pete.i

See I told you it was all snake oil LOL.

Hi We have a Vanette cooker on our boat. It is very very old so I don't expect too much of it but it wouldn't cook a Sunday roast thats for sure. It takes an absolute age to, even, boil a kettle. Having said that I have been told that propane, which is the gas that I burn on my boat, burns cooler than "town gas." Whether that is true or not I know not. But if it is true then anything that you try to cook using propane is a) going to take longer if it takes longer then there is, presumably, more chance of it burning. Also the reason fan assisted ovens were first conceived was because ovens do not distribute the temperature efficiently so a fan was introduced to waft the hot air around better inside the oven. A similar conception to the Ecofan which a lot on this forum say is also snake oil LOL. Pete Dunno why that smiley came out there mebbe this forum is somewhat snake oil as well.

Hi The bottom (waste) tank is 21 litres and the top (flush) tank is 15 litres according to the specs. Are there not marks on the side of the blue fluid bottle? I just bung in one measure = the amount of fluid between the marks. I don't think it needs to be particularly accurate though. except the the damn stuff is hugely expensive. I use cheapo bio washing liquid because someone on this board said it does the same job as the blue but less dangerously. Bottom line is that it degrades the poop but not the paper, well it doesn't do much for the paper in mine anyway. Not sure about seals. When I tried to replace mine the lot fell apart. It's supposed to be easy! I did not find it soand ended up buying a new one from Aldi at a third of the price luckily because Aldi had them on offer at the time. Pete

Hi My chimney is single skinned but I have a stainless steel sheet inner that is wrapped / rolled to fit inside the collar. The reason that the double skin is there, as Spuds quite rightly points out, is that it diverts the tar and crud back down the chimney rather than down the outside of the boat or down the outside (and hence into the boat) of the flue. I'm not sure whether it is better to have a double skinned one, because the inner skin is attached to the inside of the chimney whereas my rolled piece of stainless steel is not attached, or not. All I can say is that I do not get tar and crud running down my boat so it must be working and it does mean that I can buy the cheaper single skinned chimneys because they still rot at the base whether they are single or double skinned, again as Spud rightly pointed out. Pete

HMMM Hi all. Looks like I wont be going either something has come up for me that I have to see to. If anyone wants it there is a room going at the Rendevous Hotel. It's a bit out of Skipton but it is on the tow path and well within walking distance of the main action. Plenty of parking. I had booked a non smoking studio room for two for Saturday overnight. £105 plus a tenner for breakfast per person. I have cancelled that with no loss to me but it was the last room available in that hotel so if anyone needs it it should be free now. So sorry for that all I wont be meeting you after all. Maybe the Crick show. I have kinda sorta plans to go there this year. Pete

OOII and no you wont be edumacated at the Canal and River Trust stand I think us education volunteers are based on the Kennet boat. Also you have to be primary school age AND you have to know about snails, spiders and other canal flora and fauna. But whatever looking forward to meeting you all later on in The Narrowboat. Hi Steve see you there. That list that Albion has quoted is out of date I think there will a couple more although my wife and I will not be eating. Pete

Hi all I'm going to be at the festival with the Canal and River Trust Education Volunteers on Saturday and Sunday so I will call in to the Narrowboat and have a pint or two with you all. I cannot believe I have only just seen this thread. Pete

Dunno what happened there. My computer shut down just as I was about to post a reply. Anyways as I was saying. I fitted a brass sump pump to my BMC 1.5 last year. I used a standard banjo fitting. Unfortunately I cannot remember the size but I'm pretty sure that BMC used varying sizes for the sump plugs anyway. I removed mine and took it to the chandlery where I am moored (Selby Boat Center) and they matched it up with a banjo fitting. I would have thought that any decent chandlery would stock banjo fittings and I am surprised that ASAP dont. I have to say that fitting the bits and bobs to my sump was a bit of a pig (well it was on my engine anyway) but once done it has transformed the effort needed to change the oil and made the job, almost, pleasurable. Hope that helps. Pete

Hello Can these people help? http://www.stuartturnermarine.co.uk/ Pete ERMM that link gives an error hang on. www.stuartturnermarine.co.uk/ Dunno why that link gives an error copy and paste the www one onto a browser that works for me.

Thanks for that all. Don't worry Mike I have absolutely no intention of doing anything to the head unless I have to which, at the moment, is not an issue. I was just curious not having been under the rocker cover to look. Having bought the spanners I was wondering I needed crows foot spanners. Thanks again all lets hope I don't have to use them. Pete.

