Tony Brooks

But did you check the voltage at the instant of motor start, so not with a voltmeter, more like a scope? These are very well known for being fussy about supply cable size because of voltdrop and I doubt you can measure that on start up with a meter. Your description of the flashes does not seem to suggest a low start up voltage problem but who knows. Is the LED securely connected? Unfortunately I gave my Shoreline type ECU away to a London Boater who would not come and collect it, insisted I post it, and then said it was the wrong one so I can't offer you that.

I am not altogether sure the Sherpa ever had a 1.8 like we use, but maybe early ones did. The fuel filter should be the equivalent of a CAV 296.

I have no spare charger or spare battery, in fact my boat's starting circuit/battery is displaying some very odd intermittent symptoms so I could not trust that and anyway its 70 miles away. I might take my Halfords two stage charger but if it won't charge that’s it.

I think he is talking about the OHC diesel that Perkins flirted with, or designed, that the called the Prima

Might Merlin have sold or licensed the Smartguage to Balmar?

Might the darker old gearbox oil be from a box where the marniser tried using a heat exchanger core in the manifold as an oil cooler, which I understood caused the gearbox oil to overheat.

My views entirely. I got the impression this might be his first job and was trying to put "university" methods into practice. Not his fault really. As I am not fully aware of the insurance company requirements for lump water boats I could only suggest any need for surveys would be at the behest of the insurance company. This is why I also directed him to the Barge Association and the YBW Forum.

Just had the OP come and interview me. It seem he is doing genuine market research to the Company he named but neither ho nor the company has very much idea about inland boating, the type of people who do it, and the maintenance facilities that exist and how we use them. Did not seem to know about broad and narrow canals. I think his boss thinks we all need mandatory surveys every year so I explained the difference between a survey, BSS inspection and building to the RCD. He sis not seem aware that once bought its the insurance company who may demand regular surveys for older boats and not navigation authority/ or government requirement. I advised him to come back and ask for more interviewees who are less experience than many of us. He wanted me to attribute emotions to the stages of deciding I needed some form of service (survey, blacking, maintenance etc.) at each "stage" of the process but I simply could not relate to this concept so maybe he needs to talk to someone more prone to emotions about things that need doing. If he does come back and ask for more help he is a nice chap so please help if you can.

I suspect the OP may have the modern over hyped heaters in mind, the ones where the vendor claims they are cheaper than central heating to run and who get Canal Boat or Tillergraph to do an advertorial on them. Whatever the vendor tries to imply the answer here are more likely to be the truth.

Because the chances of a younger one having an old transformer/rectifier type charger are pretty slim unless they inherited it from an elderly person. Lest say someone who was motoring before about 1970 or so.

That gives a potential way forward. Connect a good battery and a bad one pos to pos & neg to neg and then put the charger on the pair. the good one wit attempt to charge the bad one, the apparent voltage of the bad one ill rise and maybe the charger will then activate. Next morning take the "good" one away to recharge later and keep on charging the bad one. The other way is to see if an elderly friend/relative has a very old fashioned charger (often with a meter on the front). That won't care what voltage is in the battery but just keep an eye on it and stop charging if the battery warms up or if the voltage goes above about 14V for a sealed battery. Then revert to a modern charger set to sealed.

By all means try the genny but if it tries to rev up and dies you know it can't supply the power the charger demands. The bets answer maybe to see if a neighbour could lend you a 20 amp or less charger for the next day or so. If you have the 12V "charging" lead for the generator then even that would be better than nothing but probably only about 5 to 8 amps. Over 10 hours that will give you about 50 Ah except it will be less in practice. If the genny revs up and stays running the carry on, best let it warm up for several minutes before you connect it to anything.

The one on JennyB before I changed the "calorifier" was 1.5 bar - I suspect the calorifier was actually an indirect cylinder.

but I think most of us suspect its the pump pressure switch not working proper;y because its a very common fault.

I am appalled at the OPs attitude, I suspect possibly tipsy. I could offer to drive on after my Saturday morning jaunt but there is no way I am going to unless the OP apologises profusely and then answers Alan's questions. Even then I will think long ad hard about it being a trolling exercise or not.