Bee
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Posts posted by Bee
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Are the rads getting hot? if they aren't then water is not circulating or there is only a bit in there. Check the header tank, if the water is very low then you might be hearing bubbles or steam popping in the boiler, when the fire is out check the boiler is not leaking, this is quite important as boilers can build up pressure or water going into a very hot empty boiler can flash into steam
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Bee is not a narrow boat, she is a replica harbour tug but I reckon her underwater area is much the same a 45` narrow boat and I did it bit by bit, grind a bit, paint a bit when I could no longer hold the grinder up. That took about a week or so and I stuck at it, I got 2 coats on it and as it is still out of the water I shall put a bit more paint on later this Spring. Safety glasses / helmet is essential.
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Doing the base plate is a grim job, its worth getting a cheap crawler board to lie on. Did mine last year with an angle grinder and a large heap of coarse flap disc wheels thingys. It was reasonably quick and not too dear and did an acceptable job. Tercoo discs work very well but they are slow, I have never tried twist knotted wire brushes. I used Jotun 90. The manufacturers reccomended no undercoat or primer and to brush it on (Not roller) I did the sides with Tercoo discs in a drill and they are good but as I said, slow. I was not really removing old rust though, it was mostly barnacles and the fibrous parts of mussels, Bee was in brackish water for a couple of years and these things are really, really hard to get off and there were thousands of the little sods. Good luck.
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My thoughts are that you haven't got much to lose. Its not as if you are selling a house to buy a boat and in a few years you will not be able to get back into a house because of the way prices have gone. Living on a boat has pressures though, you will quite probably not be able to get a secure mooring and that can be a pressure that wears you down over a period of time. It is more expensive than people think, licence, mooring (any mooring) can be costly, insurance surveys and legislation as well as all the things that break / wear out. No mains services - especially electric - is a nuisance, parking can be a problem and so on. We lived on boats for 12 years and it is not something I would want to do again but having said that we do live on our boat for about 3 months in the summer so that must say something. Winter is not great and mud can be a horror, especially with a big hairy hound When it's nice its very nice so good luck.
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Looking like good work.
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Not quite as straightforward as it seems. The purpose of the engine is to turn the prop, the prop is what gives the boat the shove it needs. Big old engines turned a big slow prop, modern higher speed engines turn a smaller prop a bit faster (roughly speaking) There are complex calculations for all of this and many, many variables that clever people have done but a correctly propped boat with a BMC 1.5 will be fine, basically if you see a boat you like have a run in it and if it gets along OK with a bit in reserve then it is OK (Oh and some boats are just slow because of their shape and will always be that way no matter what engine you put in it.)
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Boats, damp, condensation, insulation, Aargh! Boat insulation must cope with temperatures of minus something at the steel whilst only 3 or 4 inches away on the inside it will be20 - 30 deg. C. that is asking a lot! In my opinion spray foam is the best stuff but even then the internal cladding can be cold enough for condensation and mould. About 6 inches of insulation might work but I'm not convinced. Even carpet tiles will not work on the ply cladding if there is condensation, a sort of dew forms on them then it all goes horrible and smelly. It really is like condensation on the inside of a car windscreen, if you can blow warm air at it then it will dry, if you can't then it will stay wet. Dark cold unventilated corners are worst and of course warm air will carry more moisture than cold so the more moving air you can get down low the better. Maybe some sort of hot water circuit at floor level might work but it would have to be pumped or some sort of fan blown device?
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No. Absolutely not. Not even on a Saturday night after the pub 'fun' with friends.
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Thanks everybody, Cool my Camper looks interesting, it's my birthday soon so I might start dropping heavy hints
2 minutes ago, Arthur Marshall said:I bought one of these some years ago. As a cooler it's completely useless, though the fan's nice. The cloth runs through a sump filled with water and ice blocks but hardly soaks up any water anyway. Waste of money.
Back to the wet blanket hanging by the door with a rope tied to the dog's tail then. Give it a piece of cheese every few minutes. Job done.
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Went to the caravan and camping exhibition yesterday after struggling with the M6 traffic and saw a few portable 12/240 volt evaporative air con units. They cost between a couple of hundred £'s up to £1000 or so. They seem to work by a fan blowing hot air through a damp cloth so obviously their effect is limited but has anybody tried them? Bee can get really hot in summer and sometimes there is no shade to moor in. I know our whippet would appreciate it unless the daft creature is frightened by it.