Hi all. I have a BMC 1.5 engine on my boat. Because sooner or later I will, probably, have to remove the head on my engine and because I was reading a thread in which RLWP (I think) said he had bought a set of crows foot spanners and he provided a link I ordered the same set of spanners. My question is why do I need crows foot spanners. Everyone says I will need a crows foot spanner for at least one of the head nuts so, to be honest, that is good enough for me but why can I not use a socket. I have not looked under the rocker cover yet and have no intention of doing so unless I get a problem which so far I haven't. I suppose if the edge of the nut is so close to the block that a socket would be too thick to go between then I can understand why. But is that really the case. This is just an interest question really. I am not having any problems with my BMC so far so I am not going to look. Cheers Pete

Cheers Ditchcrawler that lokks the same as mine I will order that. Pete lokks???? I meant looks.

Thanks for that Bizzard. I will try the pump test when I go to the boat tomorrow. I can get a new pump off EBay for around £20 ish plus postage so they aren't expensive. I was just thinking of overhauling the old one so that I had a spare although the one I have has lasted 30 odd years so I doubt I would ever need a spare. Pete

Thanks for the replies. The diesel was topped up last week it took 47 litres. Of course, because I don't run the tank to empty, old diesel will still be in there. I do use an additive which, I think, is Marine 16. It could be crud but I don't think it's diesel bug or the new (crappy european forced on us) diesel because I have been using that diesel for a while now without any problems. I have been told that the diaphram in the lift pump can deteriorate and/or develop pinholes over the years and not pump as well as it did when new. The reason why I'm hedging that way is that the power of the flow did not seem to be sufficient at the bleed points before the injector pump. Thanks for the heads up about the pressure from the injector pump Trackman. Whilst I am appreciative of the warning I was aware of that and in fact said that the first thing I did was take one of the injector feed pipes off and all I got was a dribble from the it when I turned th engine over. I had expected a huge, extremely powerful, stream of diesel from there and I didn't get that. At that point my first thought was the injector pump. But having said that there was no way in the world that the pressure from the lift pump was sufficient to push diesel past the first bleed screw on the injector pump. I had to remove the screw to see any flow at all. So I think I am going to replace the lift pump, as these are not too expensive, and see how it goes. As I have said after bleeding the system the engine did start and ran fine for a hour and a half but I still don't know why it stopped in the first place other than the fact that there was no fuel getting to the injectors. Whilst I am on the subject does anyone know if there are service kits for the various lift pumps fitted to these engines. I will also clean out the diesel tanks as per your suggestion Leo, although, I am not going to do that just yet. It's okay for you lot dahn souff living in sub tropical temperatures us Yorkies (and no I didn't write that thread about a business) are b****y freezin up here, which could also have stopped my engine running. Cheers Pete

Thanks for that Bizzard. That is a possibility although the guy on You Tube did mention that possibility so I was aware that that could happen. I did turn the engine to where I thought the lift pump would be off the cam and at one point when I was trying to see the fuel coming out from the first bleed screw on the injector pump I turned the engine over on the ignition. Cheers Pete

Yep and hi. I have just posted a fuel question about my BMC 1.5. Anyway on mine I have a raw water pump screwed to that bracket. The bracket in that picture seems to attached to the engine mounting rail which is where mine is. Just to the right of that bracket is the water pump and on the top right of the engine block is the thermostat housing. If the water pump is leaking then it could, concievably, spurt hot water on to that bracket. There isn't anything else down there that would smoke so I think it's probably hot water or steam from the cooling system due to said, possible, leak. Pete just had another look at the pictures. I cannot see where the thermostat pipe is going and the white pipe just to the right of the bracket is on the other end of the engine block on my engine. That pipe junction corresponding to mine seems to be blocked off. Anyway the white pipe I assume is the return for the cooling water and if the union connecting it to the engine block is leaking it could be spurting hot water or steam straight on to that bracket.

Hi all. I have had a starting problem for the first time since I bought Keb early 2010. I know BMCs can be pigs to start in the cold but I haven't had any problems. Anyway after that last cold snap we had I went down to start the boat, as I do every other day, and it wouldn't start. There was plenty of battery and the starter was spinning the engine over beautifully but it wasn't even trying to fire. There was no smoke coming from the exhaust which I have been told was indicative of no fuel getting to the injectors. I had plenty of fuel in the tank so it wasn't that. I took one of the connectors off from an injector and all I was getting was a dribble of fuel from the pipe. At that point I decided to call it a day. I went back down to the boat today to bleed the fuel system to, hopefully, sort things out. Bleeding the fuel system did indeed get it going again. I tightened some of the fuel pipe unions up which were weeping diesel and everything seems to be okay now. I do have a couple of questions though. When bleeding a diesel engine, specifically a BMC 1.5, I would have expected the power of spurting fuel from loosened pipe unions etc to be a lot more powerful than what I appeared to be getting. I started at the lift pump and loosened the coupling to the filter. Fuel pumped out from that ok when I operated the lift pump. I worked back to the injector pump and the power of the pumping fuel seemed to be weak at the input to the injector pump but it was pumping. I loosened off the first bleed screw on the injector pump and nothing came out. I loosened it further and still nothing came out. I then took the screw right out and each time I operated the pump a small quantity of fuel dribbled out. As the level of fuel was right up to the lip of the screw hole I replaced that screw and went to the one on the top of the pump. Again I had to remove this screw completely to see any fuel coming out. To be fair the guy on You Tube, who shows you the bleed sequence for a BMC 1.5, says that you don't get much fuel out from this bleed point. The next points I did were the injector unions. I loosened all the union nuts and turned the engine over with the stop lever fully forward and the throttle fully open as per the instructions. I got fuel dribbling down the four pipes so I tightened two up. and turned the engine over again till fuel dribbled down the two remaining pipes. I tightened up those two nuts and then started the engine after heating the heaters and it started and ran fine. So should I expect more power to the force of the fuel from the various bleeding points or is what I was getting okay. It obviously worked but is it possible for the lift pump (or even the injector pump) to be not as good at pumping as it should be I am fairly certain (one for you here Leo) it is the original lift pump, as is the injector pump, so they would both be 30 odd years old I would think. I don't really know why the engine didn't start. I'm assuming that some air had got into the system from the slightly loose pipe unions or that the cold snap caused the fuel to wax and that blocked the system temporarily. Cheers Pete

