Secret Garden

Hi Dr B. We're currently at the Strines if you continue through Marple on to Whaley Bridge or the basin, wave as you pass, oh I hope you don't draw too much as there's not much water left up here.

On day 3 of ownership of the Omnisat 40cm camping I found the right satelite within 3 minutes (including getting all the bits out of the cupboard) The dish itself is black plastic & I'd imagine fairly fragile & I can't get the vacuum cups to work at all, so I don't know what's going to happen when it gets windy, are the LNG's waterproof ?? At least 10 channels with great reception, only nothing worth watching !

Brainwave ! I'd happily share the good bits of what I've learnt SG

Secret Garden's inboard generator is water cooled too but uses a secondary circuit & skin tank (owing to likely amount of debris in the canal, suicidal fish is a new one to me however !) For cheapness I guess the manufacturer utilizes the aux power take off facility from the little Perkins 102 to run the circulation of the secondary circuit, the positioning of said pump has to be seen to be believed, a good hour's work just to get to it & then somewhere like the tow path to put the soundproofing panels. Now for some reason that I can't fathom the small plasticized rubber impellor is a normal wear item, when my unit over heated there were no "blades" left at all. They have fitted a thermal cut out switch (2 in fact) but not bothered with a gauge which would have much more handy. I'm going to supliment this secondary pump with one I can see & get to, eventually Consequently I'm still paying the Government's road going petrol tax for my electricity...

Hi Does anybody know where I can get some brass (coloured) air horns from ? I'm told that Ongaro have discontinued them & only do chrome plated brass now... There's a beautiful pair on Ebay that came off a steam ship but weighing in at 28lbs I think they might be a bit over the top ! Hoping there might be some old stock around but I've not found any yet Many thanks

I'd say that "most" peoiple would consider the age to be as from when the fit out was completed as this is the date from which things really start to age through use. The only reason that I would consider the age of a hull would be with a view to it's paintwork but quite often the final painting is only done at the end of fit out anyway.

P F Jones Ltd Nuttall St. Old Trafford Manchester M16 9JA Best regards Steve

E spares seemed to be able to get the bit if you know what you want ? Mine needed a new controller / thermostat & they had that in stock Fridge/Freezer Thermostat K49-P1459 E1730 (ES920592 Surprised that you are seeing 14.5v at the fridge ?

Now this is a more interesting turn in the debate...

When I first bought my boat she was about 7 years old and had been rather neglected (and unused I suspect) for some time, so not surprisingly the central heating system along with most other systems didn't work properly and not at all reliably. It's an Eberspaecher diesel 5kw system that kept blowing fuses and glow plugs, amongst other failures. Being short of time and non to the wiser I had a boat yard "service" the unit. £300 later and all was well, albeit with summer approaching. Then things started going wrong again, and again, and again with the same symptoms. Eventually I stripped out the combustion chamber to de-coke it myself, job done I thought. I noticed at the time too that somebody had fitted a fuel flow control valve before the metering pump, wrong ! this is now opened fully ideally it should be taken out. With still getting blown glow plugs I eventually gave up & took the whole d@mn thing to a dealer in the Trafford area of Manchester who claimed that he could service it properly. (these units are based on truck cab heaters that are supposed to be serviced every year). When I got it back 3 days later it looked like new, acid etched cleaned apparently, including essentially the fuel atomising area that the DIY guy can't get to ! So all for the Princely sum of £90 I now have a heating system that works superbly, didn't miss a beat right through the recent cold snap let's call it. My advice to anybody suffering with one of these systems is to strip it out including control box which takes about an hour in my boat, or get it taken out and deliver it to such a dealer who can then clean it and test fire it to measure emmissions / correct combustion & deliver back as new... Just wish I'd done this 3 years ago !