Dorman

Thanks Martyn--thats a shame

Hi All Does anyone know if Vince is still selling batteries? Tried to PM and cannot send as says his mails full. Thks Simon

Nice boat with Springer character we all started some where and my old Ormelite spend 4 years on the drive before it saw any water enjoy its being on the water that counts. If you need batteries try Vince on this forum we had some and excellent value and performance. Best of luck Simon

Plain idiotic why not promote alternative housing such as provided postwar, would be more pratical. We have much more brownfield sites than mooring space and why put accommodation on the water in the first place with all associated infrastructure problems if they are at all serious about cheap housing (probably not just spin) i.e. power sewage etc.

"Casp" has some experience in this area and may be along shortly. You will need some form of output shaft from the engine to connect to a PRM remote type gearbox with a suitable coupling-try their website I will be doing the same at some stage to a Lister industrial series engine which has been done successfully in the past--youtube have some interesting arrangements. Good luck Simon Added welcome to the forum there is a lot of info here!

Gibbo's not here have l missed a post? A fountain of knowledge always read his posts/replies Should have read down the page a bit..please come back Gibbo!!! You have my vote

Perhaps a new thread "how small should a porthole be without being pretty pointless" toungue firmly in cheek

Some of the jeeties we have on the Avon wouldnt stand that

Got through yesterday ok all advise l got in the end from BW was dont miss that opening time as no other dates annouced so dashed down from Dimmingsdale Wharf where sign writing and detail completed so now named MONTY No 5. Arrived at Diglis at 7.30am lockie arrived at 8.10 said wont be 5 mins mate and promptly blew a fuse at control panel trying to operate the lights so called for a sparky who got us through at about 10. We made Wyre Piddle by 7.00!!

Does anybody know state of play concerning the operation of Diglis lock and planned stopages. We need to head down that way and not been able to contact them. The stoppages web site has not been updated recently. Thanks simon

Signed--when will the fatcats mentality be stopped-bring on the revolution

We have a 3AL in our 57ft boat and has a pleasing beat to it and very economical it came out of a crane and blows smoke rings in locks--how did you get on with spares (bearings valves etc) with yours Mike? I have his other smaller publication but would love to get my hands on the A-Z books if anyone knows a source

Lovely photos Tim thanks-we where ther last week but only did Severn to Basin and back it looked really shallow on the way up to the GU. Great work to all involved! Simon

Glad you're both ok must have been really scarey

We normally travel on the River Avon but have just returned from a trip on the canals and suffered from occasional over cooling due to low speed and smokey exhaust and wonder if there is a better way to control the engine temp. Our engine is a Dorman 3AL and sort of vintage l suppose 1950s and in the manual was originally fitted with a wax type theromoatat operating at 75oC or so l guess. Originally the engine ran far too cool and on checking was fitted with a faulty thermostat (opened in a pan of hot water at 55oC so replaced with a 75oC from a motor factors) so smoked quite a bit which improved on replacing. I followed advice also and fitted 2 valves, one on the bypass from the thermoststat housing to the pump and another from the top of the thermostst housing to the skin tank inlet and bingo we had hot water in the calorifier. This has been fine on constant load on the river but on the canals l have to throttle down the flow to the skin tank to get above 55oC at any time which l feel is too cold and when working the engine once it boiled over when the thermostat opened but dumped water via the header tank as l had the skin tank throttled down so far it couldnt get by. The problem is exasperated also by the fact the thermostst does not fit very well in the housing and consequently lets by so making warm up slow and low engine temperatures.L cannot get one that fits tightly after many attempts. The calorifier feed is on the engine side of the thermostat. I am seriously thinking of fitting one of the Gardner type thermostat housings supplied by a well known supplier after ours and replumbing to keep water back until sufficiently hot. Has anyone experiences of these and their benfits? Also l noticed the water from the gearbox to the heat exchanger gets quite hot when throttling down flow across the engine- would this be made worse by the additional housing or am l worrying unnecessarily about gearbox oil temp (a gauge shows 45oC into the gearbox water side and quite hot out about 60oC) Thanks Simon

That actually makes sense as the controller that came with the panels has 40volt min 20 volt so could l use that but there are only 1 set of terminals on the inputs, do l simply wire both +ve and -ve into the single terminals?? I didnt use it becuase it cuts out below 20volt and thought it was no good--but it makes sense now.

Just a simple query really. I have 24volt system which i tried charging with 2 40watt panels via a controller from Maplins. Lights come on to say charging but can 24 volt panels which where only giving 20volts on reasonably semisunny days actually do anything to 4 110 amp/hr batteries wired up to produce 24volt?? thinks not Nothing on voltmeters even when leaving on all day. Would l be better charging them as seperate 12v or would that even work if wired 24volt? Controller will do 12-24volt and can do 2 batteries individually it is a Kemo #M174 unit Why is electricity so confusing

Hi everbody been boating so not been on the forum recently. Taking boat up to Meg Gregory next week to finally have the boat sign written We will be recognizable then as "Monty" "River Avon"(maybe Wyre Piddle) if kids back down so pls give us a wave. Change of name which has never been visible as we do some fund raising for SUCS Monty arm collecting tin round and falling in love with it so Amazon no more!!! More confusion for ANT and BW Good job to as on Sharpness and Severn last week got fed up with everybridge "Whats your boat name mate?" Thinking of some more features as she is a bit basic paint job which is still ok--anyone got some photos of Elephant Toes and Mouse Ears type features? In Dorman member albums Will post some photos of before and after, maybe during if Meg allows. Happy boating Simon

Some of the GRP boats on our mooring refer to steel boats like ours as "Ditch diggers"--often feels like that too

Hi Steve Just like to say what a great topic and thanks for all the hard work you put into keeping everybody posted Please keep it up. Boat details are amazing and l am saving it for our future project which l have a RN DM2 in the garage for. Simon

They took a friend of mine for a few £000s --twice--when they where building Drawncrafts many years ago under different names

Shall watch this with interest as having the same discussions