crossley

I have one of those, though mine is 24V 25A. With 3 isolated outputs of 8·3 amps each totalling 25 amps. Though quite how it monitors 3 seperate batteries with one set of led"s I haven't worked out. Anyway, I have two outputs going to the domestic battery, and the third to the starting battery. Both via fuses to the battery side of the isolator switches. I have a vsr between domestic and starting batteries. My unit seems to work ok off shore power, but doesn't like my little petrol generator. It just sits there putting about 6 amps in no matter how long I leave it. Tried a bigger 1.5 kw genny but it made no difference. Tbh I don't use it now, as I don't have shore supply, just put th he bulk back with main engine, and top up with solar. So yes, combining all the outputs into the domestic battery should improve the charging rate by a third.

I was going to suggest what used to be called "acorn nuts" but those look taller. Try brian popes in Stockport 0161 480 8322. He has all sorts of odd imperial oddball stuff. Or there's a non ferrous material supplier in Salford who will sell you the hex bar, to run them up yourself. Like others have pointed out, UNC ones will do, if you can't get whit, though the A/F size will be different. 3/8 whit is 0·600 A/F. Whereas 3/8 UNC is 9/16 A/F . Doesn't really matter if your replacing them all.

I have used both, and they do work, vactan is I think tannic or phosphoric acid, and smells vinegarey, whereas the aquasteel smells of nothing in particular. I borrowed a gallon of it to try out, it seems to work to some extent. The blurb said it was ok under blacking so I gave it a go. It dries to a latex clear slightly rubbery finish. It does need to be shaken up well as the active ingredient must settle out then it won't work. I would like to uhp blast the hull and 2-pack epoxy, but I'm stuck with rytex for now.

The pressure washer I used last year at Portland basin drydock was I think 300 bar with a good flow. You should need ear defenders if that's anything to go by, it should make a right racket and nearly blow you of your feet. When I first bought the boat, I had it pressure washed and wire mopped then I think two coats of rytex. A year later I had millions of tiny rust bubbles all over everywhere. I think the blacking was put on too thick, and they had rollered air bubbles into it. Wasn't impressed with it. Docked it last autumn, used the above dock and washer, which revealed millions of little bright pits, maybe active "cells" where the bubbles once were. Instead of smearing over the pitting with a wire wheel and slapping more rytex on, I put two coats of "aquasteel" all over, and lathered plenty along the rubbing strakes and any welds etc. Left overnight to go a nice blue colour, then painted, not rollered a thinned down first coat of rytex, followed by two more thicker coats. Up to now no more rusticles, touch wood. I happened to have a gallon of the aquasteel aboard, it was more than enough, it's bit like painting milk on.. plus it saved wire mopping the hull with a bloody great angle grinder. Oddly enough, one side of the rudder was quite pitted, the other side ok. There are no anodes on the rudder, or any earth bonding.May add both at the next docking . I'm not on shore power either. If your docking schedule will allow, try the aquasteel under the blacking. Seems to have worked for me, with rytex anyway.

If it were my engine, I'd have the oil filter removed and opened for inspection after such an incident. Cut it open with tin snips and examine th e paper element within for metal particles. Just hope you don't find any. Filter ought to be changed after such an event anyway. This is exactly why on ship engines they have two stage oil pressure monitoring. Ist stage is an alarm, second stage is a shutdown. Particularly in unmanned engine spaces, it is a Lloyd's requirement.

Been down this road, inverters and 240v c/h pumps don't mix. The power factor is low on this type of motor,and inverters don't like reactive loads. Burnt out several pumps and a couple of inverters, even the sine wave ones don't like reactive loads. Go for a brushless dc pump instead. They use far less energy. Inverters are rated at their resistive loads, manufacturers are pretty coy about the reactive load ratings.

I'd have taken him at his word. Opened it right up for a bit,hope he likes exhaust smoke. My gardner can lay on a good smoke screen if you wind it right up. He`d soon back off. Failing that Chuck a length of old rope off the back, that'll slow him down a bit as it gets ravelled up in his prop. Only joking.. tunnels aren't the safest place, so don't try this at home.

