Giant

Indeed, by the time you posted this Wren had already noted from the Sheffield keels thread that your boat would have been Beecliffe, and Google had found me your account of the trip in the June 1976 newsletter of the HKSPS! Apparently you went from Swinton :-) How interesting. I wonder if it can still be done.

I'm pretty sure she's too big for that route. We think she's 15'6" beam - that's what she's listed as having been built to in the Harkers yard list, and as I understood was the standard width for Sheffield keels. The locks on the Fossdyke and the Witham navigation are listed at 15'2", even if you could get through the bridge. There were Lincoln keels built specifically to go down that way, which would have been narrower and also had the top shaped to fit through the glory hole. Misterton is one of them - and I hear even they went round the coast in recent years as they weren't sure she'd fit with the modern lack of dredging. Now that is interesting. Which boat is this, and is she really the full Sheffield size? Which direction did you get there from - and did you continue all the way between the Trent and the Wash? Either your boat must be smaller or some of these locks must be bigger!

Yup, goes up to a lever in the wheelhouse along with gear, throttle and oil pressure. Yes, one piston pumps cooling water and the other acts as a bilge pump.

Ah, OK. I guess I shall keep a vague eye out for earlier copies of the manual then. The serial number is 473JPMP7 - would be interested to know when this dates it to, and whether it is the original she was built with or a later swap by Waddingtons.

She's currently at Goole and needs to get to Maldon. Any trial run needing high power in deep water would presumably need to be done on the Humber. Aha - I hadn't previously realised there were multiple types of pump in use with this model of engine, so assumed advice relating to impellers was relevant. The pump is in fact a piston type that looks like this: Where would this pump have originated then? The one in the JPM/JKM manual is the rubber gear type you describe. Is this piston one made by someone else or is it an alternative Lister option I would find in some different manual?

Makes sense - I'll see what we can arrange. I'd like to check as much as I can on it first before running it hard though.

Obviously there will be things that can't be fixed at sea, yes. However if there were components that were approaching failure, I'd hope that some of them might be identifiable by dismantling and checking for wear etc, so that they could be fixed in advance of the trip rather than waiting for them to fail at sea. Since the access is relatively straightforward we're definitely going to check and clean out the existing tanks, although I think we'll still end up fitting an alternative tank/filter system that bypasses the existing setup, switchable with a valve just before the injector pump. What should we use to clean out the tanks? There are a couple of hoses in the cooling water system which look dodgy, so I've bought new radiator hose and clips to replace those sections. The rest seems okay to me, and we'll have some spare hose and clips of various sizes with us. Stripping down the pump sounds doable although I note the manual lists some special tools for this - are any of them actually needed? By consumables do you just mean seals etc or also the impellers? We had one recommendation to carry spares of the impellers also, but I don't know where to get them. Where and how did you insert your filter?

Perhaps it would be better to start a separate thread for the topic of sea voyage preparations. We already have a rather lengthy passage checklist compiled from three different skippers' recommendations plus MCA, RYA, DBA etc advice and all the legal requirements I have been able to identify. There are many items on which it would be helpful to discuss - but would be off topic to do so here in the Lister section. The reason I started this thread is that many of the checklist items are things such as "check/service engine", "tools", "spares", "lubricants" etc and we would like to hear from other JP owners what those imply for this engine specifically.

I think we must have crossed wires somewhere as I wasn't suggesting to do any such thing. We don't even have a skipper to ignore yet, just a lot of rather vague advice from potential ones. I was trying to understand conflicting suggestions - some advice saying clean out the tanks, other advice saying forget those tanks and install new ones. To me it seemed like the safest answer was perhaps to do both, i.e. install a new system but also clean out the old system and keep that as a backup in case of any problems with the new one. Maybe that's a stupid idea, I don't know, that's why I'm here asking.

I've no problem with that but the implication seemed to be to ignore/disconnect the old system and depend on the new one, rather than preparing both and having one as a backup to the other. Not sure I trust the logic of that approach, replacing something that works with something new but untested :-)

The stern tube was repacked recently. To top up the greaser I was planning to order some of this stuff: http://www.morrislubricantsonline.co.uk/k99-water-resistant-grease.html at the same time as getting oil from Morris, but open to other suggestions. Would also be useful to know if the same stuff can double as general purpose grease for the pump etc, or if we should get something different for that. Fan belt? If there's supposed to be a fan on this thing then there's a lot more than the belt missing... If you're looking at the alternator which is in the picture without its belt fitted, that's on now. I'd been wondering about those. The previous owner didn't mention them at all that I recall, which leaves the impression that he just left it in high compression. I haven't operated them yet - will do so ASAP and make sure she runs OK at low compression.

