A 25 repower

[FrankD]

I am considering repowering my 72 displacement hull with a Beta 25
I love Kubota products and have owned their tractors for 24 years.
So, my specific question is....to those that have repowered in general or with a Beta specifically, what was the hardest part ? (other the the $$) What did you know after that you didn’t going into the project?
I understand I will probably need to do glass work for new engine mount locations. Beyond that?
Thanks to those that have gone before me...

[DesertAlbin736]

Here's everything you need to know. I have not done a repower myself, since our boat had already been repowered with Yanmar 3GM30F (24 HP in early displacement hull) before we bought it. Any questions, Joe DeMers at Sound Marine Diesel in Connecticut would be the guy to talk to or email.

http://www.soundmarinediesel.com/Albin25Repower.shtml

I would also recommend going with an AquaDrive CV joint/thrust bearing arrangement if you can afford it. No disrespect to Sunsetrider, but having ridden in his boat & compared to ours, ours is much quieter. Part of that may be the type and size of engine we have compared to his Volvo MD17C, but the AquaDrive may also be part of the difference.

http://www.aquadriveusa.com/system/system.htm

[kerrye]

We have westerbeke 42 and what looks like the original shaft and coupling

[FrankD]

Thanks for the link

[Desertboater]

FrankD - the BetaMarine 25 is an excellent choice for the displacement hull. The calculated horse power required to make hull speed is much less than 25hp. In addition, the cost for oil & fuel filters are significantly less than Volvo or Yanmar.

I repowered our 1971 Albin 25 with a BetaMarine 25, including new steel bolted to the existing engine bed to allow the new Beta mounts to be bolted at new locations.

Our original engine was the Albin AD21, so there was a considerable savings in weight. However, the new Beta turns in the opposite direction so that meant a new prop - also the engine and transmission is shorter that the AD21, so that meant a new shaft (1inch rather than a 25mm) - this new shaft required a new cutlass bearing which was available from the Albin parts in Sweden. Also the new shaft resulted in a new stuffing box (shaft gland seal) since the old one could not be used.

The AD21 was direct cooled without a strainer, so that meant adding a Groco strainer and new hoses. At the time Las Vegas was to be our home port, so we wanted high cooling water flow for Lake Mead in summer, therefore the cooling water thru-hull was removed and replaced with a larger one with a Groco thru-hull flanged adapter. The old fuel filter for the AD21 was scrapped and a Racor 500 installed in a new location. The rubber Elasto-muffler was scrapped and replaced with a fiberglass Centek water lift muffler - all new hoses there too. Since I did not like the looks of the old wiring, all new cables & fuses were installed along with 3 Blue Sea Systems switches to allow cross connecting start and house batteries. A Blue Sea Systems Automatic Charging Relay was installed to ensure both banks were charged while motoring along.

Send a PM and I'll make a set of photos and e-mail them to you. If there is enough interest I could post them here.

If you are going with the BetaMarine, it would be a good idea to call Stanley at BetaMarine North Carolina as he had several good suggestions, including the optional engine mounting feet for the Albin Vega that were different dimensions than the stock feet, so less work on my part to fit the new steel. He was willing to spend time talking even though he could not sell me an engine since BetaMarine has a separate distributor for Washington state where I was living when this project started.

[WillieC]

Please, post the pictures! I thoroughly enjoy seeing how others solve problems. Your description of the shaft/cutlass/prop issues is spot on. Thank you.

[Desertboater]

The first photo is of the AD21 engine as it looked when we bought the Albin.

AD21 Engine.jpg

The engine mounts were rubber isolation type mounts that in turn bolted to steel plates with shims to align the AD21 engine & transmission to the prop shaft. The steel plates were in turn bolted to steel that was glassed into the engine box when the boat was built.

AD21 Engine Mounts.jpg

Pulling the engine was simplified by the fact that our Albin does not have a hard top - while in the shop, a chain hoist was used to pick the engine straight up and a fork truck with a long central beam drove up to the stern of the boat and new slings attached to support the engine. The fork truck backed up and lifted to clear the aft cabin.

Two Engines.jpg

This photo shows the AD21 engine sitting next to the box that contains the new Beta 25. Although the box looks as big as the AD21, as can be seen in the next photo the Beta sits down in the box with lots of room - there is a wooden support/pallet in the box that the Beta bolts to.

Beta in Box.jpg

Following the removal of the AD21, a series of measurements were taken of the engine box, location of the glassed in steel (a stud finder gave the best results) and the location of the prop shaft hole. Since the aft Beta engine mounts would end up off of the glassed in steel, an adapter was required between the engine mounts and the glassed in steel. I went to our local steel scrap yard and bought 6 or so feet of 3x4 inch angle iron (it happened to be the only size they had that came close to what was required). One leg of the angle iron was cut down to fit the top surface of the engine box and the other cut to about 1.5 inch or so to allow maximum airflow through the air inlet/return holes in the engine box.

