bizzard

When the top housing is off it's best to check if it's mating surface is nice and flat, these often bow slightly between the bolt holes. Place a sheet of fine emery or pruduction paper on a mirror or pane of glass and rub it on it and keep checking until its uniformly bright all over, if there is a spigot ''circular rib'' you cannot do this. Making a gasket is dead easy. gasket paper available from any engineers supplies or online Ebay. Not too thin about a 1 mm thick. Place on the housings bottom mount on the engine and with the ball of a ball pien hammer rub it into the gasket over both bolt holes until it breaks through and leaves two nice holes in the gasket. Pick out the two little discs of the gasket. Now screw the two bolts back in to hold the gasket still whilst you can either tap around the perimeter and central hole with the ball of the hammer until it breaks through or probably better for you is to rub firmly all around and around the central hole with your fingers whiich will leave an impression on the gasket. Remove it and cut out with sharp scissors fo;;owing the impressions. Use a smear of blue Hylomar sealant when reasenbling.

And while the thermostat housing is off test the thermostat by suspending it on a bit of thin wire and dunk it into a pan of just slightly off the boil water and it should open.

If you buy ''neat stuff'' don't mix it with tap water especially if it's hard water. Buy distilled water or use rain water which is distilled and just filter it through a cloth first. Or thawed ice from a fridge.

I'm on a river and I wouldn't go anywhere without my tackle.

Generally the faster you go the bigger, deeper and wider the catchment area becomes, sucking rubbish like plastic bags off the bottom ect. Leaving a lock especially the top I always get a bit of speed on in the lock and then drift well past exit in neutral to avoid the crap build up before re engaging gear.

If it is the Owen's Bix it is a Harborough Marine boat built in Market Harborough and most likely has a Lister SR3 engine. Wet bilge boat.

Ok. To revive the fire if it's nearly out, don't poke it at all just open the bottom vent fully and open the door by about 1/2'' ajar. When it's burning red again then gently poke the grate and put more fuel on. This holds good for all multi fuel stoves really, I've installed many stoves for folk and showed them the best way to use them. Chinese stloves vely glood tloo, glood clast ilon that not bust like way over pliced Morso.

Sounds like the grate gets blocked with ash. Should be enough gaps without making them. It's usually best to give the grate a good poking with the poker to clear ash each time you put more coal on.

Is the water still hot when it trickles ? Could be prostate trouble.

It probably sank stern first with all that overhang weight at the rear. VW See-saw's we called em, appalling weight distributon.

Be jez. Oi dumped an Amphicar in there and it wouldna sink.

A bit like the by products produced from the retort of the old town gas works. Working down, gas, ammonia sold off for aluminium making, naphthalene, benzol, Prussian blue. anthracene oil, and tar, bitumen. coke, clinker for land drainage and for making breeze blocks, finally Cobolt eventually devlops in the gas works slag heaps and sold of for paint pigments and maybe bombs. All from lumps of coal. Incredible.. I forgot. Soot for fluride in toothpaste,

On the other hand a wooden top boat will be much cooler inside in the summer and warmer in winter.

Ah an old MM series. Interesting. They used the pre war Morris 8 S/V engine of 918cc. Those engin had thermo syphon cooling system, so no water pump. The heater needed a water pump to circulate hot water around the it and so a stand alone pump had to be fitted. This pump was on a spring loaded pivot and had a large alloy wheel which was driven by running on the outside surface of the cars nomal fan belt, being spring loaded it kept in contact. This conversion could be fitted to other thermo syphon cooled engined cars. The Morris Minor usually had a KL I think but there were several other makes similar in those days. Depicted are the MM Morris Minor and the pre-war Morris 8 with the same engine.

What year was the Morris Minor ?. Heaters were not fitted by most of the car manufacturers but by the main dealers who on instruction from a prospective customer would fit the heater at the cars pre delivery check over. I used to fit all the heaters gubbins to Vauxhall FB and FC Victors and Triumph Heralds, Spitfires.

Could have been a KL or Tudor heater, similar to the Smiths.

When the windsreen froze over you kept placng the palm of your hand on the screen to thaw it and make a port hole to peer through. Worked faster than an electric element type.

The variable speed controller would have been an extra option. A rotating knobbed rheostat switch fitted on the dashboard. Some had one fitted directly on the heater body.

fitted them to the cheaper E93a, ect. Standards from about 1936 to the late 1940's had cable brakes, Standard 8, 10, 12, 14 and 16.

The more expensive Mk1 and M2 Consul, Zephyrs and Zodiac also had vacuum wipers but with a vacuum reservoir tank to keep the wipers going when accellerating. We sometimes fitted them to the cheaper E93a, ect. I forgot the Fraud E83w, 100e, 300e and 400e also had vaccum wipers.

Made by Smiths, should have had a fan and a variable speed control knob. Fitted as extra on many old vehicles, Land Rovers for example.

Vehicle body Hydraulic hand operated PortaPower for example

Contact the RAF at Brize Norton or USAF at Milden Hall. They have Chinook jellycopters which should lift the boat enough to free it. Not joking, they sometimes want a challenge and something proper like this to do instead of just flying about wasting time, fuel and our taxes.

For nice clean washing you need a rubbing board as once used in Skiffle groups. No need to rub your waxhing on rocks to clean em like they do in certain 3rd world countries. Here;s how to construct one. Obtain a lump of 18mm plywood about 2ftX1ft and a few strips of 1/2 round wooden beading, some wood glue, Gorilla glue is very good and some varnish, a handful of small panel pins. Pin and glue lengths of beading across and down the 2ft length of plywood at about 1'' intervals. Leave to dry. A couple of coats of varnish, leave to dry and your new rubbing board is ready for rubbing your washing. You can still buy em in some oil shops though.