I like your approach. However, Since I ended up with a broken crankshaft
on the 1 GM I am still apprehensive of buying used 2GM.
You are saying that the shipping cost you nearly $1000.00 USD can you tell
the cost of the engine. I starting to believe that (as you have stated)
replacing a diesel engine is overrated in terms of difficulty and cost.
The situation in this neck of the wood is that few people know about diesel
engine.
They seldom breakdown and when they do we have to call an experience
mechanic.
Here our diesel mechanics are very busy and do not come exactly after you
call them.
As in Seinfeld "the soup nazi" we here have the opposite for diesel engine
repair.

wrote in message
oups.com...
My 28' S2 came with a Yanmar 1GM but it was an older one with only 6.5
hp output. Although it was the most reliable engine I had ever seen
and ALWAYS started, I had been in a couple spots where I was concerned
about not having enough power. I looked all over the internet for
about a year and finally found a used Yanmar 2GM that was being sold.
I took the chance that either it was in good shape or I could rebuild
it and bought it and shipped it here. It was in Seattle and I am in
Florida so shipping cost nearly $1000.
One it was here, I started it and checked it out and it seemed in good
shape. Rated at 13 hp with a heast exchanger for cooling it looked to
be a good direct replacement for the 1GM after looking over the
pyhiscal dimensions in the service manual.
The boat was up on jack stands in my back yard with no way to get any
sort of hoist around the boat to remove the old or put in a new engine.
Nevertheless, I was amazed at how easy it was to remove the old
engine. In no time at all, I had it sitting in the cabin looking
surprised wondering how I managed to do it by myself.
I enlisted two friends to get the old engine to the ground and the new
one in the boat. We put a ladder against the boat and manhandled the
old engine up into teh cockpit and up onto the cockpit sides. We tied
a rope to it and slid it down against 2x4s placed against the ladder.
The much heavier new engine was bolted to a piece of plywood and then
using a rope around one of the winches we pulled it up into teh
cockpit. From there we slid it on 2x4s into teh cabin. I then slid it
back into the 1/4 berth and then down into place by myself. IT DIDNT
FIT. The new engine mounts were too thick. The hardest part of the
entire operation was for me to use my sabre saw to cut through the wood
and glass engine mounts to make it fit. I went through 8 saw blades.
It lined up very well although I did use a feeler guage. It started
and ran well but soon stopped pumping raw water from a 5 gal bucket I
had in the cabin. Finally, I traced the problem to a buildup of salt
and corrosion in the output of the heat exchanger and fixed it.
I am very happy with my new (old) engine and have extensively cruised
with it. My boat now gets up to over 6 kts easily whereas before I was
lucky to get over 5 kts. This has really improved my cruising ability
because I can go for days running at 5 kts when ther is no wind.
My experience seems to show that replacing an engine may be overrated
in terms of difficulty and cost. BTW, I am no mechanic, just stubborn.