Man 'o Kent

A final update on this topic. Sadly terminal illness prevented me from further visits to the boat so the rescue people were called in. They found for us someone who had owned a Russell Newbery and in a couple of hours he had sorted out a dirty fuel supply including a previously missed shut off valve that was well clogged up. Sadly I do not have the name of the man that quickly and so efficiently sorted out the problem so this is the best accolade I can give him. Once the RN got a sniff of decent fuel it was "donking" away like nothing had ever happened.

Ball park figure, an engine produces 1/3 useful power from the energy content of the fuel it uses, another 1/3 goes straight up the exhaust and the remaining 1/3 goes into the cooling system and general radiated losses. Even at tickover speeds that means there is quite a lot of energy in the cooling system so the next question is how is the cooling system organized? Is there any means of dirverting all the coolant from the engine to the calorifier until the temperatures are more or less equal or does the coolant get circulated via the calorifier and skin tank all the time?

So often people do not round off a request for help, my only excuse for not posting erlier is a serious health problem. So here is the outcome, it turned out to be one of the "extra" solenoids but It took five different suppliers to provide four replacements that were unlikely to work. Fifty plus years in the enngineering game count for naught, it was my daughter that ran down the right one, don't ask me how, she is a b****y Arts Graduate . . . And just to rub it in she correctly fitted the new one herself and has spun the engine over on the starter. I did start to trace the wiring in the hope of getting my head around the what and why of it but the the starter attery positive found its way, (see below) into this before going anyway near the solenoids. At this point I blanched and gave up!

I've got two or three starter motors taken off lorry sized six cylinder engines that were used for research so the starters are all but new if it helps. That flywheel weighs in at about 300lbs. Not a weight to be taken lightly . . . Don't ask how I know but it involves an old Standard 10 saloon and a trip to Southampton.. Given the cost, not unreasonable given the amount of work for what is effectively a one-off, for a purpose made ring gear it might be worth hunting for something a tad bigger and having an adaptor ring made.

To a goose a signal of dominance is a low extended head and neck posture. The lower the more dominant,. If threatened a human can extend an arm low to the ground fingers extended, little finger and thumb tucked underneath. A purposeful advance with some hissing for effect will usually convince the bird that it has better things to do elsewhere. Remember, birds are fragile, hollow bones, it is nearly all bluster, handbags a dawn stuff, the risk of real injury is too great to risk a real stand up fight. Of course as with humans there is always the odd psycho . . . ]

Not quite, I know one that did 270 miles and over 200 locks. She was getting quite good at it by the end!

For what it's worth I've been using Lincon Batteries of Southend-on-sea, Essex for over fifty years in cars, yachts and narrowboats without a single failure or complaint. .A very helpful business that will advise and make up a battery to match your requirements. Usual disclaimer, no interest other than a satisified customer.

An added point to consider: Repairing GRP under these conditions would be an almost impossible nightmare, at the very least you would need a supply of small chimney sweeps to clean it out but I hardly think the Reverend Charles Kingsley would approve. It will be all but impossible to get a new GRP lining into that space that is entirely waterproof, GRP is to some extent hydroscopic even when laid up in perfect conditions. You really do not want to have to go inside that tank! Here is where grit blasting, ideally Zinc spraying and then an Irathane coating would be a permant solution without the need for anyone to go inside the tank.

Many years ago I had cause to investigated a product under the trade name Irathane, (in truth for quite a different purpose), but I was impressed and in my dotage it has occurred to me that it might just do the business on water tanks. It comes in various formulations some specifically intended for domestic water. It is mainly a two pack spray-on material but if memory serves can also be brush applied. In a perfect world the inside of the water tank would be grit blasted down to bare metal and then ideally Zinc sprayed followed by a coating of a suitable grade of Irathane. Clearly the subject would need further investigation but does offer an alternative long term solution.

If, and it is a big if, I can find my silly little camers would photographs of the cam shafts out of my, believed to be a 1936 build National engine, be of any help?

Thank you GBBS for that! Interesting that, it would seem then that this is not the boat's original engine.

Never had a sister, Hitler saw to that, but blokes I know that do seem to regard them as scary creatures so yours should be well placed to keep the ghosts of them designers in their place! Matthew Boulton: Was it not he that in a letter extolled the virtues of a certain Mr Stephenson who "could finish his engine cylinders to the thickness of a thin shilling."?

The toolmaker in me sometimes had cause to think that draftsmen/designers were the Spawn of the Devil! In this case I am inclined to think you may be right about the pawls being stuck in the run position as things in there do have, (being kind), a patina of surface rust and general grubbiness. The Devil's Spawn reference applies here because the cover plates, (pt.31 on billybobbooth's drawing), are instead of being placed facing aft where they could be accessed and removed are tucked away facing for'ard and inaccessible short of gearbox removal and complete stripping of the starter assembly. The only possibility for the present is a bit of judicious "old skool" application of the Manchester screwdriver to free things up.

It is a matter of serendipity that this image exists at all because it is a "fail". DIY colour printing kits were pretty new back then and this was one we didn't get right. I'm sure the "good" ones still exist somewhere in a dark archive. The image is shown in false colours, the negatives, used for the droplet counting, were 35mm black and white film. The false colours represent variations in density and were used only for presentation purposes. It is interesting to note that the rendering is sensitive enough to pick up variations in air density in the swirling air shown in green. The bottom quarter is why this one was a reject.

