Erewhon wrote:
Update on my ultimate alternator upgrade.
I too learned that Balmar does not offer the k6 pulley kit for the Universal 5432 (M40). Dale at Balmar said they are just not getting enough order to make a run on the pulleys. So back to square one. This brings up a larger question. If we plan to sail our Tartans into he sunset of our lives do you repower before the engine starts to fail or run her out to the end. According to Dale parts for these old Universals will be hard to fined. Others on this site have done repowers. At my age I still have the energy to do a repower but will not be happy if something breaks on the hook in my retirement and I can't get parts for the the old gal. Oceanvolt, Yanmar, or Beta??....hmmm.
None of this seems important with what those folk are going through in Ukraine and Putin just pushed us into another cold war or worse. Very sad.
I share your angst about war and talking about our yachts as the world ignores the fact that that UN scientists just announced that the window on providing our grandkids with a "liveable" world due to climate change is closing. But here I go:
I faced the same issues you are: I was about to take off on a 7,500 mile trip from San Francisco down and up Central America to Maine with my T37 and had a leaky W50 that I knew quite well and had a lot of replacement parts. I decided to stay with it for the trip because I did not want to learn a new engine on the trip and that worked out well: The engine added about 1000 hours without any major issue. I then faced the issue when I got to Maine about whether this was the engine I wanted to baby for the rest of my life. I went with Yanmar 39 HP 3JH model because that is what I saw most folks out cruising did. The engine swap required a revision of the engine bed which I was glad I did not do before heading out in the wild. Getting all the new stuff running right took some time. Anyone who says they have a "drop in replacement" is lying to you. There is no real customer service support with Yanmar, but I think the engines are generally better build specifically for marine use--the major problems with marine diesels is usually in the "marinization parts" not in the engines themselves. Yanmar pays attention to this. Beta folks seem to generally rave about the support they get, but the engines seem to have the usual issues of an adapted engine over time (dissimilar metals in the raw cooling systems is the big one). So my advice is that if you know the engine and have a modicum of confidence in it--stay with it. Running for hours is not going to stress a diesel nearly as much as simply running the same amount of hours in and out of a slip or on weekend jaunts. I carried spares of the W50 fresh and raw water pumps and a spare alternator. I had to use the fresh pump in a tight situation, but my experience with replacing it made it easy. So experience counts. I have 1000 hours on my Yanmar and have only changed the oil. Inspected the elbow and it was clean as a whistle. That is my advertisement for Yanmar. But they are the shits for customer service.
Ray Durkee