Tony Brooks

You think!!! The fact that you have bee running the engine all over England has no relevance and the "for seven years" may be very relevant, especially if the previous owner did similar. I know "blue" smoke is supposed to be oil but exhaust with carbon particles in it can also look blue. Oil smoke should neither clear very fast (oil leaking down the valve stems when stopped) or get worse as the oil thins. I would suggest that having the injectors tested and overhauled may be a good investment. It sounds as if it may well be injectors to me.

Have you checked the tightness of the bolts holding the engine mounts to the beds? when one comes loose it can give dd rattles etc.

I think CaRT cut t for the festival. We went all the way and stopped at the festival on the way back a number of years ago but about three years later tried a couple of months earlier and it was as good as impassible just after Iver boatyard. The festival was I think a week ago so hopefully it may be OK for a while now. Sorry, no up to date info.

That is not what the diagram says. It says feed the pump via a 10 amp fuse (and relay) and leave the 40 amp one in place for the glow plugs etc. That is unless I have read it wrong.

As a diesel, especially more modern ones with just three rings per piston, are likely to suffer more blow by that a petrol engine and also suffer more soot particles the oil would be expected to get blacker. The job of the detergent in the oil is to keep the soot and dirt particles in suspension until the filter removes them. So oil that stays clean in a diesel for long periods could indicate its a low detergent oil and the soot is likely to be coating the inside of the engine. The filter can not remove particles below a certain size but they are small enough to do no harm so diesel engine oil tends to go black faster than petrol engine oil. Engines with no or poor filtering are likely to have large oil capacities and more frequent oil changes. In my view it is not being a mineral oil that matters, its being a low detergent oil so there is a chance the larger particles drop out of the oil rather than be held in suspension. Anyway so far no one has produced any evidence that so called semi-synthetic oil is anything but a marketing ploy. As I said I think all multigrade oils are and always have been "semi-synthetic" and higher API specs even more so.

I want to clarify this. I think the idea is that the earth pin in the generator plug is left disconnected and the earth wire in the cable is connected to the neutral pin in the plug together with the neutral cable itself. I think that bridging between the earth pin and neutral pin (that is NOT leaving the earth pin disconnected) would be likely to short out one half of the generator .

It is, in my view, extremely unlikely that a 15W40 oil in an engine originally specified to use a 20W50 would have any detrimental effect at all. It might even help cold starting in winter. Basically a 15W40 oil when compared with a 20W50 oil would allow a given amount to flow out of an orifice 5 seconds faster when cold and 10 seconds faster when hot. Seeing many engines that eventually specified 20W50 started with SAE20 or SAE15 for winter used and SAE 30 for summer use I doubt the 15W40's viscosity will have any effect at all. However in a very well worn engine it might lead to low oil pressure but as a rep for Mobile once said to me "as long as you can keep it in the bearings Brilliantine will do". I would not go that far though.

First of all until I can see an authoritative explanation for applying the term "semi-synthetic" to fairly ordinary motor oils I will continue to say I believe that all oils blended since multi-grade oil came out may be described as semi-synthetic in that the additive pack that is added to the base oil to make it perform to spec. It is certainly not simple refined oil. Even if it is based on such oil it will have been chemically modified and added to. I have been using 15W40 CF in the Bukh for some years and I have not found a problem. WE need to be a bit wary about the utterings of API because I doubt there are many, if any, engine applications that run the engine for so long and on such a low load and speed as the UK inland boat market so when they say API CC etc. are obsolete. Lister Peter gave me a paper that suggested the size of the additive pack in oils MIGHT be implicated in bore glazing so it makes some sense to try to stay close to the engine makers original/latest specification but I think you should look at the economics as well - hence my using Wilco CF oil. If I had an exotic or real trad engine I would be less cavalier about the oil spec but once properly run in I very much doubt CF oil will do the majority of engines any harm at all. What is likely to do harm is running them off load and on idle for hours to charge batteries or heat water. Keeping the revs at the speed that gives the highest charging current, which means you will slowely reduce it, not only gives the maximum load but also minimizes the cold running time.

5mm diameter for a shoreline is not that big when you consider there are double insulation layers in it. Its less than 1/4" diameter.

Actually there are still a few diesels around with pneumatic governors like early BMC 2.2s and larger. These have a throttle butterfly so should be tested with the butterfly fully open. Otherwise I can't see the relevance of that particular instruction on more modern engines.

Personally i would be saving my pennys to but an A127 with proper stud connection. Not only will all the blade connection problems be a thing of the past but you will also get a useful boost to maximum charge.

but if you did enough cross sections at say 6" intervals and then subdivide each cross section with vertical lines the sum of the volumes of each 6" slice of structure would be a fair approximation of the volume. However for weight calculations you would only use the submerged part of the hull. Too much faffing about for little real gain for inland boats I would say.

I agree with the above BUT I usually use loose cable ties when running the cables to keep them all in line and more or less in the correct position but the all get cut off before the trunking cap goes on. I also use plenty of cable ties on my own boat when adding cables to existing VISIBLE wiring looms. It makes a far neater job one the tails have been cut off that trying to tape clip or wrap the new cable around the loom. Just in case the OP gets the idea cable ties are a no-no.

Yes, with the "about" in bold text. However if the boat has never been in the water so the draft can be accurately established then you need the pivot, jack and bathroom scales method that has been described on here at least twice.

Within reason getting the for & aft trim wrong will only alter the boat's pivot point when turning although getting it badly wrong may make it difficult to handle. It is the center part of the hull that gives narrowboats whatever stability they have, not the swims so the longer the center part the less tender the boat will be. However the shorter the boat the greater the length of the swims as a proportion of the hull so shorter boats tend to sway about a lot more. Any off center weight should be counter balanced during the build by ballasting more on one side than the other so they trim with no list but naturally things like off center holding thanks will cause a small degree of list as they fill and empty. A well ballasted boat would have a small list one way when the said tank is empty and a small list the other way when full. Bow and stern mounted tanks do affect the trim but as you have probably read in other topics by not as much as you would imagine. Narrowboats do not go fast enough for centrifugal force to push the contents of the water tank to one side so liquid slopping about in the tanks normally has no noticeable effect on the boat and in any case the weight and thus inertia in the many tons of ballast would tend to damp any such movement of the hull. Your musings so far lead me to think that you will end up with a fairly tender boat.