Dorman
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Posts posted by Dorman
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An interesting e petition: http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/14617
Signed--when will the fatcats mentality be stopped-bring on the revolution
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I have a Dorman 3LB in Independence-a lovely "beating heart" sound. A chap walking the towpath a while back who had worked at Dorman said he remembered them being used in lifeboats and as stationary engines in marshalling yards. I'm told my old girl used to be the standby generator at the John Radcliffe hospital laundry! I have only come across one other 3LB on the cut and never heard of Dormans in work boats but I lead a sheltered life
Mike
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?
Joshua, now that you've got your anorak firmly in place, you should have a look at Whittle's other book 'A To Z Of Vintage Marine Engines' and Graham Edge's 'L. Gardner & Sons: Legendary Engineering Excellence'. Both are on my bookshelves!
I have his other smaller publication but would love to get my hands on the A-Z books if anyone knows a source
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Photo's taken on 27th Augusst
Can be seen as a slideshow - button top right.
Enjoy
Tim
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
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Busker was my boat, (I'm female). Me and my dog are safe thank you. The boat belonged in every way to me solely. I have no family to threaten this creep which is why I was the perfect victim for him.
Glad you're both ok must have been really scarey
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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
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What is the nominal voltage of the panels? If it is about 17v to 20v and they are wired in parallel then they won't be able to charge a 24v battery even on a sunny day. If your controller would allow them to be connected in series (giving 34v to 40v) they could be used but it is probably unlikely that the controller would like the high voltage.
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.
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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
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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
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Its no worse than the 'plastics' calling our narrowboats 'skips'
Chill out abit - Its all done tungue in cheek and never to be taken seriously.
Alex
Some of the GRP boats on our mooring refer to steel boats like ours as "Ditch diggers"--often feels like that too
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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
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On the same basis, it is surprising that several boat builders and fitters have also been able to take new orders after starting to trade again in a subtly different quite after a previous liquidation.
I'm firmly with John on this - company law in this country allows complete piss taking.
One sees the same with computer suppliers, double glazing suppliers, etc - we have people leafleting us around here saying they have been established lots of years, but omitting to mention how many times they have gone under in that period.
As well as issues about creditors, including employees, it is unusual for a guarantee that was issued by a former incarnation of a company to be honoured in any way by the new iteration of the company.
They took a friend of mine for a few £000s --twice--when they where building Drawncrafts many years ago under different names
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We have had a few quotes now for repainting and sign writing our side panels.
Costs for re-painting them are pretty similar.
Costs for having the name(s) and any graphics done in vinyl are way cheaper than having them done in traditional hand painted sign writing.
I'm inclined towards vinyl - particularly when a couple of quotes are from sign writers that do both.
What are the advantages/disadvantages of both.
Shall watch this with interest as having the same discussions
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Ah no, the boats are secured to a floating pontoon in the lock, so you can stand safely next to your boat
Great photos-may persuade the wife yet. Your boat seems to have a crop of mushrooms growing
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In a recent topic and in various personal messages, concern (and in some cases scepticism) has been expressed because we rarely find out what happens next. That is after the boat has been recovered and the perpetrator(s) apprehended.
I dug out the following snippet from the archives of Mortons Media, publishers of Towpath Telegraph:
As many on here will know, 'Holly' was recovered thanks to the efforts of members of this forum.
The fact he painted a boat and modified it to hide its identity meant nothing to the court then
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I just remembered, I've been to the perfect canal for our friends at NBW - it's in a shopping mall! Security guards so no druggies! No locks! Shops everywhere you look!
They'd give it 5 out of 5 I reckon!
OMG Gas Street is really happening-next trip the BCN!!
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Boats of this type and also sailing boats always make narrowboats poor value for money IMHO
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... has to be the one question mostly asked by gongoozlers.
But are there others?
I'll offer as starters:
"Do you miss Corrie?"
Tone
One amusing comment from some students when we had "Maximus No 9" was "why dont you call it Bigusdickus"- the kids wouldnt let me but l was tempted (Just thought-where they referring to the boat?)
