MoominPapa

Referring to the diagram the OP supplied, the crucial parts are the cam, 352 and the lever, 329. The lever is pivoted in the middle. The top of the lever is pulled left by the spring when the engine is slow or stopped, and right by the governor weights as it speeds up. The bottom of the lever is connected to the fuel rack and moves the opposite way, so no fuel is to the left and full fuel is to the right. The diagram shows the lever in the running maximum fuel position. The fuel rack cannot move further right because the protrusion on the lever is contacting the widest part of the snail-shaped cam. When in the starting position, the cam is rotated 30 degrees or so anticlockwise from the position shown so that the protrusion on the lever clears the step on the cam and the fuel rack can move further rightwards to give excess fuel for starting. The cam is pushed to rotate clockwise by a light spring but in the excess fuel position it's blocked from doing so because the step on the cam is blocked by the bottom of the lever protrusion. Once the engine starts and runs up, the governor pull the top of the lever right and therefore the bottom of the lever left, this removes the protrusion from the step on the cam, and the cam is free to rotate to the running position. My theory is that the modification done to the OPs engine is to grind off the wide part of the snail-shaped cam, the effect of which is to always allow the fuel rack to move the excess-fuel maximum position, thus over fueling the engine and producing the black smoke. Hope that makes sense. It's a very clever bit of mechanism. MP.

If the max fuel lobe has been removed, then that would explain your hard starting. If the running max fuel injection has then been adjusted upwards to allow the engine to start, that would explain your black smoke. If I was you, the first thing I'd do is to replace that cam with an unmolested one and set up the fuel racks by the book. I might even have a spare cam I could get to you, but not quickly: if it's where I think it is it's not where I am. MP.

The cam that controls the cold-start fuelling and associated spring are 352 and 353 in that diagram. If that's what has been modified then my earlier comments definitely apply. MP.

On an FR the bridge piece is held down with a single stud in the centre with one end resting on the top of the injector and the other end resting on part of the head. That kit would still work at long as the hose fits through the slot on the end of the bridge

My engine manual is on the boat in Northamptonshire and I'm in Ireland, so I can't look up the details now. However I'm fairly sure I remember that the injection timing procedure in the manual is simple spill timing. You remove the delivery valve from the top of the injection pump and rotate the engine until fuel just stops flowing by gravity through the injection pump. The crankshaft angle for this point is specified. MP. ETA. The timing is adjusted by lockable screws on the cam-follower rockers that drive the pumps, like tappets for valves. This implies you have to do the adjustment for each pump. There's a unit injection pump for each cylinder. EATA: Tony, I now see you were asking about compression testing, not injection timing, so I didn't answer your question at all! I've never done a compression test on my engine. The injectors are held down onto the sealing washers with external clamps rather than screwed into the head like a spark plug, so I can believe that a dummy injector with a port for the gauge is necessary.

FR2 owner here. The information above may be valuable. Are we talking about the linkage between the governor and the fuel rack, behind the side cover that holds the stop lever? If so, that mechanism includes the excess-fuel starting system. The way this works is that the when the stop lever is returned to the run position after stopping, it primes the mechanism it allow more than the usual maximum amount of fuel to be injected. Once the engine starts on this extra fuel and runs up, the governor pulls the fuel rack towards less fuel, and this causes a spring-loaded pawl to drop back so that only the correct running value for maximum fuel is injected. The maximum fuel when in the start setting is a lot more that he maximum fuel in the running state. A cold engine is very difficult to start without the excess fuel pawl being engaged. A guess on what happened is that there was a fault with this excess fuel start system, which caused the starting difficulties. Your engineer didn't understand this, and ground off some part of the mechanism, thus putting is permanently in the excess-fuel state. Now it starts, but it's grossly over-fueling when running, hence the black smoke. It's certainly worth checking this mechanism out: if's not selecting the two different maximum-fuel stops as designed, you'll never be able to adjust it correctly to both start reliably and run well. You can easily test this. With the engine stopped, pull the stop lever right forward to the stop position, then return it right back to the run position. Now remove the side cover. The fuel racks will be in the full fuel position (I can't recall if that's forward or back and I'm not on the boat to check) move the fuel rack to the other end of its travel; no fuel. You should hear a distinct click and see a small pawl in the mechanism behind the stop lever rotate. If that works, repeat the whole test above again, except instead of pushing the fuel rack, start the engine. The governor should pull the fuel rack back towards no-fuel and the pawl should again rotate. MP.

Doesn't it look clean there? Not so much now. I need to do some polishing and painting. MP.

£1.39 for domestic, £1.84 for propulsion, any declaration you like. MP.

It's competitive, but there ain't no such thing as cheap diesel or cheap coal anymore. Paying helps to control my EV driver's smugness. MP.

Matty may have been first up Watford today, but the Moomins were last. A gaggle of hire boats coming down were taking so long that I was worried we wouldn't make it. Moored between the flight and Crick tunnel. Good day all round. To Dunchurch Pools for diesel and coal (paying was not good....), quick stop at Braunston sani, then the quickest trip up Braunston flight ever: bottom gates were open as we approached then the flight to ourselves with no one going up or down.

The information that the RCD tends to trip when the battery chargers are turned on may be relevant. Turning the power on is going to charge the Y suppressor capacitors in the charger via the charger's earth lead, and at least some of that current is going to return to the generator neutral via the generator bond and therefore not pass through the RCD. If I was the OP, I'd move the generator bond from the generator end of the generator-boat lead to the boat end. That might be enough to calm things down, MP.

If the neutral-earth bond in the inverter is active when you're using the generator, then that's most likely the source of your trips. There's an alternative route for neutral current from the boat neutral to the generator neutral which doesn't pass through the RCD. It goes neutral->boat bond->earth cable->generator bond->generator neutral. MP.

A quick question prompted by the historical maps. Was the arm a later addition? It looks like the culvert is as long as it is because the upstream end is buried under the toe of the embankment of the arm. If the arm had been built at the same time as the mainline, it would surely have been easier to put the culvert under the mainline further back from the junction and avoid this extra length? MP.