p6rob

Thanks for the week wishes and messages. The latest news is the op is scheduled for Wednesday, so I'm still in hospital, being very well looked after but starting to feel incredibly fed up to be honest. Rob

About 9 years ago, I had a pretty bad mountaineering accident. Snapped both bones in my left lower leg and spent 7 weeks in various hospitals waiting for a surgeon willing to operate. It was during those 7 weeks I decided that, if I managed to keep the leg, I'd buy a narrowboat to live on. Fast forward to last weekend and while cycling, I tripped fell off the bike and managed to snap both tibia and fibula in the right leg. A very annoying freak accident. Unfortunately because the skin is damaged they haven't as yet been able to insert the rod which will hold it all together. Instead I have a mecano type frame bolted to my leg holding, it together. The final op was planned for today but unfortunately the skin has deteriorated, so will need a skin graft. Hopefully the two procedures will happen either Monday or Tuesday next week. In the meantime, I've been in touch with C&RT, they're happy to let the boat stay where it is for another 4 weeks (I was due to move the day of the accident). Has anyone managed to rehabilitate on a boat? I won't be able to drive for a month or two. The boat is near Hockley Heath at the moment, so I'm thinking of either booking into Swallow Cruisers or Lyons Boatyard until I can manage doing locks again.

The top seal is a bugger to get in square. I had a similar issue the first time I changed my fuel filter, learnt lots of lessons about checking it was seated correctly but still struggled with leaks the next few times too. The only difference was knowing where the problem was likely to be. I found it wasn't enough to feed the seal in by hand, instead, get a thin electrical screwdriver, or something similar AND PREFERABLY BLUNTER to make sure the seal is pushed fully up into the housing. Rob

Deepest condolences to his family. Peter crewed with me on the 2018 BCN. A really nice, easy going guy.

After looking at lots of reviews online I bought a Creality CR10S Pro. It has its issues though. Setup is not as straightforward as they make out, getting the Y axis parallel to the hotbed was extremely difficult. Extremal temperature affects sensors, so does hotbed and nozzle temperature, so it can take a lot of time to setup between prints, this might be more because of where my printer is located in a garage, which gets pretty cold. It took a lot of faffing to figure this out and necessitated replacing the hotbed when it got gouged by the nozzle. I now set the bed and nozzle temperature up and let it settle for 10 minutes before starting a print. Given the above I'm not sure I'd recommend it. It's the only printer I've used so can't recommend anything else. Once the issues are understood and it's setup right, the print quality seems pretty good.

Potentially if there's enough interest. Happy to share but it's not quite ready for general use and I'm not sure how much further to go with fettling it at the moment.

Tony, I took on board your comments yesterday and can assure you that it fits over the studs and the notch is within about 2mm of the pointer. Rob

Thanks. No it's not hollow on this version but I'll give that a go. The first trial was a bit of a tight fit and actually broke when I tried removing it from the drive gear, so was thinking of putting a cap head bolt down the centre. Freecad. No prior experience but have been watching lots of tutorials and although half the time I don't understand the terminology, I've so far managed to make a few parts for my pre war Armstrong Siddeley car and now this.

Still a work in progress but I have now got a usable printed timing tool for the 1500. To make it involved learning how to use CAD software which was an interesting lockdown distraction. It took about 9 hours to print in total, I'm sure the printer settings can be tweaked a bit to reduce that, perhaps that'll be the next lockdown project.

That's excellent Rob! What did you use to establish the proper angle between the master spline and the timing notch that you have on the outer disc? I see in the manual some mention of 208 deg but really not sure what that means. 208 degrees from the master spline? I was lucky enough to borrow a genuine universal timing tool once. The zero degree mark is in the centre of the master spline. So, yes its 208 degrees from the centre of the master spline.

Thank you, I did wonder but when I compared these figures to NA petrol engines that I have compression ratio and pressure data for they correlated, so there's some extra info needed for diesel engines? There is a master spline and reference marks so it shouldn't be possible to get the timing in the wrong position. The outer is still a work in progress but thank you for pointing that out. I'll make the changes for the next iteration which I'm working on now. Your comment has made me notice the outer wall is also too thick, so needs a few more tweaks. I'm almost fifty but every day is a school day. Your patience is appreciated. Rob

I've been going through a similar process since my engine overheated when moored in a corner of a basin on a winter mooring, the shallow water and silt meant the skin tank wasn't effective, I changed the head gasket before Christmas but for many personal reasons it's taken until yesterday to actually get the engine to fire up albeit it was smoky, so I suspect more work is needed to get the timing right. On your engine double check the compression figures. The BMC 1.5 is a 23:1 compression ratio engine, so, according to Google, you multiply atmospheric pressure (14.7 psi at seal level) by 23. Giving a cylinder pressure of 338 psi. Edit to add: Following correction of my statement by Tony Brooks. Then account for Boyles Law, multiply the above by (according to Google 1.4 is a good number) to allow for heat from compression. So, 338*1.4. = 473. Without knowing exactly how to calculate Boyles Law. If you can measure over 420psi you're in the right ball park and if the readings are within 10% for all cylinders, the engine and head gasket are healthy. I've got the original glow plugs, so finding a suitable compression tester adapter wasn't possible so I had to modify one. My readings were 350, 350, 350, 300 I replaced the atomiser washer and injector copper seal on #4 as there was evidence of blow by. I'd also had a bit of an issue removing #4 glow plug and the thread no longer sealed properly. I then installed a Timesert insert and the readings are now all 350psi. Once bled, the engine fired up, it was smoky, probably due to the wd40 I'd used to clean some of the carbon from the top hat of #4. It was a bit too cold for my liking and threatening to snow, so I called it a day and will carry on adjusting the timing when I next get a chance. If your injectors are good and the pump's good, it only really leaves timing. I've also been working on a 3d printed timing tool. The splined part has literally just finished printing and there's still a bit of work to do on the outer ring but it's looking quite promising. Rob

Thanks for the warning. It is duly noted. Rob

I ran it on the stern with the exhaust facing over board and facing the wind flow which heads downstream from the boat. I also have carbon monoxide alarms both with lcd displays one near the stern and another just over halfway to the bow; so far neither has registered any carbon monoxide. The cheap generator was a waste of money. It lasted about 10 hours total running time over about a two weeks and now has no compression, so I've bought a Kipor suitcase generator to replace it.