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Beta Marine 43 lifespan..


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The question is not impossible at all, but the answer might be. I would suggest that you contact Beta themselves, who will surely be best placed to provide this information.

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I had a Beta 43 at 8000 hrs. No leaks, started 1st time, minimal smoke on start up and none when running, no vibration and no oil usage between services. How long will it last? I don't know because I sold the boat but as far as I know it is still running sweetly.

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The issue with older Beta 43s (pre 98) is the front end of the crankshaft, onto which alternator pulleys are mounted. If you have a travel power pack, it will over stress the mounting and the crankshaft fails. At that point the cost of removing the engine, stripping  to re-machine the crankshaft and rebuilding becomes marginal to replacing the old engine with a new one. 

In my case the engine life was effectively 20 years, but low hours. A hugely expensive education in poor design consequences.

Newer Betas have been better engineered to address this issue so should last longer.

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2 hours ago, robtheplod said:

Hi All

I know this probably an impossible question, but what's the average lifespan of a Beta Marine 43 engine. Its correctly maintained and serviced. 10k hours?? more?

Hire fleet ones thrashed to death do around 20k hours before major surgery. They are never stressed. The ford diesels on the Trip boat I skippered have done way in excess of 35k hours without major surgery. Oil changes are paramount.

  • Greenie 1
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Tempted to ask how these hours are being measured. Once a boat is more than a few years old I would treat any hour counter with great scepticism.  Has it been replaced? When was it fitted to the boat - maybe an after-market fitment? How do you know it has not been "clocked"?

 

If an engine starts easily from stone cold, produces little smoke (unless smoke is a known problem), does not overheat and has good hot oil pressure its probably OK for several thousand more hours.

 

Given the above I would be far more concerned about the state of the fuel and what's in the fuel tank these days.

  • Greenie 1
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3 hours ago, robtheplod said:

Hi All

I know this probably an impossible question, but what's the average lifespan of a Beta Marine 43 engine. Its correctly maintained and serviced. 10k hours?? more?

My Beta 43 has done just over 9000 hours. It is 15 years old, in the first 5 years it did 4000 of these, in the second 5 it did virtually no hours while in the last five years (i.e. during my ownership) it has done almost 5000.

 

It is not showing its age yet - uses no oil or water, starts easily etc.

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Taking the average service interval of a road vehicle as 6000 miles being roughly equivalent to 200 hours  and the service life of said diesel vehicle being at least 300,000 miles would suggest a minimum of 10,000 hours.

But a canal boat engine rarely works hard or for short run times so we could possibly double this to 20,000 hours.

The offset may be too many hours at idle charging batteries so say 15,000 hours average?

I have seen BMC 1.5Ds  do in excess of 40,000 hours with some TLC midway which is not bad for a design dating from the '40s.

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Folks forget / are unaware that Kubota (and some other) engines were designed for industrial plant usage where longevity / rough usage / reparability / and ability to 'hang' all sorts of drives onto the basic engine block.

I suggest that automotive engines are less suitable for the current use that boaters want from their power plant.

  • Greenie 1
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I have seen Kubota powered plant equipment (the base engine that Beta marinise) still going strong at 20,000 hour, so would expect at least that from a lightly stressed boat engine.

 

For comparison,  my first shareboat (58 foot Pat Buckle shell) had a Boatserve 1.4 Mitsubishi engine, that lasted 10,000 hours.

 

The second second shareboat (58 foot Graham Reeves shell) has a Calcutt Boats 1.8 BMC of Turkish extract. That lasted 13,000 hours.

 

A Beta 43 should easily outlast those engines. 

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