About to Sign the line: '98 450DA w/3116 Cats

We are currently negotiating on the one for sale by Ozark Yacht Broker's. Just got a counter offer back minutes ago. There are some questionable things about the boat but it looks clean for all intents and purposes. However, I am also in the middle of turning a boat we bought last year that I didn't have surveyed that was VERY clean. Been buying boats and haven't ever been without ownership of at least a single boat (usually multiples) since 1979 and I've never been burned on a used boat. This boat was one that was as clean as I keep mine which is saying something (if you knew me you would understand that comment and it's been said to me in not too complimentary of a fashion by close friends who wanted to drink a rum runner on my boat but weren't allowed) and it turned out I had to sink $8K into a rotted transom and a ton of items that the owner was very slick about concealing as we found the signs of concealing post acquisition. Tough lesson on a little $23K deal on an open bow. SO, I'm being rationally cautious on this one with Ozark Yacht brokers. I am working with a revered surveyor and he performed a national survey (has access to databases the consumer doesn't like real estate brokers do on history i.e. days on market, asking versus sold, etc., etc) done on 450's sold in the past 18 months nationally and only 3 fresh water units sold. I'm not trying to screw the buyer down to sell at a salt water sold price (averaging salt water units sold would lower the price point in an unfair manner) but both the 450's on the Lake are well over priced by $20K. I believe in the "counsel of many" and I am being told to hold tight as the next 60 days the boat listings will really sprout and I am seeing exactly that happen daily now. Regardless, I am about to counter the counter and either it'll go to the next step or it wont.

By the way, will this be your first excursion into marine diesel power like it is for me?
Hey Captain Kitk LOTO, did you pull the trigger? Just curious.
 
OK - starting to come back to you all to give some answers and to get some as well.

We've just completed our test drive and are getting results back.

The refrigerator has been updated with a full size unit like what we have in our homes. The OEM navigation is non-functioning but the radar has been updated. The GPS is working, the right fuel gauge is not working, the right tachometer needs to be thumped (maybe a bad connection according to the licensed captain I had on board with the Cat tech), both hour meters updated to digital and working which explains the difference in hours on them. I am convinced this also means the boat has more than 340 hours on it, all batteries replaced 8/17, raw water hoses are not original and in good shape, zinc's excellent (the captain is from Florida and said they need constant attention in salt water but not at the lake so the fact that all the ground connections terminating down low looked perfect, said it wasn't really a sign of good maintenance as much as not a high failure item at the LOTO), one packing leaking, both spare packings already consumed, one shaft bearing vibrating, starboard side drive not fully disengaging (cat tech said it could be a cable adjustment, but not likely) and today I was able to talk to the Cat tech to hear about the lab results, but I haven't received written documents yet from the shop foreman. Coolant shows no anomalies, nor did any of the three engines. However, we have two gearboxes showing very high iron content. Interestingly, we awoke the owners and rousted them off the boat for the 9:00 AM test drive and had a chance to speak to them. He admitted he had not changed the oil/filters (fuel or oil) on anything since last July so unless he is really crafty, I went into the oil tests thinking we had a good test samples to take. My point being that if he had just changed the oil, we wouldn't have much in the way of time for the systems to all pollute the oil for the lab. And frankly, he might have done exactly that, said he hadn't changed the oil, knowing full well he had. After my last boat fiasco, I am freshly reminded that even after 40 years of buying boats successfully, one can still meet a really crafty seller.

So, we have a Monday COB deadline for renegotiating the deal or walking away from it. If I have a senior moment (and I won't on this!) and do nothing I accept it by default.

Here are some questions for the Sea Ray community. The Captain and the Cat tech told me they were very pleased with how well the motors performed bringing the boat up on plane. Both held WOT within about 200 RPM of each other which could have been gauge accuracy, the rudder gauge showed net zero and the boat tracked perfectly straight - their point being that the tachs can lie and the boat won't. If they were making different power and at different rpm, the boat would not track straight and it did. They felt they were really good running engines. We saw them start dead cold and they fired nearly instantaneously. Mechanic felt the motors to see if they were cold before we started them. This though - the cruise speed which they both said was spec'd at 400 RPM under red line (can't recall the red line but they both said it was propped right because it was hitting it) was 18 MPH and I thought it should be higher? That seemed a tad slow by what I thought I have been reading. Bottom of course has not been looked at but it is claimed it was painted in '16 and will be inspected if we go further. Assuming the bottom is not a problem, is 18 MPH appropriate for 400 rpm under max throttle?

