Chris M

I went through this area last weekend. We set off from Curdworth on saturday morning, stayed by the NIA over night and finished up at Shirley draw bridge on the Stratford on sunday evening. By the time we got to the Aston fligth we'd been stoned from bridges twice. Cuckoo wharf was packed out with BW work boats. There were at least 30 people loitering between the bottom and the middle of the farmers bridge flight which wern't a problem but scared the crap out of the girlfriend. We were woken at 1.30AM by boats that had been set adrift bouncing off of our boat. Then on sunday we had stones dropped from Brandwood tunnel followed by another stoning from back gardens. All in all my experience of Birmingham was really not that great, I certainly won't be going back in a hurry. <rant mode off>

I've just read elsewhere that he's moving the site to another server for whatever reason. I hope it's back online soon

Well I'd at least push for a 25% license discount for mooring on a disconnected waterway and get it back dated 18 months. license fees and conditions clicky Alternatively, pay nothing. It's not like they can crane you out or tow you away! It might get the maintenance done quicker then you can get on with enjoying the canals that you've paid to access!

I'm assuming you are replacing a conventional engine and hurth gearbox setup. Bear in mind that the hurth box reverses the direction of the propshaft when in forward gear (pos A). Turning an engine around and driving the propshaft direct with a belt and pulleys will not require a prop change!

Correct, running in reverse for long periods is bad. The ZF marine website has the duty ratings for each direction - Clicky The ZF 10 is the new name for the old Hurth 100. Correct, the 2 means 2:1ish reduction. They normally have a plate that has A=X.XX and B=X.XX 'A' being the forward reduction ratio and 'B' being reverse reduction ratio. The R indicates right handed. I can't recall whether this means righthanded prop or right handed engine rotation but it is the most common. Some old Petters for example were left handed.

If you're still stuck next weekend I'll be heading through that way.

I used the Coventry branch of 'Timbmet Silverman' last year. They appear to have dropped the silverman name and I can't find reference to the Coventry branch on the new website so maybe they aren't there anymore, however they deliver for free if you spend a reasonable amount of money with them. Timbmet clicky

You'll need to use a belt and pulleys to gear down the motors by about 2 to 1, then of course you also need some kind of thrust bearing for the propshaft.

All of the gears are constantly meshed to each other so the diagnosis of 'two gear wheels just touching' is unlikely to be the case. The gearbox oil thins as it warms, it only warms when under load which I think would explain the timing of your problem. The hurth boxes can be fairly noisy when unloaded, more so when the oil is thinner. They are quite simple devices, the only thing that can really go wrong with them is the bearings and worn clutch plates, maybe time for a refurb?

Weltonfield marina a mere 4 miles away, 70p

"I would echo the previous post - Graham Reeves was a delight to deal with when we had our boat built back in 2000." I'd like to echo that too! I got my shell from Reeves in 2005 having visited several other shell builders, Liverpool Boats included. At the time his prices included a stainless steel water tank. He chucked in steel front and side doors and fender eyes etc all of which Liverpool boats wanted extra for. In the end it cost 10's of pounds more than Liverpool boats not thousands! Make sure you are exact in specifying the shell as they are prone to mistakes. The boat before mine had the wrong shape window apatures and on mine one of the side hatchs was a foot out but to be fair were rectified quickly and the shell delivered on time. I also had a pinhole in the diesel tank but Graham came out to my mooring and fixed it. I would certainly use them again. While you are in the area make a poinit of visiting Colecraft too, they are only up the road.

Is the shell painted? If it's only primed I wouldn't expect the windows to be sealed.

...such as a cycle computer. The upmarket ones have a feature called 'cadence' which is the RPM of your pedals. They can be picked up for around 25 to 30 pounds with this feature. You might even find that one of the really cheap £6 ones could do the job if you set the wheel circumference to a proportional figure the speed reading could actually be made to read RPM.

They crossed the private land I mentioned above to cut down a tree. Once in a blue moon that happens but there are cases where it's required to cross other peoples land. They might one day turn up unannounced and lay a pipe or cable through the plot!

I share an end of garden mooring with 4 other boats. The bankside belongs to BW. To access the mooring I must cross private land. 2 years ago the private land changed hands and whilst the solicitors were dealing with the land registry somewhere along the lines BW got involved and started billing £600 per annum for rental of the 'end of garden'. The agreement is for 85 meters by 3ish meters. This year the charge went up by the rate of inflation. How much land are they trying to charge for? does our rate compare ??

