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Old 09-24-2021, 08:08 PM
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Orion C&C 33 Orion C&C 33 is offline
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Are the Atomic 4 reliable...?? When I purchased my C&C 33 it came with the Atomic 4.

Bringing home my sailboat to its new home we need to travel 79 nautical miles,
even through all the safety checks were run thru... She heated up and stalled after 15 mins after leaving the marina and she continued that behaviour 3 more times on the way home.

Overheating continued even after changing out all the impellers... She was hauled out and everything was checked below... was this overheating due to a plugged thru hull that raw water entered.... That wasn't the problem.

A call was made to Moyer marine... explored and cleaned every nook and cranny of the engine looking for broken impeller parts, nothing found.

Checked the thermostat... that wasn't the issue.

Now on the haul out it was discovered she was over propped and struggled for a cruising speed 3 knots with a freshly painted bottom... The heating issue continued for the second season.

Then Covid hit and the Canada/ US border closed to any travel... I just got her back after 20 months of sitting idle.... After talking to Don Moyer he suggested that I bypass the heat exchanger and see how the engine performs...

Now this is the good part of my story... I bypassed the exchanger and went to a direct raw water cooling. Don assured me by doing so won't hurt the engine. Low and behold after a bad start up and it stalled 15 secs after turning over and smoked like crazy. I pulled my plugs cleaned them and re-gapped them put them back in and started it up again... She turned over and started and didn't overheat anymore.

Needed the engine to run to the lift dock pulled her out cleaned her bottoms and replaced the oversized prop with a fixed three blade RT 12x7 Campbell Sailer.

Here it gets even better... I needed to take her 39 nautical miles to report into Canada Customs and immediately leave to her new home.

With the bypass of the heat exchanger, clean bottom and new prop... Now I can cruise 5.9 kts cruise at 2,300 rpm... Max rpm 2,800 while under way.

I'll be honest I've been tinkering with this engine for almost 2 years before Covid hit, sat waiting for 20 month to get back to it... and it restarted with old gas that was 24 months in the tank.

I tell you all this so you understand... Yes the Atomic 4 is reliable, even if there are parts that fail... ie: heat exchanger, fouled plugs because the engine could not come up to cruising rpms due to an oversized prop.

Take care of you engine and she'll always be there for you... Atomic 4's are reliable and easy to maintain. I don't ever want to change to diesel.

Happy sailings to you.
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The Following 7 Users Say Thank You to Orion C&C 33 For This Useful Post:
Bayou Sailor (09-28-2021), Dave Neptune (09-24-2021), Easy Rider (09-25-2021), edwardc (09-25-2021), Mo (09-26-2021), Sam (09-27-2021), W2ET (09-25-2021)