I also noticed that the soot after cruising for 45 minutes at 18 MPH was VERY evident when we came off plane, all over the platform. When the water washed up onto the platform it was such that it made the leading edge of the water black. I would have needed two rugs if someone were to come on board at that point - one to protect from stepping on the platform into the soot and one for the interior. Am I just a noob and that level of soot is normal, or, did the Cat tech's comment that he thought it might be smoking just a tad more than it should suggest that it really is too sooty based on what I am asking here?

The Cat tech said both of the turbo clamps on the intake side were loose. He said it might be that the small extra amount of soot might be fresh air escaping those hoses. Nothing bad, but just enough to starve the engines of O2 enough to cause soot. Thoughts? (He did not tighten them since he wasn't commissioned by the owner to do anything)

Here's one last question - because of my concern on soot, we've looked at an equally clean, actually a tad bit cleaner, 2001 410 Sundancer with 496's that have a verifiable 500 hours on them. Boat was nearly spotless, just like the 450. Same price. I'm not sure what speed I should expect from either boat so if someone can clarify what a rational expectation on speed for both rigs should be with their given power, that would be really appreciated.

Any other thoughts I am also very eager to hear!
 
You need to really listen to some of the answers you are going to get! My 450 DA had very little soot and certainly none after one use. Where was the engine surveyor during wo sea trail? Mine was in the engine room verifying 2800 on both engines. FrankW has 3116'S and I had 3126. Cruise at approx 20knts 2000 rpm or so. Your drive train problems need to be looked at carefully. A wobble of the shaft can cause all kind of problems. Your transmissions not engaging? There are several highly qualified owners on CSR(FW and others) please listen to their advice. Good luck and GOD bless, JC
 
You need to really listen to some of the answers you are going to get! My 450 DA had very little soot and certainly none after one use. Where was the engine surveyor during wo sea trail? Mine was in the engine room verifying 2800 on both engines. FrankW has 3116'S and I had 3126. Cruise at approx 20knts 2000 rpm or so. Your drive train problems need to be looked at carefully. A wobble of the shaft can cause all kind of problems. Your transmissions not engaging? There are several highly qualified owners on CSR(FW and others) please listen to their advice. Good luck and GOD bless, JC

X10! Great advice.
 
OK - starting to come back to you all to give some answers and to get some as well.

We've just completed our test drive and are getting results back.



Here are some questions for the Sea Ray community. The Captain and the Cat tech told me they were very pleased with how well the motors performed bringing the boat up on plane. Both held WOT within about 200 RPM of each other which could have been gauge accuracy, the rudder gauge showed net zero and the boat tracked perfectly straight - their point being that the tachs can lie and the boat won't. If they were making different power and at different rpm, the boat would not track straight and it did. They felt they were really good running engines. We saw them start dead cold and they fired nearly instantaneously. Mechanic felt the motors to see if they were cold before we started them. This though - the cruise speed which they both said was spec'd at 400 RPM under red line (can't recall the red line but they both said it was propped right because it was hitting it) was 18 MPH and I thought it should be higher? That seemed a tad slow by what I thought I have been reading. Bottom of course has not been looked at but it is claimed it was painted in '16 and will be inspected if we go further. Assuming the bottom is not a problem, is 18 MPH appropriate for 400 rpm under max throttle?

I also noticed that the soot after cruising for 45 minutes at 18 MPH was VERY evident when we came off plane, all over the platform. When the water washed up onto the platform it was such that it made the leading edge of the water black. I would have needed two rugs if someone were to come on board at that point - one to protect from stepping on the platform into the soot and one for the interior. Am I just a noob and that level of soot is normal, or, did the Cat tech's comment that he thought it might be smoking just a tad more than it should suggest that it really is too sooty based on what I am asking here?