This photo shows the angle iron in place in the engine box with the old AD21 steel placed on the angle iron where the AD21 bolts aligned with the holes in the glassed in steel. The AD21 steel is painted green and the angle is unpainted, so it may be easier to see in the close up photo.

Angle Iron.jpg

Angle Iron Closeup.jpg

It took a bit of careful measurement to locate the holes to be drilled in the angle iron to bolt the angle iron to the tapped holes in the glassed in steel. One interesting wrinkle was the fact that at some point the AD21 engine had been removed by the previous owners to have work done on the transmission. When it was reinstalled, they must have lost the metric bolts for the AD21 steel. After much frustration because none of the common metric bolt sizes would thread into the glassed in plate, the tapped holes were found to be 3/8 x 24 fine thread. So someone had drilled out & tapped the glass plate for new bolts.

Future posts to show Beta installed, shaft issues, cutlass bearing, etc.

[FrankD]

Thanks so much!
This is great...
Please keep sharing.
Thanks!!

[DesertAlbin736]

Oh no! Another 'Desert' guy with a 1971 A25! Nice work on your install! I notice you've done the same thing installing a larger black water holding tank in the stock battery location as we did. Assuming early 1971 examples came with AD21 engines no wonder PO's repowered.

So which desert are you in?

[WillieC]

Nice pics and info. Using a stud finder...of course! I'll have to try it when this engine croaks.

[Desertboater]

Beta 25 Installation

The new engine not only was shorter than the AD21 but ended up a bit further forward in the engine box - about 1.5 inches or so. The old prop shaft and prop could not be used (short & opposite rotation). So a new prop shaft and Michigan Wheel propeller were obtained from an old established shop in Portland Oregon.

Of course, the decision to go with a 1 inch shaft (lower cost than 25mm) meant that the cutlass bearing had to be replaced.

Fortunately Albin Motors in Sweden had new 1inch cutlass bearings - expensive but worth it since the old bearing rubber collar was starting to break down (remember this boat has spent years in a barn in Illinois rather than floating in the water, so heat, ozone and other harsh chemicals attacked the rubber). Another Albin owner was successful in replacing the cutlass bearing without ruining the rubber collar - see the blog "Ms Bettencourt's Next Voyage".

The link for the online shop for Albin Motors is:
http://mmd.nu/shop233/catalog/advanced_ ... u3&x=0&y=0

These photos show the unique Albin cutlass bearing with the rubber collar. The bronze flange-like fitting retains the bearing - the third photo shows the stern of the boat looking into the shaft log.

Cutlass Bearing 01.jpg

Cutlass Bearing 02.jpg

Cutlass Bearing 03.jpg

The silver 'tab' in the last photo is the end of the 15 foot tape measure that was measuring the dimensions to the end of the shaft log and the inside of the engine box - surprising how long the Albin prop shaft is. The next photo is the tape measure at the shaft log while the second photo is the length to the inside of the engine box. The copper tubes are the raw water inlet & outlet to the engine plus the one for the water pump suction from the bilge, a unique feature to the AD21 I think.

Measurement 01.jpg

Measurement 02.jpg

Final photo is the new shaft being wiped down prior to installing into the shaft log for a trial fit-up. Note the engine box being lifted into the boat by the fork truck used to pull the engine.

Shaft.jpg

The boat has been home ported in two deserts in the Western US since we purchased it - the Mojave desert in Nevada (Lake Mead - 4 inches of rain per year) and the high desert of eastern Washington (Columbia River - 7 inches of rain per year). Of course neither of these locations have the extended high temperatures of Phoenix in the summer.

Future posts will show the engine installation, thru-hull issues and more if there is interest for this level of detail.

[DesertAlbin736]

The more I read Desertboater's posts the more fascinating and informative it is. I'm sure the previous owners who did the repower job on our boat (at least two owners before the folks we bought from) went through similar efforts. The AD 21 engine (ughh!) is a clue as to why early Albins like ours (and yours too, obviously) have the exhaust exiting on the port side of the transom rather than the starboard side like later Volvo powered models. Looking at the original AD21 installation it's also obvious that our PO may have had to replace the original shaft with a longer one. I have a lot of the documentation passed along from the previous owners, but didn't see much on what they did with the prop shaft. I'll have to look again. Guess I'll have to get out a micrometer or Vernier caliper & measure the shaft diameter. 1 inch = 25.4 mm, so the difference is miniscule, 16 thousandths of a inch if my math is correct, but apparently just enough to need a new cutlass bearing & stuffing box. Whatever the case, the cutlass bearing we have seems tight with no radial or axial play. Our AquaDrive CV joint & thrust bearing, which it looks like there'd be plenty of room to install one with a Beta 25, makes things quiet and nearly vibration free. The neat thing there is that the thrust bearing takes all the thrust load off of the engine mounts, and the CV joint takes care of any misalignment.