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As Alan says they do use quite a lot of electric and they can use quite a lot of diesel too. I used to drive a mobile library that would just about manage a week on a tank of fuel in the summer but needed filling up after 4 days in the winter.
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3 minutes ago, truckcab79 said:None. I don’t do that unless I know something. A lesson for you there.
I think you might find that Tam & Di have considerably more knowledge than you dp
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Don't use nappies to scrub the tank as some of them(All?) have little gel balls in them and you will rub through the fabric and then thousands of the little b******s will escape into the tank. Guess how I found that out.
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Yes, a bolt right through the roof would drip. Maybe locate a handy beam (probably a tile batten or something frail) and with a bradawl poke around a bit and with luck the steel beam that it is attached to will be 30x30 mm or something and will have the flat part facing down, drill through the wood and the steel, tap a thread into the steel and screw some sort of eye bolt into it and voila!
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I would say you're on the right track, If this was a 2 cyl engine it might well run on one and miss on the other but a single cyl it either works or it doesn't. If you are getting fuel to the injector and atomised fuel and a bit of WD40 makes it fire then my guess is the injector, possibly the injector pump not building enough pressure but I think some sort of diesel workshop to check the injector might be your next move. Can't be air filter as WD40 gets through to the engine. Stop control working properly? Good luck.
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It's not something I would do. You would need a 'Swans Neck' as siphoning water would be a Very Bad Thing even with a well designed system with a syphon breaker. Bee has a syphon breaker to stop water coming back into the boat but the outlet is well above the waterline so it really is a belt and braces job. As with most things simple is best so just poking it out of the side well above the water is probably the best.
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Lift pumps do fail and the 2 seconds of running before it stops sounds like it could be that. Just unscrew the fuel filter and check that it is full before trying to start it. If it is not full then it could well be the lift pump, its a quick and easy check so worth a quick look.
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The air under the floor tends to be cool and dry and slightly above freezing in the winter even if the canal is iced over. I have never had condensation probs under the floor and polythene barriers just sound like trouble to me. Problems arise if wet does get under the floor from leaks - plumbing, windows, and rain that should not get in but often does, this tends to accumulate so leave access panels so you can check what is going on below.
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There is no Glasses guide for boats unlike motors so everything is really a best guess. A survey will tell you a certain amount but by no means everything. As a rule of thumb the newer the better and of course the price reflects that but there really is a lot to learn.
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This is the same problem I had with a fuel lift pump on a Beta 43. It would start in the morning, run for 10 seconds on the fuel left in the system than stop. If I unscrewed the filter it was half empty, filled the filter and it would run ok then stop after a while and the filter was half empty again. It was the fuel lift pump. I replaced it with a new pump and it has been fine ever since. If you replace the pump I would take the old one off first to compare - there are two types, maybe more - one has a little lever on the back and one has a plunger. I also had to cut a spanner in half to get at one of the fixing bolts! They are available on E Bay. I also bought an electric pump just in case the thing failed again in some remote place.
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It's a bit like doing detention at school. A room full of people not wanting to be there and a supervisor who drew the short straw and everybody watching the clock.
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Trying to stop the shaft turning can be tricky. I put a spanner on a nut, jam the other end on something (use a bit of wood to spread the load so you dont damage the grp) and then you can put some proper effort into shifting whatever nuts you can access. repeat/swear/curse and eventually you will win - don't damage anything else!
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With this sort of issue I always start with the filter, remove the thing, tip it out into a jar or summat and give it a sniff, if it smells like old paint brushes or old white spirit it might have water in it. Put a new filter on, I try to keep a couple of spares.
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38 minutes ago, Paul H said:
How was that put together? Presumably the whole lot was rivetted originally, wonderfully patched as and when but the upper part of the stem looks to be welded
HDPE canal boat
in General Boating
Posted
My thoughts are that HDPE might fall between accepted materials like GRP and steel in durability and strength but development might take a while longer. Boats look better with curves and my guess is that they sell better too (and unfortunately cost more to make) I think - as others do - that the shape of the stern might not be too successful and handling might not be great so a mark 2 version might be a better one - look at a fish and try to copy that, There is a place for boats that are tough, rotproof, rustproof and don't need to haul ten tons of concrete ballast around just to bury the prop - especially if they are electric. Maybe there is a way to cut out and weld up the panels for a boat shaped boat and then frame it up from the inside. That might bring out the best in HDPE.