BEngo

Probably similar to the liverpool boats or Springers, where the rudder stock goes through a tube in the rudder blade and the two bits are bolted together. Unfortunately it is an out of the water job. You may be able to have a ferkle down the weed hatch to confirm the arrangements. N

Find the level sensor and check that it is in working order, not clogged with sh!t. Check all the electrical connections are OK. Measure the voltage to ground/negative at each of the gauge terminals and the sensor terminals and post them here. N

Get her to use Peek, it is much better than the c@rp that passes for modern Brasso. It is also cheaper in 1l tins on line. I should think that anything from McGonagall is likely to cause multiple simultaneous failures! Sea shanties and fishermen songs might be an alternative to Rabbie. N

Not sure why you think the Kelvin will accelerate you into poverty. If you look after it properly, sacrifice a bottle of Teacher's each solstice and read it Rabbie Burns poetry from time to time it will not let you down and cost you only the oil to lubricate it, the petrol to start it and the diesel you burn. Mine has run for 30 years since it was reassembled and installed. It has been from Sharpness to Bristol , down the Trent and round most of the canal network. There have been two breakdowns: a magneto coil failure and an impulse drive failure. If you need help with sacrificing Teachers PM me. If you need help with Rabbie Burns, dont! N

Good advice. They will have a widget for measuring belt length, which is not actually the outside length, but the length at the pitch line, which is a position inside the belt. Once you have new belts make a note of the letters and numbers on them, or ask the supplier to tell you the length and section of the belt you have then note that so you can easily buy future spares. They will be something like SPZ 1218 or A 1228 where the letters are the section and the numbers are the pitch length in mm. There are equivalent imperial versions, where the length is in 1/8 inch units, so an imperial belt with length 320 is 40 inch pitch length. N

It is what I have used in the J for 30 years but it is API CC so may contain some detergents. I have not been able to find anything on the market with lower levels, though I have not tried calling oil blenders technical departments. I certainly need to take the doors off and have a good scrape out every other oil change, with a diesel wash down thrown in from time to time. N

Horses for courses. The BMC and other engines are fine on a detergent mineral oil provided they have a filter to clear out the cr@p that the detergent holds in the oil. Something like an Austin 7 ( ok itis petrol but...aaàà)or a Kelvin J,K or L is an entirely different kettle of potatoes. These engines all use spit and pray lubrication, have minimal filtration (a gauze strainer only) and definitely do not want the muck to circulate with the oil because that just causes extra wear. They need a low detergent monograde mineral oil. This allows the carbon, wear products etc. to deposit themselves as sludge in the sump. The oil change interval is pretty short and the sump needs a good scrape out fairly frequently, but oil is still cheaper than engine rebuilding. N

AKA the Autobahn tune up. N

All depends on what engine it is. It is not a Kelvin model J, K or L because they do not have oil pressure or gauges at all. It does not take a lot of oil to lubricate a bearing, so high oil pressure is only need to get a good flow when it is needed to oil-cool one or more bearings, typically the mains and/or big ends. Many old engine designs thus have 'low" oil pressure when compared with later designs and 10-15 psi may well be adequate for yours . N

As well as being a Chandler, Limekiln or its owner, built some boats. I think this is the last one. N

If it has been hydraulic locked it is a little surprising to find that the rods are OK. Maybe the valve seats had rusted and stopped a fatal- to- the- rods pressure build up when the piston hit the water. I would say that rather than a slightly downhill exhaust you want a fairly steep downhill, even if you have to go up first to get enough headroom for down. N

Go see your local PVC window or PVC profile company and get some 3mm PVC strip off them. It is available in white, oak grain brown, gray, green, comes with nice curved edges and window fitters use miles of it as bodging strip to cover the gaps round new windows. It is quite flexible so will take up a roof curve easily. Fasten it to one of the panels with some nice, small, Brass or stainless screws or even glue it to one panel with some sikaflex or similar. N

The water flow speed in a pipe can be as high as you like. There are no boats so it only matters for things like pumping costs, coating erosion and water hammer on valve closing. The energy requirement would not much differ if the pipeline was alongside the canal. But pipelines can take more direct routes and overcome hills by boring/tunneling. That increases capex àbut saves opex. The Thames Water ring main round London seems to be about the biggest pumped pipeline scheme and that is small scale compared with shifting water from oop North to down Sarf. The Welsh, Lakes and Peak District reservoir pipelines I think are all powered by gravity. Now, if you were to look at Mr. Pownall's plan for a contour canal, you might be cooking on charcoal. That, IIRC, included water transfer in its capabilities. N

No. Get a good primer, preferably non porous, on within 4 hours of the blasting being started. The will not be a little grit. There will be loads of it. Mixed with paint dust, rust and any filler that was used. Tis Orrible. Been there, have scrapped T-shirt! I also hope your blaster knows how thin roofs are. Blasting too hard can cause all sorts of wrinkling of the roof. N

ALL these water transfer schemes falter when the through-life cost of pumping the water up to the summits in the volumes needed is worked out. There is also usually a secondary problem when the flow rate and water speed needed through bridges is looked at. It is frequently high enough to mean an end to boating on the canal. The Llangollen is often used as an example of a successful water transfer scheme but that is downhill all the way and, in the scheme of things, transfers piddly amounts of water. Fortunately, or Chirk and Ellesmere tunnels would take even longer uphill than they do now. N

