Yanmar 3GM woes

[britcoal]

Well, it finally happened.. I got an a list of all the things that my current boat yard thinks is wrong with the mechanicals on my (very new to me) old boat. For some background, the 1993 Yanmar 3GM30 was rebuilt in '05 and didn't have any hours on it until August 2007.. it probably got all of 20 or 30 hours until we hauled her out in Oct.. Over the summer, other than one blown solenoid which presented a starting problem, the engine worked fine, started when it was supposed to, and ran smoothly. The shifter is a little finicky and needs adjusting - it would cause a less-than-smooth shift, but nothing that seemed horribly damaging to me (what do I know?!)... I was never maneuvering in tight quarters so never had a need to shift hard or quickly, so I pretty much babied it.

Given the yard's really horrible attention to detail and poor workmanship over the winter I'm a little hesitate with them.. but then, what can I do? The boat is stuck in their yard. I've listed the items they've come up with below. My three questions are:

Does anything look particularly over-priced?

Are any of these things I could manage doing myself? (I am a reasonably competent avg. joe, but no mechanic, and with limited tools.. but it seems like I could, for example, replace battery wires easily enough. Am I kidding myself?)

Is it worth putting all this work into such an old engine? (I know this is somewhat subjective..)

1. The stop cable is frozen up solid from corrosion and needs
replacement.
$25.40 Parts
$105.00 Labor
Total $130.40

2. Rebuild of Kanzaki Gear KM3P
Rebuilt Gear and new dampener plate $1,306.99
Labor $560.00
Total $1,866.99

3. Replace engine wiring harness and New B type Panel
Parts $607.60
Labor $420.00
Total $1,027.60

4. I know you and I had discussed the replacement of the battery cables
and after further investigation it will cost more than I had originally thought.
Parts $250.00
Labor $420.00
Total $670.00

5. We looked at the shifter issue and we need to relieve the stringer
to allow for proper throw of the shift lever on the transmission. The
shifter itself will have to be repaired as well but it is difficult to get
part's for that shifter. We will try to repair this one or we will give you a
replacement price when we get there. This will be a time and materials
job!

[Rockter]

Stop cable.... cost £50, time to fit... 20 minutes.... $105 labour ????
Wiring harness... cost ??, time to fit.... maybe one full day.... faster with help.
Battery cables.... cables maybe £50, ends maybe £20 and time to fit, maybe a morning (buy the crimping tool, or hire it). labout $420 !!!!! ?????????

Until you fit the stop cable, just stop the motor by hand. Reach in and pull it.

Do not play this game with this yard. You are about to get savaged. These prices are savage... savage... savage.

Tell them to f**k off.

Brit... I cannot speak for the gearbox, but PM me and I will steer you through the battery cables and the stop kill line... they are both absolute gifts to the semi-intelligent man. I will give you some decent pointers for the wiring harness. Do you REALLY need a new harness. What's truly wrong with the old one???

Pull the gearbox off, and get another one with some life in it. Taking a gearbox off would take a morning. It is not difficult to put it on again, even if the motor is still in the boat it is not difficult. I have done it for the Volvo MD17C. Once you have done it once, it's a gift, if slow.

Rockter.

[JohnRPollard]

Regarding your question as to whether the engine is too old to invest this money in, I would answer "NO". That's a '93 engine with an '05 rebuild and low subsequent hours. We have the same engine, 1990, still original with no rebuild. I wouldn't hesitate to repair the items you listed (assuming they truly need replacement.)

A reasonably competent DIY person should be able to handle most of these, except maybe the transmission rebuild.

But what makes you think you need a new panel? Is there something wrong with the old one, that can't be fixed?

Also, why a transmission rebuild? I would start by replacing/adjusting the cable linkage and see if that fixes the shifting problem.

If you can't do these jobs yourself, and you are not happy with the yard's work thus far on other projects, you might be better to bring it elsewhere for the engine work, or bring an outside contractor in.

[danielgoldberg]

Sadly, these prices don't seem excessive to me. I'm not sure what the labor rate is in Maine, but here in the NY/LIS area, skilled labor bills out at more than $100/hour, hovering around $125 for people in demand. Just from the numbers it looks like your yard bills out at $105. So, for instance, they are estimating that the stop cable will take an hour to fix. That doesn't seem excessive to me.