The Cat tech said both of the turbo clamps on the intake side were loose. He said it might be that the small extra amount of soot might be fresh air escaping those hoses. Nothing bad, but just enough to starve the engines of O2 enough to cause soot. Thoughts? (He did not tighten them since he wasn't commissioned by the owner to do anything)

Here's one last question - because of my concern on soot, we've looked at an equally clean, actually a tad bit cleaner, 2001 410 Sundancer with 496's that have a verifiable 500 hours on them. Boat was nearly spotless, just like the 450. Same price. I'm not sure what speed I should expect from either boat so if someone can clarify what a rational expectation on speed for both rigs should be with their given power, that would be really appreciated.

Any other thoughts I am also very eager to hear!




The engines are rated @ WOT of 2800 rpm. Max recommended cruise is 2400 rpm. This means you can run indefinitely @ 2400; you can only run @WOT for 8% of the time.

That amount of soot is not normal. Something isn't right. If the engines ran 2800 rpm, then they are not overloaded for the weight (humans, gear, fuel, water ,waste etc.) that was on the boat. BLack smoke or excessive soot means unburned fuel is in the exhaust. The cause could be a bad injector, a fouled injector, or restricted intake air. That most likely is from fouled after-coolers...........the surveyor would have seen dirty intake filters but the internal passages on the after-coolers are not visible without significant disassemble to the engine intakes and it if wouldn't tighten a hose clamp, he certainly wouldn't have invested the time in getting to the aftercoolers. The excessive smoke is a red flag for me and I would have the Caterpillar tech investigate and diagnose the cause.

I won a 450DA with 350hp Cat 3116TA's............At 2400 rpm we run between 20-22 kts which is 23-24 mph; at 2250 (a sweet-spot for the 3100 series Cat engines where the engines don't work hard and just loaf along and the turbo noise is reduced) my boat runs 18 kts (20.7mph) and cuts the fuel burn from 22.6 gph to about 16 gph. These boats are very sensitive to bottom growth. A good coating of slime (i.e. salt water algae for lack of a better descriptive term) will slow my boat significantly. If the LOTO boat is covered with algae, you can expect to lose 3-3.5 mph.

If you are comtemplating the gas 410DA or the diesel 450DA, don't. The two are not comparable in space, utility, sea keeping, etc. and the diesel boat will burn 1/2 or a bit more of the fuel the gas 410 will burn. The 410 might be a bit faster, but if speed is that important to you you probably need to be looking at go-fast boats rather then big comfortable cruisers.
 
You say both engines held wot but did they reach and hold 2800rpm? The shaft seals leaking are not difficult to replace but will require a haul out and cost you around 800 bucks. Did you have a cat tech doing the engine survey? He should have been in the engine room checking the rpms with a photo tach and not relying on gauges. Did he perform a blow by test?

As Frank said, the soot is unburned diesel fuel and it shouldn’t be there so something is amiss.

As far as the 410... not comparing apples to apples. That boat should cost significantly less as it is a gasser. To be honest I subscribe to the idea that anything over 40ft should have diesels and 550 hours on those big blocks is tough to push it around the lakes with a bunch of short trips.
 
You say both engines held wot but did they reach and hold 2800rpm? The shaft seals leaking are not difficult to replace but will require a haul out and cost you around 800 bucks. Did you have a cat tech doing the engine survey? He should have been in the engine room checking the rpms with a photo tach and not relying on gauges. Did he perform a blow by test?

As Frank said, the soot is unburned diesel fuel and it shouldn’t be there so something is amiss.

As far as the 410... not comparing apples to apples. That boat should cost significantly less as it is a gasser. To be honest I subscribe to the idea that anything over 40ft should have diesels and 550 hours on those big blocks is tough to push it around the lakes with a bunch of short trips.

