Mike Adams

I had one of these 40 years ago the hand start was enclosed in an aluminium casing and chain driven from the crankshaft. There are various scrap 2dm engines around. You could not fit an alternator in place of the dynamo drive shown in your photo so I suspect someone has modified the front end of the engine to take an alternator so you will not be able to fit the handstart if this is the case.

I think some of the CA45 type starters have a rotation arrow on the body of the starter but you can always tell once you have taken it off because of the spiral on the shaft.

That was 'Stan' on Walrus. He had a Volvo Penta engine that would he would start on petrol and when it had warmed up a bit feed lpg into the intake manifold using the manifold vaccum to operate the gas valve. It did work well as I remember although I was not sure it was safe even then. It never blew up even though he was a heavy smoker as well. I suppose you are safe as long as the engine is running as this sucks in a lot of air from the engine compartment and turn the gas off at the bottle before you want to stop the engine.

Given the colour, bolt heads and the oil cap I would say Japanese possibly old Yanmar?

I think it is something like a refrigeration unit out of a lorry. Doesn't look anything like a marine unit unless it's a generator

If the boat is in need of a refit you can get a special type of insurance that covers you while you undertake the work. I used one a few years ago but the boat was out of the water and not in use. I think I used GJW. This may be difficult if you are using the boat whilst refitting it. If the boat is empty the valuation will be low and some companies don't like that. I would suggest third party but that may not cover the risks to other boats if you are working on it in a marina nor may an ordinary policy for that matter. Insurance is always a nightmare in my opinion and you only find out the exclusions when you make a claim.

looks correct to me except you have an extra wire coming to the orange choc block. I assume this and the black hanging down were going to the external regulator. So someone has been inside and probably disconnected/changed the wiring around the rotor/regulator. Probably best to take it off and find whats going on. I think you have to take the regulator off with the brushes before dismantling the rest.

As MtB said it is better to wire the alternator output directly to the domestic battery and use a cheap split charge relay to keep the starter battery topped up. Regarding the alternator there could be several problems 1. You have incorrectly made the connections to the alternator 2.The alternator has failed 3.Some modification to the alternator has been made to accept the external regulator. There are many different alternators around but you are likely to have four connections those being Output, energisation from the indicator lamp,ground and an output for the tachometer. Make sure they are connected correctly. The wire from the lamp usually but not always will have 12v on it when disconnected from the alternator and the lamp should be out at this point. If you measure exactly 0v when the wire is connected to the alternator it probably has a problem with it's internal regulator.

I have found that the best solution for bilges that don't have easy access is to get some antiroest grease which I think comes from Holland. Heat in up a saucepan and apply by brush.A few millimeters thick coating seems to stop it completely. Also you just need to remove any loose material first but as has been said you need a lot of scale on the inside to much of steel but you can get pits. You can get it online if you search. No use where you have oil or diesel in an engine bay but in the rest of the bottom seems to be fine.

I feel very sorry for you in your current situation. Unfortunately I have come across many people over the years in a similar situation. My suggestion is to get the boat away from the yard as soon as you can providing it is mobile. I doubt you will get very far with any sort of legal challenge you just need to limit your liabilities. I have seen people spend £60k on old boats (Springers) the resulting boat only worth a third of that. A thirty year old narrowboat is generally worn out with at least part of the hull needing replating and all the equipment worn out or obsolete. Of course there will be exceptions but generally they are like old cars and life expired. I can never understand how some of these boats fetch the prices they do but there we are. To get away with running an old boat you need to be very practical in many aspects of engineering and diy and have the time to spare and enjoy working on it. For most people it makes much more sense to buy a newish boat and borrow the money.

I guess they don’t have planning permission for residential moorings either.

It is currently a cafe boat on the Basingstoke Canal in Woking or at least it was a couple of weeks ago.

That's the problem with unsupported plastic pipes - they are going to sag over time. I don't think I would trust them on an engine cooling circuit. Rather use copper or hose but it's good you've fixed it.

1.90 A litre for propulsion at a Marina on the Wey this week! I usually buy it from Asda but due to covid I couldn’t face it this week.

Find the highest point in the pipework between the engine and calorifer, get a central heating bleed nipple and make up a tee piece sized for the rubber tube bore. Mine was 15mm or 16mm bore hose. cut the hose and fit with hose clips. you can add olives to the pipe and just solder them on to make a more secure connection. You should be able to loosen the bleed screw when the engine is hot and get any air out. I did this on my set up on both pipes because the route to the calorifier went up from the engine and down again but I didn't need it so far. I think my first step would be to disconnect the calorifier pipes from the engine and flush though first to ensure there is no blockage.

