Caterpillar engines 3116 & 3126

[robert64]

Am looking at purchasing a used sea ray 40 / 41 1997-2003. Wondering if there are any known problems with either of these two engines? Had three friends in the green bay area that had to replace the 3116's. The expense was out of sight. Bob!

 

[Graham Lorimer]

What went wrong with them, are how many hours had they done? How long had they owned them, did they have any service history?

Graham

 

[carterchapman]

Bob,

I'm not a current diesel owner, but a future one. I read all the diesel posts here closely. Just do a search (I know - it's not a great search function) for 3116 or fwebster.

here's what I found quickly:

http://clubsearay.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23388&highlight=fwebster

Frank (and others) have a lot of diesel (and boat) experience and they take a lot of time to help the rest of us out...

 

[ImpulseIII]

If you are looking for a really clean 2001 410DA, I understand Impulse III may be available....hey wait, thats my boat !

 

[Turtlesboat]

Impulse III is a great boat. It would be a fun cruise to lake Michigan too.

 

[fc3]

Thinking of taking a job as delivery captain?

 

[fwebster]

If you read my posts in the thread Carter referenced, you will get the jist of the story on 3116/3126 engines.

In general, there were some that had problems with valves in the late 90's but that problem occurred early in the engine's service life. IF the engines have more than 250 or so hours, it is almost certain they did not have the bad valves in the beginning.

THe soft block issue was a 3126 problem that was identified long ago. By now those engines are either replaced or rebuilt.

The other 3116/3126 issues boil down to neglected maintenance......resetting the engine overheads at 250 hours then later at regular intervals, running the engines hot (no diesel tolerates overheating very well), and running the engines in an overloaded condition.

There are lots of members here on CSR who have run 3116/3126 Cat engines for years with excellent results. In my case, I'm spending far less in maintaining my Caterpillars than I did on a pair of 7.4 Mercruisers and I've put 2X the hours on the Cats. These are by far the cleanest, most efficient mid sized engines I've run.........I love 'em!

 

[Trinity]

i have a 99 400 sedan bridge with the cummins 430
have had it for ten years no problems with the cummins

 

[Sua Sponte]

3116: http://boatdiesel.com/Forums/index.cfm?cfapp=5&Forum_ID=94&SearchKey=

3126: http://boatdiesel.com/Forums/index.cfm?cfapp=5&Forum_ID=95&SearchKey=

Boat Diesel Dot Com, baby!