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Expected life/hours from a 2LW


Markinaboat

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Considering a boat with a 2LW. Has 8500 hrs on and nowhere as clean or oil-free (ish) as my previous 3L2 and 3LW.  

 

Seem to remember top end rebuilds can be the case at circa 10k hours and upto £4k?

 

Any views and/or experience of this? I should add it's coupled to a Parker hydraulic drive system.

 

I would of course get the engine surveyed by Mr Mills before parting with the cash!

 

Has 8 x Victron 165ah AGM's (yes I know, overkill!) but they're failing as after permanently floating and having had 3 hrs at rest, were only 24.6v. So, post-purchase ££'s to consider!

 

Thanks for any feedback. ?

Edited by Markinaboat
typo om the volts!
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I read somewhere that Gardner recommend a major rebuild at 100,000 hours, so marketing men existed even in the days of Gardner.

I suspect quality of any previous rebuild, and correct use and maintenance, are much more significant than actual hours.

 

................Dave

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6 hours ago, Athy said:

Perhaps a chat with Walsh Engineering would be fruitful. They are, to the best of my knowledge, the experts on 2LWs, having rebuilt numerous examples.

I couldn't agree more Dave, but difficult to prove. 

Of course, Walsh, MPS etc. Just poked it out thee to get any unbiased opinions. ?

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From your engines hours it has done the road equivalent of over 200000 miles. If it were a hard working truck engine that would be nothing to worry about. In a narrowboat it will have spent most of its life poodling about which is not a good thing. You don't say if there is a particular issue with it but in our experience Gardners are often dirty because they are incorrectly set up, always ignore factory timing marks, set them up with clock gauges, They often have wrongly set injector pumps and have some idiosyncrasies around the injectors. 

To determine if yours is in need of a birthday there are a few easy checks that can indicate a problem. Such as the oil pressure dropping of rapidly as you switch it off when warm. If it's slow to come back up when restarted you may well have bottom end wear, or pump etc. Oily exhaust is usually rings, grey smoke low compression. The list goes on. The point is if you don't know don't touch. Don't rush for your spanners or your cheque book. A Gardner done properly and serviced correctly should be something your grandchildren  may have to  give tlc to. We have done quite a few that have gone for sixty years without any real issues

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9 hours ago, steamraiser2 said:

From your engines hours it has done the road equivalent of over 200000 miles. If it were a hard working truck engine that would be nothing to worry about. In a narrowboat it will have spent most of its life poodling about which is not a good thing. 

To determine if yours is in need of a birthday there are a few easy checks that can indicate a problem. Such as the oil pressure dropping of rapidly as you switch it off when warm. If it's slow to come back up when restarted you may well have bottom end wear, or pump etc. Oily exhaust is usually rings, grey smoke low compression. The list goes on. 

Some interesting things to check there. ?  Any more?

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On 17/02/2020 at 19:53, steamraiser2 said:

From your engines hours it has done the road equivalent of over 200000 miles. If it were a hard working truck engine that would be nothing to worry about. In a narrowboat it will have spent most of its life poodling about which is not a good thing. You don't say if there is a particular issue with it but in our experience Gardners are often dirty because they are incorrectly set up, always ignore factory timing marks, set them up with clock gauges, They often have wrongly set injector pumps and have some idiosyncrasies around the injectors. 

To determine if yours is in need of a birthday there are a few easy checks that can indicate a problem. Such as the oil pressure dropping of rapidly as you switch it off when warm. If it's slow to come back up when restarted you may well have bottom end wear, or pump etc. Oily exhaust is usually rings, grey smoke low compression. The list goes on. The point is if you don't know don't touch. Don't rush for your spanners or your cheque book. A Gardner done properly and serviced correctly should be something your grandchildren  may have to  give tlc to. We have done quite a few that have gone for sixty years without any real issues

Thanks, I've put a deposit down and Mr Mills is surveying the engine next week. Hopefully no more than a top end rebuild. Bottom end should be fine as one of the last 2LW's built by Gardner in the 90's so would have the later thin wall tri-metal crankshaft bearings - apparently!

 

Engine no is 251877

Dated 30/09/1996

Edited by Markinaboat
addition of engine number
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