Oh and - ...this is nice to hear, I was expecting to hear moans about the state of it after seeing some of the lovingly stripped down & repainted ones about!

Thanks for the tips on the tanks. John, your proposal sounds pretty much like what we've had a couple of skippers suggest, although I think the plan was to skip the pump and just feed down from the drums by gravity. I guess either way this would be installed by fitting a two-way switchover downstream of the existing filters, so we could select either original tanks/filters or the new setup (presumably with a modern cartridge filter inline)? The existing tanks do each have a firmly bolted panel on the side, presumably intended for inspection/cleaning, that looks to be just about big enough to get an arm through to scrub with. Would need to drain them first and get it off and figure out sealing it up again but it would let us get a proper look at the inside and clean if required (what with?). I'm up for giving that a go but it sounds like my effort might be wasted at this point as the delivery skippers we've spoken to seem to want to just distrust the existing fuel system completely and install a separate system regardless. It is indeed a dry sump setup with the oil tank mounted on the forward bulkhead next to the engine. That's the pipe coming out of the corner of it in the left of the picture. I've been shown to look inside, see the level and spot that the oil's flowing and not clogging up on top of the filter mesh when started cold.

Right then. We bought a great big boat. There will probably be another thread about that from the other half who's already on here, but I'm going to get straight to the noisy, greasy, business end of things. She's a 1953 Sheffield size Humber Keel, and still has her original marine JP3 with Blackstone gearbox, hand started, currently looking roughly like this: As I am new to this lark and now apparently in charge of this monstrous contraption I am keen for all the advice I can get! It runs nicely as far as I can tell. No dodgy shades of smoke or strange noises that my untrained ear could discern and our surveyor also seemed happy enough watching & listening to it. The boat has made four inland voyages of a few hours each this year successfully. We will be jumping straight in at the deep end however with a ~48 hour trip down the coast through the salty stuff (under command of a suitable skipper of course). So we would like to hear as many opinions as possible on what to check, what to adjust, what spares to carry, what tools to bring, what problems to watch for and prepare for. My own experience here is pretty limited - I'm the electric variety of engineer rather than mechanical, and have fettled the odd car but nothing like this. I've got the manual on CD to read through, have had a rundown from the previous owner on the basics - things to oil and grease, checklists for startup and shutdown and so on, and have just about got the knack of starting it now. The oil was changed within the last year and the engine has run less than 50 hours since then. No spare oil on board so will need to get that, I know it's straight 30, with current recommendation being Morris "Golden Film". Not sure how much to get - would be a 25 litre drum to have a full change on hand but that seems excessive. What other lubricants are needed? Currently just an almost empty yellow tin of "No. 2 GREASE" which is presumably what's been going into the greasing caps for the pump etc. What spares should we carry? The pump leathers were changed recently and we have spares of those aboard, we've also picked up two new fuel filter wicks. Someone recommended fitting a modern cartridge type filter into the fuel supply but I'm not sure I understand the motivation for that - the existing dual filters with running switchover, plus spare wicks and means to clean the old ones seems like a pretty robust arrangement. The fuel tanks are the original ones, one each side of the engine room with a few hundred litres each. I gather that gunk in the bottom of old fuel tanks that haven't rocked around in decades is a common issue when these things go to sea, so cleaning the tanks has been raised as something to do - although the previous owners did this when they got her, around ten years ago, and one skipper has suggested that's recently enough. Is this plausible? The plan for a long voyage will apparently involve oil drums on deck rigged up as a completely alternative fuel supply, but I've yet to hear the details of how this proposed arrangement will be plumbed in and secured. What tends to go wrong with these things? What do you need to fix it when it does? Right now the toolkit in the engine room is pretty much just two adjustable spanners (Whitworth of course ), a hammer and my Swiss army knife. I'm sure we'll need plenty more - but what exactly is best to have to hand? In short... !