key off, so it does not start, for about 30 seconds until we see oil pressure on the mechanical gauge. This was a big reason for the starter button in the engine room and the mechanical gauges.

Note that you must be careful doing this if you have a water lift muffler since you are pumping water in to it with no exhaust flow to clear it–you can flood an engine that way. That is one of the reasons we have the drain valve on the lift.

I guess I would generally vote against adding a lot of after market stuff like bypass filters and pre-lube pumps since each is just another thing to go wrong. Also a big leak in all the additional piping could be catastrophic.

This is an industrial engine that Perkins specifies to go 10,000 hours and presumably they are assuming that life in the configuration they sell it. And 10,000 hours should see me out of the voyaging business!

Feel free to “steal” it. Actually I have to give credit to Greg Sanborn, service manager at Billings Diesel for suggesting it.

No, we don’t have a separate bilge for the engine room, although it is something I would do if building a boat from scratch. Nor do we have a filter on the bilge pump, although it is a good idea. My only worry would be restriction on the pump reducing flow in an emergency. But then again, one could install a bypass valve.

We are very careful not to get oil in the bilge, to the point that we have oil absorbing pads under the engine at all times. Not only to catch any leaks, but also so that we will see any small leak before it gets worse.

One of the big reasons that we took the Cummins out was the amount of raw fuel and oil that it was sending out the exhaust due to the cylinders being out of round.

Hopefully it should be a long time before you get oil or diesel in the bilge but do you have a separate engine room bilge and do you have an oil staining/ filter unit to “clean” the water?

You obviously have spent a great deal of time considering what you like to have and how to achieve it. A good job well done. ( I hope you remembered to fit the lowest nut to the aquadrive plate missing in the photo!)