Can't tell whether you actually need this work, so can't comment on that. Likewise, the parts numbers also don't seem crazy.

I bet the battery wiring is something you can do, though I would pay to have the cables cut to lenght and crimped with the proper fittings. Battery cables are not the easiest to work with if you lack experience, and that money will be well spent. Just curious, why do you need new cables? Those don't tend to go bad absent something unusual.

Something else to keep in mind is that these are likely just estimates, which means if a project takes longer than anticipated it will cost more (though in theory the reverse is true too, nothing ever takes less time than expected when you're paying by the hour).

[Rockter]

The only truly skilled part of the list is the gearbox re-build. The rest can be done by anyone with enthusiasm.
Is there no such thing as a second-hand gearbox? They are normally very reliable and last a very long time, as they run in ideal conditions in an oil bath.
That total bill is like $3700.... yeeeeaaaarrrrggghhh.
That would breed enthusiasm in anyone.

[camaraderie]

I don't see anything unusual with the prices being quoted for the work anticipated. Fairly normal yard prices here I'm afraid.
As Rock says...a lot of this work is not particularly skilled and could be done on a DIY basis since you are paying $100 bucks and hour for labor...
Example...you could buy ancor battery cable and have any auto shop swage on connectors cheaply and then run the cables yourself. It is all a matter of how involved you feel you can get and what your own time is worth. But the actual engine is not a factor in any of this so I don't know why you call it 3GM woes...it is all stuff that connects to the engine that needs re-doing! Stick with it...good engine!

[jrd22]

The engine should be in excellent shape with 30 hrs. on a rebuild, don't know how many hours are on the trans. so can't comment about that. The stop cable is a ridiculously easy job, anyone should be able to do it. The shift cable issue sounds like all you need to do is cut away some wood to allow more throw, I'd bet the shifter is fine. The battery cables while being fairly straightforward can be time consuming depending on where they are run, access, etc. While I don't see their estimates as unusual or excessive (normal rip off boat yard prices), you could save a lot of money doing it yourself. The wiring harness has me baffled; are you having trouble with it or did it short out? Is the harness not available without going to the new panel? Is your panel damaged? Not sure why they are suggesting replacement, and it is a fairly easy job depending on where it has to run.

John

[Faster]

I'd have to agree that most of these jobs are ones we'd tackle ourselves...

And I'd want some pretty good evidence that the tranny was truly on deaths' door before going to that expense and inconvenience. Ditto the harness... it's be interesting to hear the rationale for that one.

[brak]

Check your RPM before doing anything else to the transmission. Idle RPM being a bit high would cause a jerky in-out of gear, this is what happened on my engine - the adjustment of gas cable was slightly off and it idled at about 1200. Every switch of a gear was a loud boom, shuddered the boat. Adjusted the cable so that idle RPM went down to about 800 and voila - all works well.

Yanmars are good engines and run for a long time unless greedy yard trolls get their hands on it. Get a second opinion.

[paulk]

We have a 1983 raw-water cooled 3GM on our boat, so we've had to do some things to keep it running. We've replaced the hoses. It's not a big deal, but it helps keep the engine happier. We had to replace the stop cable too. Have you ever adjusted the brake cables on your 10-speed? this is the same thing, but longer. Use the old cable to pull the new one through. I believe they tend to come in standard lengths, so The summer before last we added an inverter to our electrical system. One big enough to run a hair dryer, so it entailed running twenty foot wires the size of battery cables through the bilge and to the battery switch and inverter. We could have had "the man" do this for us at rates like those you're quoting. Instead, I spent two hours on the boat instead of four hours working to pay for what I'd probably have been charged. If you're simply replacing the cables- guess what? You remove the old ones, take them to an electrical or automotive shop that can copy the length and gauge, and you put the new ones back on. If it involves leading them through tight spaces, tie a light but strong line to an end before you pull it out, and leave the line in place so that you can pull the new cables through. Why are you changing the wiring harness if it still works? We haven't had to mess with the transmission, but then again, we tend to sail more than we motor.
From what you say about having the thing rebuilt so recently and not having any real problems, it makes it seem like your yard is out on a phishing expedition. I would go somewhere else after you're launched and get a second (or third) opinion before having anyone (including myself) do anything to it.