Perkins 4.108 Public Service Announcement

What does a photo of an old piece of farm equipment have to do with boats? Not a lot but it does speak to the fact that I've been running in 14 different directions and photography has been sadly neglected due to the many hats I am wearing just now so I pulled up an old photo I did. I like old machinery and since this post is about old machinery- namely our Perkins 4.108 engine on the boat is sort of fits if you are willing to really, really stretch your imagination.

When we run into a new problem on the refit we like to think of it as "a challenge and opportunity". Ok, we call it that after a bit of creative profanity but eventually we get there. While doing the rewiring it became clear that the wiring harness to the engine itself needed to be redone which meant we are getting up close and personal with Old Perky. Yes, we have a manual but for some reason the manual likes to omit helpful bits of information. Information like the fact that the Perkins 4.108 does not in fact use standard glow plugs but instead has a thermostart. Maybe this is old news to you but it was new to us and a EUREKA! moment. So that's why Old Perky was getting fussy on cold mornings.

The thermostart is getting a bit of love courtesy of parts from Parts 4 Engines. We do think its funny that to order parts made in the US we have to order from the UK but Mark was very impressed by the kowledge of the person he spoke with at Parts 4 Engines. They did not have all the parts we needed but they knew exactly what he was talking about which is a big step ahead of the other chandlers we contacted who when asked about particular parts could only answer with "A what?".

 So there ya go. Now you can never say we never shared anything useful on the blog. Now if you are a bear of little brain like us who isn't sure what ignition system your Perkins 4.108 has you know and more importanly you know a good, knowledgable parts supplier to get all those mystery widgets from.