lostviking wrote:
Do the design and a single 120 lehman or equal put up a decent fight if the weather gets rough?
*Is your question about the reliability of the FL120 or its power?* They are two different issues.* An FL120 properly operated, serviced, and maintained is as reliable as any other engine and moreso than some.* They--- and the same-generation Perkins engines--- were used in commericial fishboats as well as recreational cruisers and as such have run long hours in a variety of conditions.
The one drawback to an FL120 on long cruises is the oil in the injection pump has to be changed every 50 hours.* This is not a long or difficult job--- I can do it in about ten minutes not counting the time it takes me to get into position round the back of our starboard engine.* But it's very important to do this no matter what people who will tell you that you can go hundreds of hours beween pump oil changes claim.* Believe them now if you want, pay a lot for their bad advice later.
Whether or not the FL120 is powerful enough for a particular situation is a whole different matter.* Depends on the boat, depends on the situation.* It is definitely not an engine you want to run at high power settings very long in an attempt to outrun bad weather.* The base Ford engine was not built for that kind of service, failed often when it was operated this way in the late 1950s when it first came out as a truck engine, and still will today.*
If you want enough reserve power to make your boat pick up and go--- even if that means going from 8 knots to 10 or 12--- the FL120 is not an engine I would recommend for that task.* Nor, in my opinion, is any engine from that era with the possible exception of a Detroit (of the engines I am familiar with).
But if the boat (and you) can take it in terms of water and weather conditions, the FL120 should too provided it's in good condition and is getting good fuel.
But I don't think the engine is so much the issue here.* For a passage of the type you are contemplating, I would pay close attention to the posters here who are talking about watching the weater and so on.
The other thing to keep in mind is that a $30k boat of the type we're talking about here will most likely be in pretty rough shape.* The fuel tanks, for example, could be full of crud on the bottom.* And that has a far greater potential to stop you dead in the water if the weather kicks up than the engine's reliability as your filter(s) clog with the gunk stirred up by the boat's motion.
There could be leaks waiting to happen in the fuel system-- hoses, fittings, seals, etc.
Electrical systems can and probably will fail in some manner at some point on an old boat in the condition that $30k will get you.* The steering may be in iffy condition and let go or jam when you least need it to.* And so on.
So I would be FAR more concerned about the ability of a $30k cruiser of the type most of us on this forum have of making the journey than I would be about the abiity of the engine to make it, assuming the engine was not abused and poorly maintained in the past.
A survey will show you some of the problems but not all of them no matter how good the surveyor is.* Something that looks okay today can fail tomorrow.* It's the nature of old boats.* Actually, it's the nature of all boats because they live in an environment that is trying its best to destroy them with corrosion, rot, delamination, rust, etc.