Mine really squats down as you wind the speed on.I'm not entirely sure but I think its the prop sucking the water away from the stern area combined with the bow rising pushing the stern down too. Anyway far too fast for the canal here. I'm lucky to get 1.5 mph without dragging the bottom or doing a Hawaii 5-0 impression. Makes a change from batteries this propeller thread. Mine are never ready, or flying bomb. Remember them? They were crap batteries.

I looked at that knauf fire rated plasterboard too. Even bought two sheets before changing my mind then gave them away,and bought a sheet of 12mm masterboard. My reasoning was that the plasterboard is not a heat insulating board per se, and more importantly it don't like damp. Masterboard insulates better and is more water resistant.

I think if we trimmed it level it would make a big difference to top speed and we might then hit the magic numbers. Yes, slightly over propped as we're a couple of hundred rpm down, but I'm not sure how accurate the tacho is. It's powerful enough for us . I'm looking to try it on the Thames at some point.have included plenty of cooling for river work having both skin tank and heat exchanger coolers. I feel I've got the prop about right, any fine tuning will only give small improvements. I would like to try a 4 blade just out of curiosity.

Who can't resist the temptation to open it up just to see what it'll do flat out? On open water with a gps phone app speedo I think we managed to touch 7 and a bit mph. At which point the counter was going under water and it was becoming uncontrollable. It does sit stern heavy though, and squat down by the stern as speed increases. Interestingly, tied up alongside we got 1700 engine rpm at full load. On our "speed trials" at say 7 mph we managed 1850rpm before giving up. This is with the same prop that will pootle along a shallow canal with barely a ripple at 450 engine rpm. So its well suited to our application. There's no such thing a the perfect propeller for all conditions,only a good compromise. If you tightly specify a prop on a new build boat it may be ok when new, but 10 years later with a tired engine it may be struggling to drive it and be smoky. You can't change down a gear like in a car if the engine is labouring. It's one of them things where your happy with it and never give it a second thought, or it's nagging you as you cruise along.. If only I had a bit more diameter, less pitch, 4 blades, etc. Whatever you had you wouldn't be happy with.

You can play around with the numbers,just out of curiosity,to fine tune the dimensions,but here the science let's us down, each individual application needs to be looked into with an experienced eye if every ounce of performance is required.unlike the commercial ships, We are not looking for every last knot of top speed,or pound of bollard pull,or the absolute minimum fuel consumption in any given propeller. Beta marine, Crowther's, et al have a vast store of knowledge in specifying props that will give a good all round performance, and if you don't deviate wildy from their recommendations you can't go far wrong. What do we actually want from a narrowboat propeller? Good slow speed performance at idle. Relaxed cruising speed rpm. Plenty of thrust in reserve for rivers etc. Good stopping ability in reverse. All the above point to keeping the diameter as large as possible, for plenty of "grip" in the water. As an example, I'm running a 65' heavy trad of 2'6" average draft, say 22tons displacement. 60 hp @ 2000 rpm, 2:1 reduction, 3 blade 24"x 19" prop. Cruises at 400 to 600 rpm on shallow, and upto 900 rpm on deeper canals. Crash stops are quick too, that's when you need a prop with plenty of grip. Crowther's re pitched my prop from 22" and I couldn't be more pleased with the result.

Have a go with biological soap powder and hot water, a good strong mix. The biological stuff eats oil. Leave overnight. We used to clean piston crowns in oil drums like this. Works magic. Get one of them Long handled wire brushes to scrub it a bit. Then hoover it off with a wet vac. Non-bio won't work. Used to soak me overalls in a bucket for a few days like this if we'd got soaked in hfo or oil. Daz,acdo were good.

Anyone got a good way to attach brass porthole liners? Don't really want to drill them for screws, was thinking on the lines of self adhesive Velcro pads as I may need to remove them at some point without damage.some glues like no nails can be far too strong for this application.

If you've just honed the bores and re ringed the pistons, then it may take a while before the rings bed in. Honing won't restore the bore geometry to any extent,as the stones are spring loaded and follow the existing shape. Only the proper delapena or Chris marine honing machines are able to true up bores to a small extent,and they need diamond stones to do it.the actual honing pattern produced has a very profound influence on oil consumption. Give it jolly good blast at high load to get those rings bedded in to the walls. I assume all the clearances are correct in your re machined ring grooves and you have gapped the rings?