They did reach 2800 rpm and held it without issue. Boat come up on plane fairly impressively. The Cat tech was actually a bit negative about this craft from the git go, and that being said was impressed with how well the motors put the boat up on plane. We've already got a shaft seal repair cost estimate of $1600 plus haul out. Grover is a CAT tech, but I did not pay Fabick Caterpillar to do a mechanical inspection yet, reason being I didn't want to do that on this first trip. The point in having the tech there was for him to go and listen, pay for an hour of labor and obtain a 27 year career journeyman perspective for a "first blush" and to understand the lab results. So where I am now, is to determine if the seller is ready to alter price based on the first peel back of the figurative onion. He now knows we have two gearboxes, not just one, that are in need of repair, one shaft and all three require the pull out for repairs.

I am here in the forum to help me determine how much I think we need to alter the current price. Meaning, I believe on top of the already diagnosed issues, I believe we actually have a bottom paint issue regardless of the fact it was painted in 2016. The owners appear to be using the craft as an apartment. If that is true, the fouling is probably well beyond the 2 years of a boat that is actually run down the channel on a regular basis. So there's that. There's the soot issue which I suspect is minimally the after coolers. I believe we need to do a full top rack service, and I already know the boat needs filters and oil change.

So, I'm thinking $1800 in fees on the after coolers, another $1000 for the top racks/valve adjustment, pull out is $16/ft so $750 to pull it out, roughly $8000 per v-drive, another $1600 for the shaft bearing and shaft seal, and a pro-rata on the bottom paint (total guess on the actual condition) of about $2000 (been told that one option might be to have the bottom pressure washed to remove growth but that this effort will in no way extend the anti-fouling, simply remove some of the water drag).

Go back and deduct this from the currently agreed upon price, and if he says ok, then we go forth with the full mechanical. If it survives that, then we do the survey.

Am I missing anything?
 
If your shaft is wobbly you are probably/maybe looking at replacing the cutlass bearings.
What ever you think its going to cost add at least another 25%! I would ask FrankW to walk you through the oil lab work and future survey. This boat will need a very sturdy mechanical inspection/survey. Blow bye etc... Good luck, JC
 
Yes, I am waiting for Frank as he has been kind enough to help out already. There's no emergency here. The longer I wait, the less I pay.....well maybe. :)
 
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I've owned a 450DA for about 20 years and here is what my costs were for the things you are trying to price:

Aftercoolers:
Working on older boats you find that there are usually adjoining or mating parts that need to be replaced or renewed and it is wise to do so when any major component is being removed. Aftercoolers on a 3116 are jacket cooled so there is no seawater side to worry about. They are cooled by engine coolant so to remove them means you need to drain the coolant. Catching and saving the coolant on a 3116 in a 450DA is very tedious and impossible without losing quite a bit, so it is more cost effective to replace the coolant when you drain it. This means the only fouling in the aftercoolers is in the intake chamber and it is cleaned using solvents in a cleaning tank...they don't need to be vatted. I recently cleaned mine and, due to scheduling, I used a trusted local diesel mechanic for most of the work. Since the coolant was drained, I replaced the thermostats at the same time. The expansion tank must be removed to access the thermostat housing so I ordered all new gaskets, hoses and hose clamps for the aftercooler, thermostat housing and expansion as well as new thermostats and all the gaskets needed for above from my local Caterpillar dealer. The labor cost for the aftercooler service and replacing the coolant and thermostats was $2500; coolant was $264 and various hoses, hose clamps and gaskets was $450. You may choose not to be as thorough when doing the aftercoolers, but keep in mind that there are a bunch of hoses and hose clamps connecting the cooling and intake air systems to the aftercoolers and it is nearly impossible to get to some of them with the guards and covers in place.

V-drives:
Some v-drive repairs are simple, most are not and you will not know if it is worthwhile to repair yours until a knowledgeable mechanic takes them apart. New ZF 85-IV's (this is the current replacement transmission for the Hurth HSW-800) cost about $5800. The transmissions can be removed without removing the engines from a 450DA if the mechanic has a portable lifting aid. Labor to remove and replace a transmission is about $2000.

