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Up-Side-Down

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Everything posted by Up-Side-Down

  1. Based on my experience of this engine I'd second this approach. The excess fuel button is on the end of the pivot supporting the stop lever: where the spring runs from, to an injector in your picture 021. Just push it in before turning the key. It's a brilliant diesel engine that will run for ever if not abused too much. Parts are readily available - for anything up to and including a complete re-build - via vintage tractor fraternity. Look on Ebay under Fordson Major as a starting point.
  2. Used to know a vet once whose party trick was to ignite 'bottom air.' He once made the mistake of doing it in a cow house that had just been freshly strawed down and nearly had the whole lot on fire. Somehow I don't think that this particular flatulent milker was over impressed.
  3. If, like me, you've almost forgotten to complete that survey, here's another reminder - in fact the one I've just received from the chairman of the Grantham Canal Society - and am about to act on! In a nutshell, this waterway is a gem: 32 miles of rural bliss threading its way through delightful, quintessential, English Countryside right in the heart of Britain. Thoughtfully, its builders placed the lock flights at either end of the navigation leaving a 20 mile pound in between. If these four locks can be restored then, in conjunction with the three above already completed, something like 25 miles of linked waterway will be opened up: a not insignificant mileage, that can be cruised westwards from the charming market town of Grantham, almost to the A46 Fosseway - not far from the outskirts of Nottingham. Hi, Please help the Grantham Canal Society by responding to a survey we are undertaking. This is in relation to Stage 2 of our bid to HLF for funding to restore Locks 15 & 14 of the canal. I would greatly appreciate your support. You can access the survey readers from the website - www.granthamcanalheritageinitiative.com Select the box: canal survey The survey will only take a few minutes to complete. The greater the number of survey responses the greater the impact on the HLF committee Many thanks Mike Stone Chairman
  4. This is perfectly true - but I was happy that they bounced though!!
  5. My understanding of the situation is that HarperCollins (HCP) had a few minor difficulties meeting the very stringent criteria imposed by Apple for acceptance in the iBooks Store. The Android platform is, I believe, much less demanding. These difficulties are now resolved and it is expected that the eBook version of Nicholson Guides 1 & 4 will be available within 2 weeks. HCP worldwide have an agreement with Android and Apple that any titles that they publish on one platform must be available on the other, which will be why they temporarily withdrew the titles from Amazon.
  6. The reference to the HLF bid is on their website at: http://www.granthamcanal.org/heritage-lottery-fund/ There is also a monthly eMagazine called BRIDGE which is available to anyone who wants to subscribe - not just members of the Canal Society. Details available at: http://www.granthamcanal.org/subscribe-to-bridge-our-regular-newletter/ Thank you to those that sorted the Link out for me - and I'm truly sorry if it offended against your sensibilities Alan!
  7. In an unashamed attempt to 'bump' this thread please don't forget to pen a supporting letter ........... This a situation where a letter of support would really make a big difference to opening up what is one of the most attractive stretches of un-restored waterway in the country. On this occasion NarrowBoatWorld have come up with some timely, factual reporting and I hope that in the wider interests of canal restoration, they'll forgive me from quoting, virtually verbatim, from their piece at: http://www.narrowboa...s-funding-help. Further details, particularly with the form that a letter might take, are also available on their website.
  8. With Excel as your friend who needs enemies! Now Numbers ....... well that's a totally different matter .......... running as it does on an iPad or iPhone!
  9. THE Grantham Canal Society and Grantham Canal Partnership are in the process of applying for major funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund, (HLF) but need support to achieve this. The project is to train volunteers to restore locks 14 and 15, but they have been requested by the HLF to consider adding locks 12 and 13 as this would make it of greater value. The extra two locks are a tall order, but with the help of the HLF, volunteers, supporters and rangers, the combined partnership believe it is achievable. There would then be seven working locks and access to the 19 miles lock-free stretch of the canal, and with the winding hole below lock 12 the attraction of a 13 mile return boat trip from the A1. A massive achievement—and the Society is going for it! This a situation where a letter of support would really make a big difference to opening up what is one of the most attractive stretches of un-restored waterway in the country. On this occasion NarrowBoatWorld have come up with some timely, factual reporting and I hope that in the wider interests of canal restoration, they'll forgive me from quoting, virtually verbatim, from their piece at: http://www.narrowboatworld.com/index.php/leatest/5577-grantham-canal-needs-funding-help. Further details, particularly with the form that a letter might take, are also available on their website.
