Yanmar Motors - How Many Hours?

[delmarrey]

I'm doing a little survey on how many hours your Yanmar motor has on it???

And what was it's main useage?

[Zanshin]

I have 340 hours on my 2006 Yanmar 4JH3-TE, last Yanmar 4JH3E had 3657 hours on it at age 6 when sold (it was a charter boat before I bought it).
Main use - propulsion. The old engine also ran the compressor for fridge and was often turned on just for that.

[Charlie]

This is my third Yanmar. 1st had 750 hours on a charter boat with no major problems. 2nd was a poorly maintained 3JHE with 400 hours. I repowered b/c I didn't want to have trobule with the engine. Sold the engine for $3k to a mechanic. Bought a new 4JH4E and have about 700 hours on it. Only problem with it was when I had over filled it with oil and it started smoking.

[FraidNot]

4JH
5000 hrs - still purring

[sailorboy1]

My 1988 4JHE has 1910 hours. Only 100 of those I put on and they were almost all propulsion hours

[DennisM]

I wish I knew. I bought my 1990 Ericson last April with a 3GM30F. It does not have an hour meter. All I know is that it's the original engine. Last season, I probably put 100 hours on it, since I decided to take a 400-mile cruise in August, when there wasn't much good sailing wind along the way. The fresh water pump seized up during the trip, and I had to replace it, but other than that minor incident, the engine seems to run fine.

Main usage: maneuvering for docking and cruising when the wind won't cooperate.

[Laidback]

In 1987 on a visit to the Calauit Island Game Reserve in Northern Palawan- Philippines I sat in a safari style truck powered by a 1937 YANMAR diesel engine off off a Japanese boat.
It had worked hard for 50 years - the Reserve staff forecast it would run for another 50.
Apparently it had never broken down.

[DennisM]

That's very encouraging, Laidback. Thanks.

[markpj23]

Previous boat, 1992 vintage, 4JH2-DTE with 4,850 hours when we sold her. Propulsion only - heavy boat (E52). Had to replace the exhaust elbow but ran great for the 2 years we had it.

[Tspringer]

4000 and it's dead

Terry

[Laidback]

The drama surrounding Terry's engine was briefly interrupted by a belated test which revealed that a single cylinder's compression was below specification, a further diagnostic test pointed to rings or cylinder as being likely candidates for the problem.
Until that cylinder, its piston, rings, valves and seats are brought into the light of day and measured for any discrepancy and declared irreparable, that engine is certainly not dead.

[Joli]

I would think that if yoiu don't idle excessively, keep fresh fluids in it and clean fuel you can easily get 6,000 hours on a Yanmar. We ran our last Yanmar several thousand hours with no problems, it's still going strong today. We pulled out a Westerbeke with 6-7,000 hours and replaced it with a new Westerbeke. It was still running fine but we had a chance to install new iron at a very attractive price so made the move.

[gonesail]

1988 3GM30F with 1400 hours in a 33 foot monohull sailboat.

[Eric50]

On a 1990 Yanmar 4JH 2 DTE 88 HP with 5000 hours we experienced a water cooling hose burst.

The sound alarm was out of order and we realised that there was a problem when we saw the white smoke in the saloon (the engine is in the saloon's table, centered in the boat...).

We immediately stopped the engine and finished under sail (we were running under engine as the crew was exhausted, frozen and willing to be ASAP at the harbour at the end of a February cruise...).

After this incident, I decided to take the engine out of the boat and check it internally as we did not knew exactely how long the engine was running without cooling.

I was fearing some damages in the cylinders and the piston heads, as well as on the motorhead.

The cylinders were absolutely intact and the motorhead straighteness was check and found OK.

We just changed the piston head rings as it was easy to do at this moment, of course the bursted hose, and reconnected the sound alarm.

It was during the first weeks we had the boat and has been, so far, the only incident we had with engine which can happen to anyother engine, the hose was not specifically a Yanmar part.

I was very surprised by the engine condition when we opened it and this enhanced a lot my confidence in Yanmar products.

[db8us]

2x 3YM30 with around 500h since 2006.
Used for propulsion and generating power.

No problems so far.

Mixing elbows changed a few months ago, showed signs of corrosion.
But they have to be changed every 1000h or 4 years i think

Michael