Gas pipes are full of gas. Diesel pipes are full of liquid. If the pipe gets hot enough the diesel turns to gas (boils). Diesel will certainly boil at exhaust temperatures. This may not matter if there is a small bubble close enough to the burner to vent out, but a big bubble will make it hard to start. Once lot there should be no problem as the flowing diesel will keep the pipe cool . There is no danger of ignition in the pipe though. I am with matty on this. If the previous heater worked OK the new one probably will. A bit of localised glass bandage wrap of the exhaust ( if not already wrapped) should keep any passing inspectors happy. N

When was the belt last changed, and were the pulley grooves cleaned at the same time? Multi rib/poly V belts are very sensitive to rubber build up in the groove roots- the belt then cannot wedge properly into the vees. Performance falls off and the belt wears quickly, and slips worse. It is a vicious circle leading to poor charging. At and immediately after start up the alternator is working hardest because it has to replace the charge you just used to start up. The battery voltage is down after a heavy current discharge but the alternator wants it to be 14.4 V or so, and goes to full output. If all is not perfick, the bielt slips. Not enough to notice at first but it gets worse every time. The problem is made worse by the speed up nature of the alternator drive. That makes the alternator pulley the most heavily loaded part of the drive and gives it a poor belt-wrap to carry the load. Since it and the water pump turn freely, I doubt there is much wrong with your alternator and what you have is just start up overload on the belt. This is common and some alternators (big beggars) have a soft start to prevent it. The current belt will be past its best if it has been slipping on start for more than a few days. So, if the belt is not brand new, replace it and give both the drive pulley and the alternator pulley grooves a good clean with a wire brush, (or a tooth brush and carb cleaner) making sure you get to the bottom of the grooves and get all he old rubber off. Then tension the new belt in accordance with the Lister instructions. It is also a good idea only to buy top- notch belts. Gates, Continental, Brammer are good names. Chinese cheapos are only any good for running a washing machine. N

A lot of the rest of the money is in EMC testing, RoHS proving and all the other "stuff" needed for a CE marking. Unless you can guarantee to sell millions they have to be paid off from early production batches. I can think of several handy electronic devices that disappeared from the market when the new rules arrived. I also think it was behind Gibbos decision to sell Smartgauge to Merlin. N

Whilst you are sorting the layout, think about weights, and services. Try to balance the heavy things ( stove, cooker, washing machine, bog tank, beer store) on either side of the boat and try to keep the gas and water pipes all on one side. You builder will thank you, it will make ballasting easier and you will not have the worry of sevices pipes disappearing under the floor. Gas in the bilge is never a good idea. Make sure there is easy access to the bilge, preferably all along, but at least near the back of the cabin. It WILL, one day, get water in it and you want to be able to dry it out. A fan, blowing air from the bilge across the fridge condenser, switched by the fridge electronics, is a Good Thing for both bilge and fridge. If you are having 240V then , like a house, have plenty of sockets. They don't eat owt and save having trailing cables. N

Talk to Trevor Oxley. He moors at Marsworth. Oxley Marine, Tring, Herts., Tel: 07931 339291 N

Inch and a quarter seems like a huge chain pitch and well overkill for a hand start. It is more like the size you would use for an excavator track final drive!. Is the Gardner part you are using really roller chain? The standard Kelvin reverse chain (duplex, I know) is only 3/4 in pitch. That handles 22 Horsepower for longer than the starting arrangements. Provided the chain arrangement will hold in the chain wheels and push the engine over compression, it can be otherwise as slack as a yak, if it has to. I reckon you should be able to get an adequate tension by selecting the chain wheel sizes carefully. You know that half inch steps fit the original spacing down to upper spindle level, and can use whatever you like below that, provided it is a multiple or sub factor of 3/4, to get an adequate tension for a daily cold start, which will experience old car style starting handle loads. N

My starting chain is 1/2 in pitch. N

What sort of stove is it? On some the collar is separate, and I that case it sounds like a new collar and a new pipe is what you will need. On others the collar is an integral part of the stove. In that case you will need to grind the old pipe off, so that you can fit a new pipe. The pipe itself is normally 113 mm diameter rolled steel tube, available from Midland Chandlers, or, more cheaply, from your local steel stockholder. There should be room at top and/or bottom of the flue for it to expand and contract as if heats and cools in use. Usually this is done by having a gap between pipe and collar that is packed with fire rope and sealed with high temperature sealant. Fire cement is useless as it cracks and leaks. N

There is no need to aim for the ability to wind the engine over by hand, at speed, if you are starting on petrol. Unlike a diesel, where speed means better compression and higher temps in the cylinder, a petrol engine will start easily just by being pushed over compression provided there is a good spark and a rich mixture. Hence the impulse drive to the magneto and the priming routine. Tbe original arrangement has neither chain tensioners nor adjustment, except by adding thicker gaskets. The chain lengths and the casing dimensions are matched so that it all fits together as it needs to. Disengagement of the starting chain is handled by centrifugal loading on the pawls on the upper spindle gear wheel and the starting handle also has a dog clutch to the upper starting chain wheel. I could measure the pitch of the originalstarting chain, if that is helpful? I would like to see some pictures as you progress, if you could please. N .

Where are the three bottom inlets in relation to the tank sides? Sometimes you need to cope with a bit of a list so an outlet either side can be useful when the tank is low. The other bottom outlet may have been for a sight glass type gauge. Just fit screwed plugs to the unneeded holes. N