A4 Questions from prospective buyer

Hi,

During sea trials and survey, I discovered a couple items that give me cause for concern. Would like your input:

1. Surveyor identified the shaft log hose (or "pedro" hose) as likely being original. How likely will it need to be replaced? Or to catastrophically and spontaneously fail on me at sea? What would then happen? How much would it cost to replace? How difficult to do it myself (a novice)?

2. During a long motoring session into tidal current quite a bit of white smoke/exhaust was billowing out the exhaust for the duration of the trip at normal operating engine temp. Is this normal for an A4 rebuilt in the last ten years?

Thanks for your help. I hope to be an Ericson sailor soon!

I doubt that the shaft log hose would fail catastrophically... more likely, it would become difficult to seal at the ends and you'd get a chronic drip. This is not a high-pressure application. It's not difficult to replace that stuff during a haul-out. I suppose it could be done in-water with the help of a diver, if you work efficiently and can ignore disturbing influx of water while you work. FWIW, I found it virtually impossible to locate new replacement hose (don't remember the size off-hand) for my 3/4" shaft. "They don't make it that small any more." The previous owner appears to have purchased the next-larger size and just mashed it down with hose clamps to form a seal.

2. Sounds normal to me, in cold weather. Check the oil and plugs for possible water leaks, but after all, you're injecting water into hot exhaust...

I never heard that called a "pedro" hose before but they are certainly repairable. With the boat out of the water, the best way to go about that is to remove the shaft from the coupling holding it to the engine, pull the shaft out of the strut, replace the "pedro" hose, evaluate the packing gland sealing the shaft (possibly replace with a teflon packing or a dripless seal), replace the Cutless bearing which is the neoprene-lined tube inside the strut that holds the shaft away from the hull, and evaluate the shaft for wear and possible replacement.

You're probably not going to get a seller to drop the price for a bunch of stuff which may not need replacement, but I'd guess that the worst case (replacing shaft, "pedro" hose, Cutless bearing, dripless seal) will run $750 or less in parts ($250, 100, 75, 200 respectively) but will be good for 15 years or more.

The difficulty of this repair all lies in removing the shaft from the engine coupling. If you have clear access to the engine coupling it's a slow process but not too bad. My boat (not a 27) has very limited access to this and it's a bear of a job.

Check out www.moyermarine.com you'll find a lot of info on that forum regarding the A4. I also have an A4 in my E27 and everything I ever wondered about it is found there, including all spare parts, etc.
John
Celtic Sea