Hi Mike. I have a full set of heaters I think. So dont go looking unneccessarily. If you do happen to just come across it let me know what the postage is and you can send it on but as I say dont go looking. To be honest at the moment the engine is running well. The gearbox though is playing up a little bit. In forward it tends to drop out of gear in low revs. When I speed up it's ok. The cable doesn't seem to be pulling the actuating arm all the way to the rear but I have manually pushed the arm as far as it will go and the gear box still drops out. After about 20 minutes cruising its okay so I assume thats when its hot. I havent checked the transmission fluid levels yet because I cant find the spanner that fits that nut at this moment in time. My socket set was at home so that will be the next thing I do on Thursday. I'm not too worried about it at the moment and if it does pack up totally there are a couple of recon ones on EBay for about £400 which is what it would probably cost me to get mine repaired. How are you both, by the way. I havent emailed you in along time. Keb went through the BSC a couple of weeks ago with no problems. I am taking her out of the water in, hopefully, May to have the bottom blacked and I am, hopefully again, going to replace that worn, rattley tiller cup which was picked up when I bought her. I have fitted a bigger inverter in readiness for our longer cruising sessions that I hope to start this summer if we actually get a summer this year. I'm not sure the bigger inverter was a good idea but we shall see. I'm not sure my 3 leisure batteries will cope with it but, as I say, we shall see. Cheers Pete ps it does it in reverse as well but I dont use reverse that often and when I do use reverse the box is hot. so I forgot to mention that. I did try it in reverse today whilst I was moored up and it did drop out. So I don't think it's the clutches although I am not expert enough to know that for sure.

ERRMM I didnt get a blue copy. I have just had my BSC done and I only got a grey copy that I photcopied (cos it said I could) and sent that off with my licence application form. I hope the examiner sent the blue copy off to CaRT for me if that is what is supposed to happen to it. Pete

I don't have a new engine. Mine is a BMC 1.5 and in this cold weather I leave mine on for 30 seconds and then turn the engine over and it usually fires after about ten seconds on the starter. In the summer I can get away with about ten or fifteen seconds on the heaters and then it will fire almost straight away. Pete

Yep same here. Takes forever sometimes to start especially on cold mornings. I have to hold the heaters on for 30 to 60 seconds and then I just let the starter spin till the engine fires. As you say once started it will then fire up first time after that if you happen to stop the engine for any reason. I dont know why that should be but it does seem to be a trait with both the 1.5 and the 1.8 (my friend has a 1.8 on her boat and that is similar to start.) I think as long as your starter battery is good then it will start every time, eventually. Pete

That was a good way to make people (me) find why I shouldn't Google Bear Boating LOL. Pretty obviously Google people cannot spell (bear/bare) but then they are yanks. Only one picture there but it does make one feel a little inadequate ROFL. Pete

Hi Slow cookers are good we have just bought one but not to use on the boat as we aren't livaboards, although we will be taking the proceeds of the cooker on board when we go for a cruise. But when I was in the army, many moons ago, the cookies used to use hay boxes. Basically a big thick steel box which had another steel lining inside and inside that was a removeable container that contained the food. This was either a stew or it could have separate containers that contained whatever foods they decided to put in. Between the outer box skin and the inner lining was packed straw. The contents were usually made the night before by the cooks and then we took them out into the field when we were doing whatever army types did in those days, usually practicing for nuclear war in Germany in my case LOL, the contents had been cooking overnight just using the latent heat of the contents and by the time we got to eat the contents they were still hot and delicious all without any power other than the initial cooking. Obviously in this day and age I would have thought that there would be much better insulating materials and more practical boxes. I'm afraid that to find those more efficient "hay boxes" will be down to you if they exist. But it worked for us army lads back then. Pete