Bugger! That means: (a) I gotta find the thing (b) I gotta nudge my old XP desktop into life (c) Get my old scanner to fire up and talk to the XP (d) Get the picture onto a memory stick that the laptop won't eat. Oooo! Me poor 'ol 'ed! PS Just had an epiphany, just remembered, I'm pretty certain it is in my old briefcase ---- just got to find the briefcase . . . '

I had considered that, probably a good idea, it is possible that they are as old as the boat and from the look of things have never been out of the engine. All of which takes me back to a time long ago when I was building a bit of kit to take photographs of fuel being injected into a swirl chamber, exposure times something like 2,000,000ths of a second if I remember. Then there was the little machine to count the droplets down to 10 microns, and no I didn't do the counting, we'd got computers that could to do that by then. (And NOT a ZX81 snigger! snigger!) I've got a left over partially failed false colour photograph of it somewhere, I'll put it up if anyone wants to know what is going on in a combustion chamber.

Ooo! Errr! It 'aint 'arf getting complicated! I think the best thing I can do is get back on board and carefully make a wiring diagram, if for no better reason than to stop you fellows spoiling your good looks by tearing your hair out. What is worth remembering is that the whole set-up was a very sweet starter, with a much complimented beat and minimal smoke --- until she ran out of fuel --- TWICE . . . Meanwhile I'll get the injector pump off and properly serviced.

You lot do realise that at 80 I am going to have to climb over the engine,, elbow aside the calorifier, weasel my way past the plumbing whillr bent double just to trace this bloody wiring don't you?!!! And there is you two gleefully prattling on about "But both energise terminals seem to be commoned with white and red trace cable which would be ignition switch to starter solenoid activation. I can't think what else would explain that. it also looks as if the left-hand one has its coil negative blade connected to one of the stud terminals. If that was not negative that solenoid would not work." Gawd! I coulld get to hate people who know how elektrickery works! And yes, I am kiddding, please don't give up on me!

Thank you chaps, looks like the next step will be to trace the wiring and make a proper circuit diagram, at least for this part of the system.. The 1970's observation makes sense, I think that is about the time the boat was built. Given that the right hand unit is suspect and a direct replacement would seem unlikely, would it be worth re-jigging the whole thing? For a start there must be better split-charge systems about half a hundred years on!

Right head scratchers all here is an image of the suspected "black boxes" kindly supplied by the "artist in residence". Can anyone identify what they might be and indeed the thinking behind their employment? A visit to the boat with a new starter battery and then a bit of cable tracing resulted in the discovery that the +ve cable went up to a domestic looking fuse box and then back down to the lower stud on the right hand "black box" in the picture. It is not clear at this point why the cable is routed thus, all of the fuses in the fuse box are of a domestic fuse wire size, all are in a clean condition with no signs of overload stress and therefore something of a red herring it would seem. At this point a crude test was conducted by simply shorting the two studs on the right hand "black box". The result of this "experiment" was that the starter motor sprung to like and turned the engine normally. It was at this point that it was found that the BPF injector pump was not in a mood to co-operate despite cracking the input line and operating the manual lift pump to clear the line of any air it refuses to deliver. Given that the pump is probably the best part of 50 years old it would seem to be a good time to get it properly serviced. David Mack : Hells bells! Your instructions worked, even I managed it! What ever next!

My first ambition was to be a blacksmith, there was a forge just around the corner from home, the blacksmith was just like what you'd expect one to be, he wasn't very tall but had a body like a barrel, arms like thighs and always a smile for kids that showed an interest. I never saw him use a saw, probably didn't even have one but he could do things with hot metal that was pure magic. In those days the local Sally Army had a farm where men coming out of prison were housed and worked on the farm as a way back into society. Back then there were employment stamps, you didn't get stamps on your card if you were inside, a dead giveaway, by working on the farm they got their cards stamped so had a better chance of getting a job. With plentiful labour the result was that they held onto their heavy horses long after everyone else had gone over to tractors. He had a pretty good idea how long a set of shoes would last and it was always a wonder to me to watch him prepare a set. From memory of his regulars he could cut a length of bar, shape it, punch the nail holes in etc. and that shoe would need only the most minor of adjustment when the client came in. It was always a wonder to me that the horses remained so calm during the shoeing, strange place, noise, having your legs hoicked from under you, clouds of stinky burning hoof smoke. Mark you there was one big brute that had got his number, with him between it and the wall of the building it just crossed its front legs and leaned on him. Blacksmith going red and beating on its flanks, horse calmly turned its head to regard him with I swear an expression that said "Yeh? You 'an whose army?"

Yup, as it happens I have the means at the end of the garden, I was also one of the last of the "proper" Toolmakers, (5 year indentured apprenticeship + 2 years as an "improver"). Of course I didn't know it at the time but the transistor had already been invented and the death knell had already been rung for traditional toolmaking.

billybbobbooth Thank you so much for that, just perfect! I can now fiddle about with some confidence. The only other thing I gotta do is get the sprog to find the starting handle, I'm certain I found one but then anything is possible at my age. She says I am imagining it but there are so many dark corners on that damn boat . . .

Wool Fat (Anhydrous Lanolin) can be bought from the chemist in a tub that will last a lifetime. I've used it for years including on boats on the salty stuff and domestic too. Works a treat, screws drive in easier and lets face it when did you last see a rusty sheep? It is good practice to pilot a hole for a screw with the right sized drill. The screw when being driven in then divides the grain of the wood rather than just forcing the fibres aside any which way. On the plus side a piloted hole provides a better thread and grip. I have a chart somewhere in a very old book that lists the pilot sizes, I will hunt it out if anyone is interested.