Bee

There has been a couple of us with Beta lift pump problems recently, engine cutting out etc and other problems so I had a look at the Beta manual and this is what it says...... ' The fuel pump will only lift fuel through 0.25 metres, if this is insufficient then an electric fuel lift pump must be fitted' That is only about 9" so unless the tank is built into the counter, sits on the swim or something like that then the thing is always going to be struggling. This probably explains why brand new Kubota pumps are on E Bay, someone is fitting them to mowers or small plant and changing the mechanical pumps for electric.

You have been unlucky for some reason. It might have nothing to do with your problem but the canal in pic. 5 has a bit of diesel floating on it, you might have a pinhole in the tank (?) My guess is that water has got into the tank, either from the inspection plate (Very sensible to fit that) or the filler cap or some sort of problem with the tube that the rudder shaft goes through. I fear that you might have to take the inspection plate off and have a good look and clean the thing out again - this might give you a clue where the water is coming from. Water in fuel is a sod to sort out. Personally I have not got much faith in fuel additives and my experience with cloudy fuel is that it will not burn but it might just damage the engine as it is incompressible. Good luck!

You can get a visa that gives you up to approx 6 months and if you do as we do, spread your visits out a bit you can get a couple of weeks extra as the days 'drop off' the early months and you can add them to the later months. It is not ideal and takes a lot of working out but due to the f*****g stupidity of brexit it is the best that we can manage.

That's tricky, I think I might consider fitting an electric fuel pump if all else fails, simple in/out hose connectors and a bit of dodgy wiring. If you find something that you can buy online then you can get it posted to me and I will drop it off, Sorry, can't think of an engineer but Limekiln chandlers in Stourport might know of someone, not too far to travel. PM me for address etc. Might be this one in Fuel Lift Pump for Kubota D905 D1105 D1305 430D V1205 V1505 Replaces 16285-52032 | eBay in which case the pipes have been cut off. Electric pump might be the way forward

That one that I mentioned on E Bay is fitted to a range of Kubota engines.

Kubota D1703 Fuel lift pump NEW | eBay, this might be the one, if its not there are others on e bay, i have one to fit to my 43 as it has the same problem but it cuts out after a few minutes, Can't say if your diagnosis is right as I won't be at the boat till later this month but the drained filter is the same sympton. Fingers crossed.

Might find placing a sandbag on top of it helps. Not entirely joking, these things can be really hard to solve.

Is that a damp issue below the left hand side of the front door? Looks like one of those difficult to trace and fix leaks to me. Personally I have always used carpet, it is a warm surface, it is insulating in itself (especially with underlay) it is not expensive unless you choose something special and it is virtually disposable, when it gets dirty you can replace it. Its all a matter of taste but it makes sense if you have to get the floor up.

Gets under low bridges too, push back end down to get the wheelhouse under the bridge then cross your fingers that it doesn't all go horribly wrong......

Bee is coming out of the water sometime this summer, time to grovel about under 12 tons of boat propped up on bricks and old gas bottles. I will probably be using Jotun 90 but before I fork out cash on the stuff has anybody got any comments - good or bad - on their experiences with Jotun. Thanks

Depends on its original thickness but I reckon that if you examined it carefully you would find some deep pits. If you can lift floorboards it would be an idea to have a look, especially along the side to bottom joint - might be perfect but its best to know. Shotblasting would be great but failing that then hours with every tool in the box might be enough, Epoxy is the current best treatment and you might have caught it just in time - fingers crossed!

A lot to be said for Belgium, reasonable mooring costs and inexpensive licence but to get to the North of Holland its a bit of a slog and some travelling across or along serious commercial waterways. ≥ Ligplaatsen - Marktplaats is a place to start, Marktplaats is a sort of e bay but has a section on 'Water sports' and thence to 'Ligplaats' i.e. lying place or moorings, I'm not sure what the rules and regs are for boats in Holland - its been a while since Bee was there but we did spend a winter in Utrecht and it must have been reasonable pricewise. Sorry can't remember the name of the place, its small but can lift out boats up to approc 10 Tons. Google will help.

