Tony Brooks

True, but in days gone by it was probably running on high sulphur gas oil so the oil would become fairly acidic.

Yes, and from his other posts I think he was talking about using it on the Basingstoke canal or the river Wey, Neither of which are CaRT so he needs to check with the Canal Authority or the National Trust.

I had just one of the perforated metal ones fail. It rusted through, but it was off an ex broads boat and I suspect it had sunk in salt water and the engine was not popery flushed. The oil was certainly grey. Apart from that I agree, never seen another one fail.

but lower melting point silver solder might stick.

I think the mesh in your strainer is soldered into the hexagon and the aper base - maybe silver solder. So if needs must you may be able to de-solder it and the get some copper or brass mesh to fit into those parts.

and with well discharged batteries or lithiums in any state of charge, so possibly not as vital as with other circuits.

The faster you discharge a lead acid battery, the less electricity it will provide, it seems odd, but please just accept it. When I started in a battery shop the rate at which the batteries were discharged was full to flat in 10 hours, while batteries for electric fork lifts etc were often discharged from full to flat in 5 hours, but for many years now our sort of batteries have been test discharged from full to flat over 20 hours. Some "wide boys" quote the figure for the full to flat discharge over 100 hours. So there we have C10, C5, C20 and C100 discharge times. Now, if the faster the battery is discharged the less electricity it will provide is true, and it more or less is, then a C5 rating for a given battery will give fewer Amp hours than the same battery discharged at C20, while the C100 rating will give more Ah. Hence, the Ebay battery claiming 110Ah @ C100 is actually an 80Ah battery as far as most people are concerned. The designed cyclic life is different, It basically tells you how many times the battery can be taken for fully charged down to a specified degree of discharge, which will rarely be 100% discharged. Often it will be something like 150 cycles to 45% charged, cheaper batteries often quote fewer cycles and higher maximum discharge, while expensive ones far more cycles to a greater depth of discharge. At this point it is important to note that arguably the majority of boat batteries die because they have lost capacity to sulphation, not because they have run out of cyclic life, so while avoiding really cheap batteries may be wise, spending a lot is probably unwise unless you have battery monitoring, know how to use it, and keep them as fully charged as possible. Also note that the advice to rarely discharge below about 50% is an attempt to use up less cyclic life. As a very poor illustration using a mythical battery specified as 200 cycles to 100% discharge, if you only discharge it to 50% you sortof double the number of cycles available to you. So, to avoid comparing apples with oranges, always seek the Ah at the 20 hour rate (C20). To maximise life choose, within your budget, a battery with the greatest number of cycles to the greatest depth of discharge, but remember that effort will be to no avail if you don't keep it as fully charged as reasonably possible for as long as possible. I hope that is clear enough, come back if not. Not me Mike, seems fine.

I agree with this. Fitting as much as you can fit on the boat, or as much as you can afford, will allow a meaningful solar charge earlier and later in the year, even if in high summer potential charge is wasted.

Here is another one stranded by floods. Just be aware of the dangers and act accordingly.

I think that is the best way PROVIDING your soldering skills and the iron is large and hot enough to just solder within the crimp while preventing it wicking done the cable. If it does wick down the cable, then it MIGHT (or might not) snap with vibrations.

I would suggest a third and possibly a fourth. When a river rises then unless you have something that keeps the boat in the channel it is likely to float over the bank so when the river falls it is either left high and dry or, if only one side is over the bank, falls over sideways into the channel. Then there is the danger that may result from wading through fas flowing floodwater to get to the boat and away again. You can use a stout hinged horizontal A frame at the upstream end and a single hinged pole at the downstream end that allows up and down movement but holds the boat away from the bank. You just have to pray that the bank end mountings are strong enough to resist a fallen tree hitting the boat and the build up of rubbish between boat and bank that always seem to occur under flood conditions. I think that I would rig stout flood lines between the boat and a suitable strong point ashore as well during the winter.

Give Calcutt Boats a ring or look at the Vintage Tractor magazines.

Unless you want to enter the canal system at Limehouse or Brentford (London), go into Bristol at certain tide states a few times a month, or the lower reaches of the Trent or Severn then you can forget about being tidal. For the majority of summer the rivers are unlikely to be in flood, but with the way weather is changing there will be periods of a few days or a week or so when the flow will increase. Then it is best to stay tied up. During the winter, all the rivers may go into flood and rise several meters. For those, you need special moorings or attend the boat several times a day and night to adjust lines and push it back away from the bank. Marina moorings on rivers are usually safer. I found very little difference between summer cruising on canals and rivers in either a variety of cruisers or a narrowboat BUT on rivers when the flow goes up either says tied up or learn when it is unsafe to navigate, how to use current and eddies to your advantage, and learn ow to read the water so you know where the current is going. That will eventually come with experience if you keep your eyes open and are aware of what the current is doing to the boat.

If the ZF10M is the new name for the Hurth, then auto transmission fluid - Dexron, the number does not matter, get the cheapest. e.g. Dexron 2. It is normally red in colour. The manual I got from Google is clear on it being Automatic Transmission Fluid ,ATF. Dexron is just one name t goes by in the UK.

not sure if tihs is any help, but such engines usually sit on timber bolted to the beds, probably hard wood. So I suppose it may come down to the cost of such thick timber against the costs of supply and welding a steel box section onto the top of the beds.

First of all, I think you misunderstood the power audit. You do not put in everything you want to run off the batteries. You put in what items and how long you will run them in a 24 hour period, or even just the time the engine is turned off for from evening to morning. Over a period things you don't use every night should even themselves out as long as you put a representative number in. Anyway, whatever you come up with is only a rough guide, so you plan on a semi-decent basis and not just guess work. If we assume a typical (not 30 amp) then using things like the air frier whilst moving will, in a great part, be covered by the alternator, so nor supplied by the batteries. I through I had given you some pointers as to DIY or paying someone, but suspect the talk of series, series parallel, and parallel connection of the solar panels may have gone over your head. If you are happy with parallel connection and can drill & tap unless you intend to glue the panels down then if you can work with 5V DC circuits you should be equally at home with 12V DC, but you need to take care over the cable sizes in longer runs. If you want to connect them is parallel or series parallel and are worried about what up to 100V DC may do to you then pay someone, but get all the information re switches and/or fuse locations first. It would be a very unusual boat that has twin alternators plus a split charge system, although some people use split charge system components to parallel up twin alternators in the hope of getting a faster charge. Unless the boat already has battery monitoring equipment installed, then you should budget for that as well, otherwise you will have very little idea about "be carefully picking and choosing what to turn on". There are gotchas with many battery monitors, but we can explain that to you when you get the basics sorted. It is all to easy to destroy LA batteries within weeks unless you are on top of the charging.

I can't think of anywhere on the Thames that looks like that, so I suspect the Midlands Avon or the River Wey, but as I think the EA provides the weirs and operates them on both navigations I can't see any EA signs. What looks like an old mill and probably now a pub in the background should help identify the place.

My understanding is that if you have registered a home mooring with CaRT then you can go back to the same spot, BUT you may have to satisfy CaRT that you were back in the marina in between.

He said 30 amp alternator, I said 15 amps average over 3 to 4 hours because that is roughly what it will work out as with lead acid batteries, and as he talks of adding extra ones I don't think he is contemplating Lithium. I wonder if he has a 1, 2, Both, off type switch that has been badly explained to him. If not the system is far more complicated than it needs to be.

Brian showed you an EBay add, have you not Googled it yet? Put "Convex clock glass" (no inverted commas) into the Google search box and hit enter.