Check these out Clicky The Americans also have an electric car based on an Ariel Atom.

Assuming the unit stays stone cold, sounds obvious but make sure there is plenty of diesel in your tank! The feed to my Eberspacher unit is 2 thirds of the way up the tank so that you can't burn up all the diesel and therefore not get to a refueling point. Also there may be an airlock in the fuel line as a result of previously running the fuel tank low. My Eberspacher will only try to fire up for a minute or so before giving up. You may need to try and start the unit several times to pump through the diesel. Another cause could be the battery voltage dropping. The glow plug puts a reasonable amount of load on the battery. I'm not overly familiar with the Webasto but my Eberspacher unit actually has 2 Fused supplies, one for the control circuitry and water pump etc and another for the glow plug, It would be worth checking this, Chris W, maybe you could confirm this? So in summary diesel boilers cut out for any one of 3 things - 1 Over temperature - (as Chris W points out, air lock or water pump problem causes this) 2 No fuel 3 Low voltage

I'd try putting 2 nuts on the end of the bolts as a locknut and try to get them moving from that end with a spanner and a bit of tube as an extension lever. That pipe needs more support. My exhaust is far shorter than that and the same thing happened.

I moor just to the east of Braunston tunnel so I went for a trundel on my bike tonight just in case. I can confirm that Holly isn't at this time between Braunston tunnel and cracks hill just north of Crick. I spoke to Moleys cousin 'vole' near Norton junction and he'd come from Welford today and was at Foxton yesterday, he was 99% sure that he'd not seen Holly but he did go up the Welford arm so may have missed it. If these sightings are THE Holly then it's surly just a matter of time Chris

The prop will rotate freely in the opposite direction whilst in gear. So I think sailing forwards with reverse engaged is ok. Forwards engaged would back drive the gearbox and potentially slip the clutch leading to premature failure. How long failure would take is anyones guess. The engagement of the gear lever is very positive. If you disconnect the cable and try it by hand it is easy to see how far the lever needs to be moved. Pushing or pulling the lever beyond the engagement point makes no difference.

Yes these boxes can be run in reverse continuously as long as you fit the optional oil cooler. However the handing of the prop and the option of running the box in reverse are irrelevant here. The key point is the rotation direction of the engine. This box is built for an unconventional rotation engine. If this box was fitted to most engines it would simply slip the clutch when a gear is selected. I took all of the parts off of the output shaft today to replace the bearings and examine the clutch plates. The photo below shows the centre pieces of the double clutch assembly. When rotated in one direction these plates are forced apart by the ball bearings riding up the channels, this in turn squashes the clutch plates and gives drive. If the engine or prop is rotating in the wrong direction (as mine would be) these plates are not forced apart so there is no drive. This is designed in so when switching from one gear to another the prop must stop before the clutch plates are pressed therefore reducing wear. So in conclusion, no I can't just fit the clutch assembly the other way over. However I could source and fit an alternative clutch assembly. One thing I did consider was swapping the gears over and building the gearbox the other way up but as the forward and reverse ratios are slightly different this was also not an option. Anybody got a dead Hurth box they want to sell me ??

I'm fairly sure that the Boat Safety Scheme states that you can't use a duel fuel engine. However you can use an engine designed to run solely on LPG.

I believe it may have been fitted to a lister ST2. Is this the engine you refer to? I'm going to strip it down and take a look later. There's nothing to lose and if nothing else it'll be interesting to do. I'll try and get some pics of the clutch assembly in bits.

It has a multi plate wet clutch. The gears on the output shaft are free to rotate on the shaft. The clutch locks one or the other of the gears to the shaft. When in gear the clutch allows power to be inputed in one direction only. If you input power in the other direction the clutch slips. This is presumably designed in to allow slip when quickly changing direction as the prop has significant inertia. The rotation direction of the engine is significant. My engine with the left version of this box will just slip the clutch continuously. My question is can the box me modified / reconstructed to reverse the action of the clutch? I''ve uploaded a couple of photos to show the design.

I've inherited a pile of bits that was once a Hurth 100 2.0 L. It's all there and with new bearings should be as good as new but my engine needs the righthanded version. I've never had the clutch assembly apart on one of these and I don't pretend to understand it but as far as I can tell (apart from the selector being on the other side of the box) the only difference is the direction of slip on the clutch. Is it just a matter of fitting the clutch assembly the other way round on the shaft ??? I'm guessing not but if you don't ask you'll never know. Any gearbox gurus here ?