Shaft seals:
Almost always, when a Tides seal leaks it is because the housing is worn and is allowing t he lip seal to have runout as the shaft rotates. It is usually better to replace the entire seal assembly so you have not only a new seal but a fresh running surface to hold the seal centered on the shaft. Seal cost about $875 ea, plus the labor to remove the props and slide the shafts back (which must be done anyway if you are having the transmissions removed), which takes 2 men about 4 hours for both sides.

Cutlass bearings:
1-3/4" cutlass bearings cost about $150 ea. If the yard you are using has a "Strut-Pro" press, they can press the old bearing out as the new one is pressed in with the shaft in place in the boat. That usually takes 2-3 hours per side. So figure $450 per cutlass bearing.

Bottom paint:
I don't understand "a prorata on the bottom paint". To get real performance numbers, the bottom must be clean. Pressure washing a wet hull will remove fresh water fouling....let the hull dry and it will require acid to clean the bottom. Pressure washing is aggressive and usually removes the outer surface of the antifouling paint. If the paint is ablative, it may extent the life if you immediately begin to run the boat regularly, however, algae quickly seals in the antifouling chemicals in the paint and effectively insulates the bottom paint so it cannot worrk properly.
 
Excellent information! THANK YOU!! I made the prorata comment a bit out of context but here's what I was thinking. The fact that the bottom was painted in 2016 doesn't mean it's not ready to be painted again. If it's not, and we'll know that when it comes out of the water, of the $4000 cost to paint the bottom as quoted locally, I really only have half of that benefit remaining - best case and that's what I was thinking I would pro rate at $2000. Meaning, I'm coming down that amount for that item off the purchase price. I'm betting fouling is why the boats cruised at 18MPH at 2400.

I have to admit, I'm becoming more and more sober about this as time crawls forward. But I really appreciate the experience you are bringing and the advice. Truly, I do.
 
I personally would not like a buyer trying to prorata? bottom paint. As Frank notes at 2400 rpm I would be going a notch under 25. When I was boat shopping we looked at some boats that needed work. Frank never discouraged me but always laid out what was going to have to be done and probable $ and time involved. Walked away from a few boats and kept looking. In my ho there is nothing wrong with buying a boat you really like that may have some blemishes but be sure you can live with the $, time and effort. A very strong survey is a must. Nothing wrong with asking for deficient items to be fixed or appropriate reduction of price to rectify them. In this boats case (from the outside looking in) i may figure in a little more because of the amount and type of work that may have to be done. Surprises may pop up? One thing I would recommend is using a good moisture meter throughout the salon area. I had a leak that I fought with for 7 years. Thought it was the port's but was the windshield instead. The meter would let you know about these type of things. Good luck with the hunt. GOD bless. JC
 
One of the things you are dealing with is "New Guy Pricing". I know prices vary all over the country, but the prices I gave you seem consistently better than the prices you are getting. Another thing is the boat yards are country club pricing you........you are getting the price for a bottom job, for example, and that includes a haul out, blocking for paint and splashing. Yet, at the same time you are also doing transmissions, shaft, cutlass bearings and shaft seals...all of which require haul outs.

You might need to go sit down with the yard boss and do some negotiating since a lot of this work is overlapping.......schedule the work so one haul out is all you are charged for, if you let the yard do all the work, can they absorb the cost of the haul out (most yards thro in the haul out if you have them do substantial work thru them), prop and shaft removal id needed for pulling a transmission....are you being quoted that same work for the shaft seal replacement?

The speed thing is an easy one to handle on a diesel boat........if they turn up rated WOT rpm's, generally the engines are ok and the prop pitch is correct for the load on the boat. That pretty much boils it down to bottom condition.
 
Just want to close the loop here and say thanks for all of the support. We have decided to walk away from the boat as we could not come together on a post light-mechanical price adjustment. we've got our eye's on a 200 and 2002 460DA that both have Cummins in them so you may see me back out here after I've done some thread searching. Thanks again all. Following winds and trailing seas!
 
Probably a wise move...if it doesnt feel right trust your instincts.
The high iron content is usually a tell tale that the transmissions have some serious wear issues. (past experience)
Sounds as though the vessel is not that well maintained despite the low hours claimed.
Good luck with the ongoing search.
 

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