Jump to content

Peter Thornton

Member
  • Posts

    249
  • Joined

  • Last visited

Posts posted by Peter Thornton

  1. On 01/12/2021 at 10:12, manxmike said:

    I once dropped a small piece of a wooden pencil into the air inlet of one carb on a Triumph Bonneville. When I say small, it was about 2mm and WOOD. It completely knackered the piston and the valves. I would seriously suggest you lift the head and extricate the offending item, carefully inspecting the piston crown, valves etc etc.

    I’m guessing you were balancing the carbs?

  2. 5 hours ago, midnight cowboy said:

    Community care was about saving money and trying to deinstitutionalise the asylums.  We now have people living in less than ideal ‘supporting people’ flats, isolated from others due to their social dysfunctional behaviours visited by the overworked mental nurse or social worker.  Are their lives any better?  At least this chap has some social contact with boaters like (y)ourselves.

     

    Mostly impoverished lives 

    There are two sides to this. Some of the asylums were huge and there was no doubt that many of the inmates had been institutionalised. There was a powerful “Who do you think you are” programme with Ruby Wax finding that her ancestors with basically the same issues as her had been in asylums.

  3. Just a couple of points to add. Many new boaters overestimate how much power you can get out of batteries.

     

    Firstly, you should not routinely discharge them beyond 50% charge. Secondly, most engine charging systems will not charge to 100% capacity and finally most batteries will only be working at a % of their original rating anyway.

     

    So, say 4x 100ah = 400ah then suppose they are now at 90% of original capacity = 360ah and charged to 95% = 342ah

     

    50% of this = 171ah

     

    So you will be lucky to get 40% of the theoretical capacity of your batteries, and it may well be less than this.

     

    Now go round your boat adding up your appliances. The fridge may be the biggest battery killer as it’s on 24hours a day and running for a good proportion of this.

     

    Finally, beware the inverter. Fine for running small electronic items, laptops etc but anything with heating and motors designed for a normal home will kill your batteries in no time. Don’t even think of washing machines and dryers! ( They are a whole different subject.)

     

    The whole subject of batteries is endlessly fascinating to some of us boaters and intensely boring to others! If you are in the second category then get an expert to check over your whole system. Ask them to calculate your loads as a guide and to fit some kind of monitoring system to avoid discharging your batteries too far and wrecking them in a few weeks. Our share boat has a smartgauge which is simple enough for us all to use and does the trick nicely.

     

    Lastly, if Tony Brooks says different then he’s the expert so believe him rather than me!

     

     

  4. Back to the original topic. We pay £45 an hour for someone to work on the boat and last time I looked a typical solicitor would charge £150 - £250 an hour.

    In my experience work on the boat is satisfactory something like 95% of the time whereas solicitors have been successful (in combative cases) about 20% of the time.

    Add to this the prospect of costs from the other side and I'm led to the conclusion that it's best to put the money into the boat rather than lawyers.

     

     

    • Greenie 2
  5. Just picking this thread up. 
    Years ago I did a rescue boat course on Lake Windermere and the danger caused by the propeller was drilled into us. 
    It’s something which is not much discussed by Narrowboat owners and I guess that most people who fall overboard just walk to the shore but maybe more should be made of this danger.

    Having said that, it doesn’t seem to happen often?

  6. 22 hours ago, Cheshire cat said:

    My understanding is that no teachers have died so far. Most of them are well under 60 so the risks for them are greatly reduced. They are doing a cracking jonb and I hope that will continue to be the case. We still need people to be able to go to work.

     

    I accept that my point of view was flawed in so far as children can be immune but still help to spread the epidemic.

    Unfortunately a teacher did die of COVID, back in March, in Barrow in Furness.

  7. I often wonder about the various decisions made when constructing canals. 
    There is a hill in the way. We can go round it, go through it by a tunnel or a cutting, or travel over it by putting in some locks. And the choices we make will all affect the cost of both constructing the canal and subsequently running it.

    Did the engineers have endless debates with the accountants and the canal companies? Was there any kind of scale of costs for the various options? Somewhere I imagine there are some records of these conversations, does anyone know of any books etc which detail them?

  8. We were talking about this just yesterday whilst travelling through one of the cuttings on the Shropshire Union. I think there are probably a lot more trees around now than in former years. If the canals were being maintained as a haulage business I would imagine that a lot of this greenery would be cleared out - but most of us rather like it, and the atmosphere it creates.

  9. We have a BMC 1.8 on our share boat. Experience is that they like regular oil changes, a good well maintained cooling system (ours has an expansion tank which seemed to solve previous problems) and sympathetic use. Ours has given very little trouble since we sorted out these three issues.

  10. On 18/07/2020 at 00:20, Timx said:

    As long as none of the staff have the virus, you will probably not get it from another customer., possibly.

    Absolutely right. We went to a canal side pub for a meal yesterday and I said to my wife, if the server has got it then we will probably now have it. Haphazard mask wearing and insufficient social distancing.

    However, we agreed that she almost certainly wasn’t infected (stats), we would probably survive is she was (stats again) and we would be told via Track and Trace if she was.

    In the end, we have to judge the risks and live our lives.

  11. 1 hour ago, Sir Nibble said:

    To get back on topic, I am looking into the precautions that will need to be applied to allow visitors back to the national arse. Will probably have to work out some socially distanced queueing arrangement for the gift shop and ban eye testing.

    I'm just hoping that Auto Complete has been at work on that.......

    • Haha 1
  12. Johnson on his feet at the moment announcing the great unlocking. Very significantly, he is implying that the various measures ref social distancing, meeting up etc will become "advice' rather than law.

  13. Campsites open on 4th July. Overnight stays allowed with friends and family, plus hotels and B&B etc.

    I’m guessing this means that boating will be starting again for the leisure market?
    Has anyone seen anything referring to this?

×
×
  • Create New...

Important Information

We have placed cookies on your device to help make this website better. You can adjust your cookie settings, otherwise we'll assume you're okay to continue.