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Another argument against blacking the base plate is that corrosion due to elecrolysis could occur in the location of the first scratch instead of evenly spread over the whole plate.
Tone
Agreed
Amazon is shiny on the two occassions we have blacked (epoxy) the sides so have not touched and no pitting seen. Interestingly when we bought it the front was still 12mm but the back was down to 11.5 due to dragging--little point l thought to paint if steel is being worn away. On my calculations be down to 1mm 100 years at that rate!!
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Have newly registered to this forum but seem to have become wadering snail instead of wandering snail. Could this be put right please?
Welcome
Its hell in here but can be entertaining and sometimes even informative. -
Agreed. Think I have the same one, agreed. And agreed again.
Stihl can take real abuse--and yes l have all the safety gear
edit "sthil" cant smell
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Scotchlocks are a load of shite.
ETA: IMO
Is that what there called l called them "pass the suitcase thingies" stopped using them after an old minivan nearly caught fire nasty
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[if ever that was confirmation that plastic is the way to do it nowadays, I think that is it ! Plastic is absolutely brilliant, but do cut the pipe with the proper tool, not a blunt hacksaw !
Nick
After years sawing pipe finally purchased correct tool-wish done it years ago no leaks and much easier to push pipe home
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I’ve just had 3 new leisure batteries, all 110ah, installed. I have also just installed a 1500w inverter, connected to one of the battery’s terminals. I have used this for running some computer speakers at relatively high volume, and run my laptop from it to watch a film or two. I had left the inverter on overnight, and came back to a flat bank of batteries.
I hadn’t run the engine much, but was under the assumption that the power I was using was quite minimal. This appears not to be the case.
I charged the batteries for a good 5 hours on the weekend, thinking that this would get them all back up to at least 80%. However, I bought a voltmeter yesterday and checked the batteries last night to see what they actually hold and it was a rather depressing 11.69v.
I then ran the engine for an hour. I checked the voltage coming from my alternator, which was at 13.56v. From reading these forums, 14.4v is the preferred voltage from the alternator in order to charge the batteries. After an hour of running the engine, I then tested the voltage on the batteries. They had gone up to 12.20v. After a couple of hours I checked again and they stabilised at 11.83v. I checked again this morning, and they were still at 11.83v. All these readings were the same across all the batteries, and when tested separately.
The questions I have are as follows:
- Is my alternator in a bad way if it’s only kicking out 13.56v? Or is it common for them not to reach 14.4v?
- Why do my batteries charge to a level, then stabilise at a lower level?
- Should the inverter be connected to the positive and negative of just one battery, or the positive of one battery, and the negative of the other? Is this a problem at all?
- Do you have any other advice based on the situation described above?
Your help is much appreciated,
Marmaduke
Just a thought and l speak from experience--check each battery individually l did this at a Battery centre, l had the same problems and found one battery had a bad +ve post which was partially detached from the cells and only showed up when the meter was pressed hard on it. This caused the alternator to suffer and not charge properly to the others linked to the dudun.
Sorry if this has been mentioned but believe me was the last thing l checked after alternator overhaul!!
Simon
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I must stop buying these old engines, but I liked this one and I can add it to my list of jobs to do before i DIE..
It's serial number is DE13477.
I don't know much about these, though there was a 45 foot boat for sale on Apollo Duck with the same in?
I know it's pretty heavy. I'll tart it up and play with it, maybe one day it'll go into a short tug?
Anyone know any information on these, or a manual? It's missing an exhaust and the air filter pipe, but I can make these.
Casp'
Nice one Casp
They have a twin cylinder in bits at Norbury but Dave there wants it but l think l saw another in their container with some old Listers,Gardner parts etc--
Might be picking your brains on my CE2 when it comes to starter motor at least it has 2 flywheels so can use either end
Nothing on voltmeters even when leaving on all day.
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.
Diglis Lock River Severn
in Stoppages
Posted
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