How many hours before rebuild?

[edwardc]

I rebuilt our A4 in 2011, and put in a new hour meter at that time. Until now, we've been doing about 100 hours on the engine per season. In 2016 we stood at about 500 hours.

However, with our nine-mounth trip down the ICW to the Bahamas and back, we've put another 600 hours on the engine! That's like 6 years worth of use in nine months!

I find myself wondering how many hours one can typically get out of an A4 before a rebuild should be considered.

[sastanley]

Ed,

I have 191 hours since I put an hour meter on the boat 4 years ago and we've barely made it across the Chesapeake in the last two years. I know that isn't much. However, this engine is original in the boat, cast April 1976, no rebuild, with two dousing episodes. I figure from my memory, it must have two or three thousand hours on it, and I was out of touch with the boat for at least ten years.

I remember what seemed like entire summers curled up inside the hanked on jib staying out of the sunshine, but getting a little breeze on the glassy smooth Chesapeake by curling the luff of the jib in between hanks on the headstay. I bet back in the day we put 200+ hours on the motor every summer for 8-10 years. We regularly did a 17 day cruise every summer (one year down the Dismal Swamp Canal to Albemarle (sp?) Sound (that was probably 150 hours in two weeks!) plus several long weekend cruises every season.

So, just giving you my personal recollection of my motor, and my Dad liked to sail more..and motor less

[joe_db]

I suspect almost no A4s need rebuilding the way car and airplane engines do, rather I would suspect 90% of them die from corrosion.
This is a WAG, but given what I know about airplane and industrial type engines, I could see a FWC A4 doing 2,000 hours. My original A4 that had been used hard for 20 years, all in salt water, still had enough power to push us at about 6.8 knots when I got rid of it. It was very hard to keep running because of corrosion, leaks, and overheating, but it still had all its original power when you could make it run.

[edwardc]

I guess I'm looking for a statistical kind of answer, so a poll would be the right way to do this. One each for FWC and RWC.

[joe_db]

Unlike airplanes, there is no legal requirement for engine logs or accurate hour meters, so I doubt anyone knows these statistics with any accuracy.

[edwardc]

You're probably right, but I put up the polls anyway, and kept it to the nearest 500 bours.

[sastanley]

Ed, I know you well enough to know you are looking for stats..I don't have them. Seat of the pants...but I have an hour meter now.