By new anodes, are you replacing existing or fitting additional ones? If your replacing like for like anodes,just cut the straps close to the old anode with a slitting wheel leaving the old ends in place, trim the new anode straps to fit the gap, then weld the new anode straps to the ends of the old existing ones. That way no heat gets to the hull. At a new position, the short runs needed,if you do them diagonally opposite each other,the heat should dissipate well before you start charring the lining.just take your time and allow the heat to disperse. Opening the battery switches is a good idea, you just never know, for the time it takes, I'd do it anyway. Depends on the sensitive electronics you may have have, but better to be safe than sorry.

I was looking into this a while ago, in my "crown versus Trojan" post. Don't think there's much in it. What used to be shepherd batteries in Manchester, shield batteries now, are the agents for crown batteries,and offered me a good discount on 4 of the big 6v jobs, if I collect. Just bear in mind that if it's an odd size your after, not a fast moving item, it could well have been on the shelf a good time and gone stale. Check on the date of manufacture before you buy. In my case, I ended up buying a nearly new forklift battery of 2v 500 A/hr cells, with the tank and everything for about half what the Trojans would have cost. They take up less floor space in the engine room,and make a handy seat too. Try pb battery solutions in deepcar nr Sheffield. You can deal with him. Not had a problem with them yet, the solar panels get them up to float voltage so the tail current must be low. I've only got 2x 68w stick on panels too.

I'm in drydock just now and going through something similar. Personally,I'd spend the money hiring a decent sander.it'll mow it off in short order. The 6" Makita one I've just used was excellent, but quite heavy. it's just taken me best part of two days to flatten off roof and cabin 50'long, and that's with a decent 6" random orbital sander and a box of 80's discs. DIY sanders are ok for light intermittent domestic use, but vibrate like hell and you'll end up with H.A.V.S (hand arm vibration syndrome)"white finger" by the time you've done sanding down 100* sq feet. Hire a decent 6" random orbital sander for the weekend and buy a box of discs, about£12 for 100. Hire a 110v one with a transformer if your contemplating hanging off the side to do it afloat. Not sure what you can do about the hull blacking above the waterline without using power tools. Rotary wire wheels, the twisted cup wheels, zip wheels, are effective,on blacking, but do please wear eye protection, they flirt wires everywhere, if you get one in your eye, you'll know about it. I'm not usually one to harp on about safety, but wire cup wheels on big angle grinders are dangerous.

Yes, it was admiralty charts we used, I still keep a bit on board just in case. Worth looking out for at boat jumbles. Several gaskets on my engine are from the western approaches chart! I even once made a head gasket from an old leather satchel in my motorbike days.

Try and get hold of a couple of old navigation charts. The paper there made of makes excellent joints.we used to knock up joints all the time using chart paper.if you need thicker stuff, we used "caf" jointing. Looks a bit like thin blue lino. Comes in 1,2&3 mm thickness. james walker make it, Comes in big sheets though and is expensive. I keep the offcuts from work for knocking up joints onboard. I have a piece by me now, its James walker "centurion" bs7531 grade x. If it's for an inspection door,rocker cover etc, just grease the faces a bit so it doesn't stick. If its going to be permenant use whatever flavour jointing compound you prefer.if you can, try to Make up two joints while you've got all the kit out, so you have a spare to hand,or damage the first one fitting it. Personally I don't love hylomar, but if your going to use Try and get hold of a couple of old navigation charts. The paper there made of makes excellent joints.we used to knock up joints all the time using chart paper.if you need thicker stuff, we used "caf" jointing. Looks a bit like thin blue lino. Comes in 1,2&3 mm thickness. james walker make it, Comes in big sheets though and is expensive. I keep the offcuts from work for knocking up joints onboard. I have a piece by me now, its James walker "centurion" bs7531 grade x. If it's for an inspection door,rocker cover etc, just grease the faces a bit so it doesn't stick. If its going to be permenant use whatever flavour jointing compound you prefer.if you can, try to Make up two joints while you've got all the kit out, so you have a spare to hand,or damage the first one fitting it. Personally I don't love hylomar, but if your going to use it, just nip up whatever your trying to seal,leave it overnight,then tighten up. Otherwise it'll just squeeze out and you'll have a leak. Bah, double posted again! Anyway you get the idea. Just don't go cutting holes in a chart you may need!