Here is our Yanmar 3GM30F engine install showing the AquaDrive...


I know, it's not really pretty, but runs like a champ. This photo taken after installation of new 20 gallon holding tank & relocating batteries to the lazarette under the starboard bench seat. That project has been discussed in earlier threads. On second thought, looking at this picture, maybe they didn't have to replace the shaft & may still be the original Albin 25mm prop shaft after all? The alternator is a new aftermarket 100 amp unit from Mark Grasser's DC Solutions.

DSCN3674.JPG

Here's our stuffing box. Is that anything like the one yours had with the old engine? I had to replace the old bronze raw water strainer due to cracked sight glass, & replaced it with this Vetus unit.

DSCN1991.JPG

View of the prop & cutlass bearing. I need to look into one of those bullet zincs for the prop nut, but our boat is not kept in water full time, and if it was docked in our fresh water lake would need magnesium instead of zinc.

DSCN3631crop.jpg

So Desertboater, your boat is a 1971 like ours. What's your hull number? Ours is 736, hence the screen name "DesertAlbin736". Also, eastern Washington State can't be too far from Puget Sound and the San Juans, whether you're near Spokane or closer to the center like Banks Lake. Either way, other than negotiating Snoqualmie Pass it's an easy day's drive to Anacortes, Bellingham, or Blaine. Any thoughts on cruising the San Juans and/or up into British Columbia? We hope to be up there with our boat next summer & work our way up to Desolation Sound. We attended the PNW rendezvous at Roche Harbor back in 2014, and A25's were under represented, only us and one other Canadian boat showed up. All the others were A27s & 28 & 31 TE's, and one A36. We did meet Mike Almvig from LaConnor in his A25 in 2016 at a stop at Fishermans Bay on Lopez Island. There's at least two other A25's up in Pacific NW, WillieC in Hood Canal and dkirsop on South Pender Island in BC. Would be great if the bunch of us could meet up somewhere. Counting a bareboat sailboat charter out of Bellingham in 2011, next year will be our 4th time cruising the Salish Sea, and 3rd time with our A25.

Left to right, Canadian A25 "Transition" and our "La Dolce Vita" at the Roche Harbor PNW rendezvous, July, 2014

DSCN1531.JPG

One last note, you mention having the open top to the wheel house making it easier to swap engines. When I built & installed my custom f/g hard top I sealed and secured it with removable 3M 4200 adhesive sealant rather than permanent 5200 and through-bolted on 8 inch centers so that if it ever became necessary the hard top could be removed.

[Desertboater]

Beta 25 Engine Installation Continued

The first attempt to install the Beta 25 identified an issue with alignment of the propeller shaft. Ideally the shaft would be centered in the shaft log so there would not be excessive loading on one area of the cutlass bearing. When the Beta 25 was installed with the proper hight on the isolation mount stud, the prop shaft was too low. Beta Marine installation instructions give a range of allowed isolation mount stud height. The photos below are looking aft with the camera below the prop shaft. The brass tube is the shaft log without the stuffing box (packing gland?) installed.

Shaft to Shaft Log Port.jpg

Shaft to Shaft Log Stbd.jpg

This resulted in lots of measurements of the engine box, mounts, etc. with one option being to raise the aft end of the Beta 25 on the isolation mount stud until the top nut was was level with the top of the stud. Even this did not bring the shaft to the center of the shaft log. Ultimately we decided to replace the Beta 25 'feet' that bolted to the block and which in turn bolted to the isolation mount stud. The photo below shows the aft starboard 'foot' that was bolted to the Kubota block by Beta Marine. Other Albin 25s have been repowered using a Beta 25 without having this problem - at least the internet searches and discussions with Stanley at Beta Marine North Carolina did not provide any other examples - I just chalked it up to another example of Murphy's Law.

Rear Foot.jpg

After a bit of design and welding, new 'feet' were fabricated and bolted to the Kubota block. This photo is a trial installation with the new feet prior to painting. These new feet allowed alignment of the shaft and proper isolation mount stud height.

Engine Feet.jpg

Following painting and dodging schedule conflicts that stretched the job out almost 3 months, the engine with it's new feet was lowered into the engine box and bolted in place.