If you are building it I would put a stern tube and propeller in it. An outboard powerful enough for a narrow boat (because of the size of the propeller on outboards) would be expensive, difficult to mount and get on and off and you have petrol on board. In my experience of trying this whilst it will move you forward stopping and steering is difficult. You could fit a small inboard or electric motor later if needed or hydraulic drive allowing you to mount the engine anywhere and it would make the boat more saleable should you want to sell it.

Have you ever seen this happen to a narrow boat?

I wonder how many boats actually sink due to a defect or corrosion on the hull. Not many I suspect. Unless you get a sudden failure of a doubler plate or if you start to get over enthusiastic with a hammer inside any leaks you get would be slow and manageable with a decent bilge pump. Third party and wreck removal is essential but if you are working at the cheap end of the market I am not sure fully comp makes sense. Insurers are notorious for not paying out so if your boat went down due to a corrosion issue I doubt they would pay citing failure of maintenance. A survey and docking adds a lot to the cost of running an old boat

Sounds very much like a poor connection. As you have a multimeter I suggest you measure the battery voltage whilst trying to start the engine both on the actual battery terminals and then anywhere else you can get to. You don't say what type of engine you have . I would not suspect the alternator at this stage. If you have no power at the dashboard you probably have a bad connection somewhere. You should have a master battery switch - if you shut this off you should be able to remove the dashboard without worry. Then if all looks safe switch on the master battery switch and see if you have 12v somewhere on the ignition switch - the hull is probably 0v so you can use this as 0v (ground). If you have 12v on the switch somewhere but no lights come on suspect the switch.

Looking at your boat for the roof a simpler solution might be to use a liquid rubberised coating on the roof. The biggest problem might be the joint between the cabin sides and the steel deck. You need to work out how the cabin is fixed to the deck. As stated an upstand is best but difficult to do without removing the cabin sides.

I had the same problem a few years ago. But it was not an easy or quick fix.luckily like me you have handrails rather than cants that makes it easier. The way I tackled it was to strip the roof down to the bare timber planks and let it dry out. The planking will tend to bow upwards as it dries so sanding will be required. then coat the roof with west epoxy. You may need more than one coat until you get a hard surface then apply two layers of fibreglass mat/cloth composite impregnated with epoxy resin with the cloth uppermost sanded and followed by an epoxy filler again sanded and the two coats of two pack poly gloss or Matt. This should give you about a 5mm thick roof that will be entirely waterproof, never need painting and be strong enough to withstand any damage. materials eg 40 litres of west epoxy will cost about £2k but I did this on boat in 2007 and it still looks good. Unless you are under cover you need to do it at this time of year.

Getting back to George I was not suggesting that anyone who boats more should pay more but it would allow the flexibility for Cart to enforce an additional charge in areas or at times when there is a possible problem. So if a boat say stays in a particular area for an exceptional time eg more than 14 days without a bone fides mooring then it could automatically incur an additional charge and that would encourage boats to move on. This is of course a very sad thing to have to do but there seems to be an increasing 'entitlement' culture that says I can live on a boat anywhere I want for as long as I need regardless of the effects on all other users, the environment and operation of the canal. Remember that the public purse contributes a huge amount and subsidies to all us boaters to a lesser or greater extent and it is beholden on all of us not to abuse the system and especially degrade the waterways by our behavior.

Perhaps we are reaching a point when all boats should be fitted with a GPS location tag.Whilst I consider it big brother it would bring some benefits such as contacting boats in a locality if there is a stoppage and monitoring craft that abuse the conditions of the licence. You could get rid of all those towpath boat spotters and introduce charges that reflect individual boaters usage. It could also inform is there was a mooring space at a particular location or if a wide boat was heading towards you on a narrow canal. I have found that the AIS system installed on Ships is incredibly useful when crossing the channel in a small boat.

The NT have a way of sniffing out 'doggy boaters'. I once came across one who thought he would cc at Guildford. I met him on the way up and he was gone in a couple of days. When you get a licence it says you will allow NT to move a boat if required so they would just move it either off the waterway or to somewhere where you can't get to it. The advantage of smaller waterways is that they know where everyone is all the time because they have many more staff on the ground.

What Cart should do is transfer the waterway to an independent trust who would not be bound by all the constraints that seem to stop Cart doing anything about the waterway. They could the set their own rules and regulations. You don't find any problems discussed above with waterways like the Basingstoke, Wey and River Avon. No Mooring, No Licence no problem!