I think I would start by looking for a collapsed or kinked hose.

The points that have been raised on here quite rightly deal with the really important stuff, if you go ahead then you have to tackle the fit out. In most, but not all, peoples opinion the best form of insulation is spray foam, if this is an elderly boat there is a chance that it is fibreglass batts or even wool. That needs to come out and the boat sprayfoamed after any welding has been done. You have to budget for, and source, a lot of plumbing, a whole lot of wiring - for which you must follow boat safety rules - some gas- again, more rules, engine installation, this can be really quite expensive and then the heating, the water tanks, great big batteries, the list goes on and on. It is not impossible, of course not, but take time over this and go and see lots of boats, I reckon the best value is a second hand, middle aged slightly tired boat with a reasonable fit out. The big projects are for those whose creative drive makes them really want to do it.

Its a big project. In your situation you need a lot of luck, the boat you are looking at might be a good quality boat that needs a refit that you would love or it might be a poorly designed thing that you would end up not liking, there is the same amount of work in both of these scenarios but no.2 would grind you down and you would lose money. Who built it?? And when?? Is the engine under the back deck, a so called 'cruiser stern' (which I dislike and would avoid) or has it got a short back deck with the engine inside the boat, so called 'Traditional' (which has advantages and some disadvantages) Then there is the hull, many boats of 30 years old or so have serious corrosion issues - many don't- but you can't tell just by looking and some (but not all) boats are built with little or no thought about corrosion from the inside as well as the outside. Travel around and look at boatyards - many are graveyards of peoples dreams and many of these dreams were 'projects'

The most likely thing is the cable that operates the selector lever on the gearbox. check the oil in the box then move check the cable is actually attached to the box properly. if it is not or the Morse control is not moving the lever the lever backwards and forwards, then that is the problem. The chances are that if you move the lever by hand then it will engage properly.

Hard to really tell without standing over the engine but if it was possible to fit a bigger pulley - the usual solution was a washing machine pulley- on spacers so that it cleared the water pump and oil cooler you might get a better speed at the alternator. No doubt this would then foul the engine bearers or some other bit of machinery and the alternator would need moving but it might just work (!) Good luck, Nice engine and engine room by the way.

Run of the mill builders and repairers use blasted and primed steel in the Netherlands and everywhere I've seen in France, not sure if it makes that much difference - they tend to use thinner steel too and owners tend to spend more on maintainence. That is a lot of generalisations there and there are some old rustbuckets around too.

My guess us some sort of lash up involving whizzing chains and belts and plummer blocks any one of which would take your leg off. Probably a couple of hefty sprockets on a short shaft from the Kelvin running chains to each prop shaft. Came across a clip on You Tube recently of a motor on the front deck of a Dutch sailing barge with a shaft running across the boat and a gearbox to turn it 90 degrees, that was coupled to a long shaft with a prop on the end and lowered over the side, it had a triangular frame to keep the prop away from the boats side, getting along at a good speed too. Not uncommon in the early years of motorising sailing barges but a bit scary to say the least.

Thanks for posting these pics, really fascinating.

Couple of observations. Bee has only ever had bitumen above the waterline and two pack below. The waterline is not an accurately measured and plotted thing, the present epoxy is bright red (it was a bit cheaper) and the waterline now looks awful as the bitumen has not stuck to the epoxy and come off in big pieces the epoxy though seems to have stuck to the bitumen, it is Jotun 90 and 'surface tolerant'. The first ever paint below the waterline was Sigma and it was a coal tar epoxy, this stuff is now banned everywhere that we float and when we changed to Jotun it bled through the Jotun, some solvent must have softened it but it still seems to have stuck. I wonder if newish and smoothish bitumen is overcoatable but years of thick layers of bitumen is not? Anyway, Bee is out of the water this June so we will see. Bee was in brackish water for a couple of years so now has a horrible layer of barnacles everywhere plus a ton of Zebra mussels so heaven only knows what is happening.