Reginald

I believe Tam & Di are right. Its BW conditions on opening a marina that all boats are licensed. The marina operator then enforces the condition on the moorer. The water you are standing on is null & void if the marina has a private source of supply like a stream or underground source. Your licence is a licence to navigate and if you don't move out of the marina your are not navigating your are mooring so why should you need a licence. I also believe that BW imposes conditions on marinas that they have to pay an annual levy on the total number of berths provided even if they are not let. Its a good way for BW to obtain income and someone else do the work of collection. It is possibley the reason why BW want to try and get rid of all online mooring by moving boats into marina's so still keeping income from mooring but without having to actually have the hassle of providing it.

Remove the heater plugs to reduce the compression. From experience they should be removed on a regular basis and the holes cleaned out with a drill to remove the carbon built up. (13/64th I think). This can make a big difference if you have a starting problem. I always replace them smeared with copper grease. You can try removing the fan belt and coiling a rope around the crankshaft pullley and pulling or with it fastened off tight pull at right angles like a bow.

Could be a high resistance connection either the earth lead, solenoid nuts or copper strip to starter motor. Ther is a chance the copper bar/switch inside the solenoid is badly pitted. Check to see if any of the connection get hot when you turn the engine over indicating a resistance. Could remove the heater plugs to take off the compression and see if the speed alters. There is a chap on ebay who sells service kits for starter motors http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LUCAS-Starter-Motor-...ingEquipment_RL Might be worth you while to strip down the motor and rebuild if you feel competent enough , not a hard job. You can also turn the engine over by hand using a socket set on the crankshaft pulley nut to get an idea of the torque.

Thanks for the info and advice Radio-Ga-Ga much appreciated.

To add a bit more confusion I came across this link for craftmaster 'Tractor' paints. http://www.tfmsuperstore.co.uk/product.las...398E4XgFF261900 These look identical to the boat paint but only in a few limited colours. I sure Adam could tell us if they are a different formulation. The price is £18.95 Litre which is a considerable saving on the chandlers prices of between £24 to £27 per litre. So either they are cheaper because of the make up or don't attract the high premimum of 'marine' products. I might be able to live with Ferguson Grey and Leyland Dark Blue . The undercoats are also cheaper at £16.95 Litre( local chandler £22) .

Find some private water of the BW system or lifted out. Let you licence expire while you get the work done. Apply for your licence in advance when you are ready to return to the BW system.

I have a spare 1.5 (old) cylinder head in my garage so I have removed the stud. Good conditon a bit of surface rust but clean threads. Overall lentgh 0.9 " . No obvious markings on it. Its outside diameter is 0.622" that's on the thread and on the short unthreaded portion at the top. Parallel thread. Screw pitch gauge reads 16 tpi. Tried both 14 & 18 don't fit. Diameter at bottom of threads is 0.545" . Only link I can find to a thread anything like this is http://www.efunda.com/DesignStandards/screws/screw16un.cfm I will go and clean the stud up to see if I can find any markings perhaps remove the stud from my other spare head for comparison. Any other measurements required by the Guru's let me know.

Yes they have all the bits to rebuild a BMC. They import then from Turkey under Thorneycroft or something like that. Always found then quick and friendly.

The fitting possibley fitted due to BSP having a 30% taper. The .902" is the maximum diameter of the taper. I would think it would seem strangr for a engine manufactuer to mix threads on a engine block and use BSP ( A plumbing Standard) as well as UNF. below is an cutting from the history of BMC The last M.G. to use such threads was the TF1500 in 1955. Such nuts and bolts have British BSW/BSF head sizes, so that the average British DIY owner or motor mechanics tool kit could still be used, but with these odd metric threads. From then on, starting with the M.G. 'Z' Magnette in 1953, Austin engines were used under the umbrella of the British Motor Corporation, or BMC for short. These BMC engines used American based Unified Fine (UNF) and course (UNC) threads, ( ANF & ANC in the USA,) in the 'A','B' and 'C' series M.G. used. Such nuts and bolt heads had to be used with spanners that are termed "A/F", indicating the distance Across the Flats, a common size for instance, being 1/2" AF. Later still, standardised ISO metric sizes took over with the 'A' Plus, 'O','R','S', and 'K' series engines of Austin/Rover. this is the link to the article http://www.mgcars.org.uk/engine/mgenginehistory.rtf

I had a braas adaptor snap(corrrode) off in the connection. I asked Shaun at AMC is reply Thank you for your enquiry. The thread size for the heater connection should be 5/8unf. We have hose connectors available in stock to suit ½” hose @ £4.25 GBP each + vat I drilled it out and cleaned the thread with the 5/8 unf tap I borrowed. The bad news was that it was in July 2004 so it might have gone up a bit.

Hi It should be a 5/8 UNF. You can get an adaptor from AMC in Preston for about a £5.00