Final Mounts.jpg

The shaft was installed prior to the engine installation - since the flange and shaft were machined to fit, the machine shop mated the two parts and I did not want to disturb that - so the shaft was carefully passed into the cabin, thru the hole in the engine box, then the stuffing box, shaft log and finally the cutlass bearing. At this time the stuffing box had not been installed on the shaft log to allow measurement of shaft to shaft log clearance. The threads on the tapered end of the shaft were covered to protect the cutlass bearing. This photo shows the flange on the shaft and the mating surface on the transmission prior to installation of the flexible coupling.

Shaft Alignment.jpg

The shaft was centered in the shaft log and held in place by a wooden frame that rested on the bilge and held the shaft - a 1 inch hole was drilled in a board and then a slot was cut, allowing the shaft to rest in a 'U'. The board in turn was shimmed to center the shaft in the shaft log and then clamped. Don't have a photo of this as it was getting crowded. Lots of feeler guage measurement of the gaps on the transmission flange/flexible coupling to the prop shaft flange coupled with minute adjustment of one or more isolation mount studs until everything was within spcification and the shaft remained centered in the log after the temporary support was removed. These photos show the front and rear views of the completed engine installation. Wiring, cooling water & exhaust still to come.

Beta 25 Installed Front.jpg

Beta 25 Installed Rear.jpg

As can be seen, the Beta 25 is installed towards the front of the engine box - this was to provide the maximum amount of clearance between the exhaust manifold and the vertical portion of the engine box.

The stuffing box hose was clamped to the shaft log and the propeller was hand lapped to the shaft. This photo shows the prop after torquing the main nut and prior to installing the lock nut and magnesium prop nut 'zinc'.

New Prop.jpg

The Velvet Drive looks like a smart piece of engineering that deserves thought. None of the Albins we looked at for inspiration had one - if we ding up a prop or shaft, that may be a future installation. By the way, a 1inch shaft was chosen rather than 25mm because the shop could order a Michigan Wheel propeller with a 'standard special order' 1 inch taper rather than a 'special special order' 25mm. The 30mm shaft was just too large for my comfort level relative to the clearance in the shaft log - it would have been too tight.

Our hull number is 802 so it was probably built only a few months after DesertAlbin736's boat.

Trailering the boat over to Puget Sound is certainly a goal - we are planning on doing that in 2018 - maybe even for the flotilla trip north. Since we are on the main route from Arizona/Nevada to Seattle, DesertBoater736, plan on stopping by Richland Washington if you are headed to the Pacific NW in 2018. We can go up the Snake River through the first lock - 110 foot lift I think. Best later in the summer when the snow melt decreases and river flow drops - nothing like doing 13 knots over ground in a displacement hull when going down river in the spring.

Teaser photo for post on thru-hull change out. These galvanized fittings probably had been in place for 20 years or more.

Why Replace Thru Hull.jpg

[WillieC]

Nice looking job. I'm jealous. Keep the pics coming!

[DesertAlbin736]

Totally awesome job! I am in awe of your work!

Trailering the boat over to Puget Sound is certainly a goal - we are planning on doing that in 2018 - maybe even for the flotilla trip north. Since we are on the main route from Arizona/Nevada to Seattle, DesertBoater736, plan on stopping by Richland Washington if you are headed to the Pacific NW in 2018.

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Richland is indeed on our travel route, as we like to take the inland route from Phoenix up US 89 though through Page, AZ & cut over to I-15 to Salt Lake City, then I-84 through Twin Falls, Boise, Baker City to I-90, Yakima, etc. That way we avoid I-5 & crossing hot deserts. Takes us about 4 days to make the trip. Mid June is our target window to head up there next year. A flotilla would be awesome. Bonus: we could shoot photos of your boat underway. We already have possible cruise mates, our friends from last time with their O'Day 25 sailboat, and a possible addition of another Lake Pleasant Sailing Club couple with their Alden 44 sloop that is now being permanently home ported in Sidney, BC. Not to mention maybe WillieC (TBD) & who knows, 'dkirsop' from S. Pender Island too?

Cruising up there has made memories of a lifetime. In my opinion best cruising grounds on the West Coast bar none, with the possible exception of Alaska.

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Hull #802? Very possible our boats could have been on the Albin factory floor at the same time. According to Albineer's of BC web page, 1971 A25 production spanned hull numbers 665 through 1126, a total of 461 boats. That's an average output of between 8 & 9 boats per week. There were 66 hull numbers between yours and mine. If the production rate was linear & steady, then our boat rolled out just 7 weeks ahead of yours.

BTW, I have one possible issue going on with our boat that I need to address. Lately our prop shaft "wobbles" a bit, ie oscillates about 1/2 inch out of round at the packing gland at RPMs over about 2,100 to 2,200 & makes a knocking noise against the shaft log. Need to investigate that, possible some misalignment has crept in at the thrust bearing mounts & some adjustment needed. Our usual cruising speed is 6.5 knots at 2,350 RPM, so right now we're limited to about 6 knots.