  10. It might be interesting to carefully consider the 'heat' category. Many years ago I was taught that a typical diesel engine was approximately 40% efficient - i.e. 40% of the fuel was converted into useable energy (pushing a boat along in this case) while the remaining 60% was lost in the form of heat. In a vehicle a small part of this lost energy is captured by the heating system but most is lost via the cooling system to the great outdoors. With a boat the situation is somewhat different. This lost heat energy is in fact retained to a greater or lesser extent in the form of water heating and, in the case of an internal engine room, space heating. Only when the thermostat opens and the coolant water is diverted to the skin tank are we finally not in a position to utilize 100% of the energy inherent in the fuel we purchase. My point being that, in calculating the split for VAT purposes, should we not in fact be taking into account a far greater proportion of the fuel purchased to set against the non-propulsion (in this case 'heating') fraction? In the case of my own boat, with its internal engine room, cruising in these current, and often sub-zero temperatures (where the thermostat rarely opens to allow water to flow to the skin tank) I should start off by claiming the full 60% (inherent in the heat losses) and add to that electricity generation etc. Now that would represent the time when when I'm cruising. Any other use of the engine would be battery charging, heating or whatever and therefore qualify for the full 100% - further pushing up the equation to the point where a 60:40 split is, in fact, totally unrealistic. In other words, taking into account my premise above, the 60:40 split is way too conservative and (depending on the type of engine installation; the way the boat is used - and when; etc) a split of 70:30, and upwards, would be a far more sensible reflection of reality in most cases.
  11. All 39 locks on the Forth & Clyde have similar self-filling characteristics. This one at Maryhill, on the northern outskirts of Glasgow, is a very mild example! [/url] IMG
  12. Just for clarification as to what one might be fishing out of t'cut is it a) a copy of Nicholson; a laptop running the EurEauWeb Water-Way Guides software or c) an iPad loaded with the e-canalmapp App such as the Eastern Region example referred to in a recent post? It's just that all three seem to have been covered at one time or another in the course of this thread! Somehow I feel that there might be more incentive in the case of and c) although I'm not sure whether a night by the Morso would bring much life back to either device ..........
  13. Also tends to disguise nature and therefore value of item from yoot - local or otherwise. There's very little street cred to be had when you appear to be phoning with a black brick!
  14. When - much to my amazement - I found myself the owner of an iPhone, the fact that it was worth much the same as a respectable laptop was initially a great worry to me. After all what I was doing with a phone I would never dream of doing with a computer. Then I discovered the Griffin Survivor range of cases https://store.griffintechnology.com/ for the iPhone range - and more recently for my iPad. Whilst they do nothing to enhance Apple's unbeatable aesthetics they do allow these these devices to survive total abuse and regular outdoor use. They're not a bad price on Amazon either.
  15. A few development/technical hiccups I understand - they will be back in the Kindle store and iTunes shortly.
  16. What a sheltered upbringing I've had ........ it was always the gonads that fitted that ditty .......
  17. I don't think girls have them .......... but I might have got it wrong ........
  18. Fumes leaking from the ill fitting chimney inspection door. As the chimney was cold and the air was very still there was minimum draw on the stove. As the almost dead fire began to glow and then re-ignite the gases from the few remaining partially burnt ovoids, the fumes initially found the easiest path out of the stove. Without the aforementioned draught up the cold chimney this path was through the chimney door and around the poorly fitting top plates. Usually the slightest draught up the chimney will overcome any leaks in the stove and the fumes go where they are intended. So, as is so often the case, it's a combination of factors co-inciding that generates the potential for a 'one-off' calamity.
  19. You're spot on there Chimney Chain. The castings are all shamefully poor, the three top plates have distorted so that they don't sit flat and that "ill fitting inspection door" keeps wanting to fall out altogether. The last mentioned, in conjunction with the very cold and absolutely still air, was the culprit in this instance. If only I'd had the opportunity to inspect it on delivery ............ However, I do feel the need to point out that this stove has had a somewhat chequered career having been manufactured by a variety of companies over the past 15 years or so. This one dates from 1999 and the condition of the castings from new are shameful. Brenmarl Engineering now own the patterns and sell these stoves I believe, and the quality of their brassware and the spares I have purchased for the stove demonstrate that they are only interested in quality engineering. It would be quite wrong for the stove, in its present incarnation, to be dismissed for any of the defects that I have experienced - dating from a time when the patterns were in less competent hands.
  20. On the basis that the more times these 'events' are shared, the more likely it is that boaters will fit and maintain their smoke and CO alarms, here is a salutary tale: I awoke this morning to the usual Scottish sub-zero temperatures at around 7.00 and nipped down to the other end of the boat, to resurrect the coal stove in the boatman's cabin which I riddled, opening up the chimney damper and firebox air inlet. The boat's gentle rocking, as I scooted back to my warm cosy bed under the tug deck, could be heard breaking the ice that had formed around the hull over night. I had promised myself a wee 15 minute doze before pulling on clothes, emptying the ash pan and shoveling a fresh charge of smokeless into the Epping. About 10 minutes into my now dreaming state, the persistent, repeating three beeps of the CO alarm started to penetrate into my unconsciousness, demanding my attention - which I was only too willing to give it once my befuddled brain struggled into gear. Now for the facts: The boat is about three months into its latest BSS; probably has twice as much ventilation as the regulations require + a lot of unwanted air ingress from poorly fitting hatches (all 6 of them!). The alarm is about 5 months old and once I'd dealt with the problem, it happily went back to sleep - so not a malfunction. I should add that none of this ventilation is blocked up and the offending stove is approximately 48ft from where I was dozing, close to the combined smoke and CO alarm. (Who says Ecofans don't shift air/fumes around a boat efficiently!?) I guess the moral is clear. I've also made a pact with myself to remember to test it regularly and replace it after about 5 years - kinda cheap really when you consider what it's already achieved!
  21. If you look at the listing of the individual place names in Nicholson you will find that if there is a station it will be be annotated. Those stations that are a little way away are also mentioned with an appropriate caption.
  22. With a bit of care it's an excellent solution to keeping oneself dry and the wet stuff out of a trad BMC. In the winter, with the stove alight, one is not only dry (however heavy the rain) but also warmed by great draughts of heated (or should that be 'hot'?) air coming up from below. With the back doors tight closed one can keep dry & toasty all day long.
  23. If you take a picture of your boat with an iPhone the metadata attached to that image will include a geotag (precise locational information) along with date, time and all the photo data. I'm sure this applies to other GPS enabled smart phones as well. This would be simpler than keeping a detailed journey log, far less effort and proof positive! There is also an App called Trails (£1.99 from iTunes) that records your position over a day's journey. This log can be emailed to the computer/device that you use to download your images to and the GPS data 'attached' to the metadata of any images that you've taken that day (it simply syncronizes the time the image was taken with the location plotted in Trails against time of that plot) - effectively giving your camera GPS functionality and a geotag on all your images. As someone who has to be able to locate all the images that I take around the waterways, I find this a particularly inexpensive option when compared to buying DSLR cameras with GPS functionality and means that I can use any camera and still have my images geotagged. Anyone wanting more info please feel free to pm me.
  24. By all accounts that's highly unlikely to be a possibility - C&RT are talking about a May finish now. Sorry to be the bearer of bad news.
  25. Same company as Oxfordshire Narrowboats - but at Bradford on Avon on the K&A (with a nifty name change) - have a day boat for hire: Wiltshire Narrowboats Bradford, Frome Road, Bradford on Avon BA15 2EA(01225 863987/07561 096679; www.wiltshire-narrowboats).
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