Timleech

If you run the engine fast enough, you should get close to the 175A from the alternator while there is that much load on the system. That will drop off quickly if it's only replenishing the battery. Tim

Trouble is, with a steel boat and a compass with no compensation, yes you can draw up a correction chart but you may well find that some points of the compass are unuseable because the rate of correction is so great. In other words, if you try to hold a heading based on the correction chart a very small change in heading will produce a wild swing of the compass. The opposite is likely to happen at other points of the compass. Hence the use of correction spheres and magnets etc. With a steel narrowboat for a short crossing I might be inclined to admit defeat and rely on a marine GPS, which can also be arranged to display compass bearing so long as you keep moving. Yes I know we shouldn't place too much reliance on these gizmos. Either that or use a fluxgate compass with the sender unit on a longish pole. Tim

There might be a little bit of lead puched into a hole adjacent to the screw head, as a sort of locking device. If it's present, just punch it in again with a flat ended punch. Some, not all, of those screws have a knurled edge to the head for this to grip into. Tim.

Out of interest is your digger project a Smalley rebuild, or something more fundamental? Tim

OK, that's what used to be in that space on the Starboard side, rather than a generator, now replaced (sensibly) with a PRM box driven directly. My deduction, anyway. Tim

Looking at the picture, it's impossible to say that the crankshaft and gearbox are in line, but to my eye they can be nowhere near far enough offset to include a belt drive. What would be the point? Edit to add - why have flexible drive plate and belt drive? The pulley on the gearbox would need another support bearing. Tim

Plenty of lumpy water boats have that facility, agreed you won't find many on the inland waterways. Also such readings would be meaningless if the channel is in any way restricted. Tim

It seems to be common to fit an R&D semi-flexible coupling along with Vetus sterngear. I did a job a few years ago for a customer who had suffered multiple gearbox failures, eventually narrowed down to having a flex coupling with Vetus sterngear. Not sure, that might have been a Centaflex coupling, honestly can't remember. He seemed to go away happy (and not return!) with new gearbox and solid connection to prop shaft. Tim

Who are you suggesting should be my target?

There are too many people in the world, that much I agree with. Tim

...but it's a PRM 160/260 or similar box, by the look of it, which can be run either way and with either hand of input. Yes you do. Tim

It may seem unfair, but the 100% council tax on an empty house is there, apart from ensuring income for the council, to discourage people from leaving houses empty. There is a housing shortage, after all. Tim

If you start with an industrial engine with a pressed steel timing cover, it saves having to track down the proper marine bits. Less of a proper job, I agree. Tim

There's almost certainly a stub shaft bolted to the flywheel, mounted to the stub shaft will be a flange of some sort to take a conventional R&D drive plate, into which fits the input shaft of the PRM gearbox. All quite straightforward if done properly, with everything well aligned and solidly mounted. Personally I'd be happier with a much shorter stub shaft, so the the gearbox and flywheel are closer to one another. Edit - it looks as though the long stub shaft has been there to allow belt drive to some other kit (mains alternator?), which has subsequently been removed. You can see the discarded pulley to the left of the pic., and an empty space on the right hand side of that big guard. Tim

I think a friend said he paid fifteen quid there last year. I paid twenty at Stanley Ferry marina. I think a pickaxe handle would need the end shaved down, the handle for a rubber pavers' maul would be much closer. Some discussion a while ago on this very subject. Tim

Sorry, no. Might have a fuel pump bracket (crankcase door) and a few covers, not much else. Oh,and that barrel and some used pistons (with rusty gudgeon pins now) Just checked, nothing in the injector/pump drawer for Armstrong. I do have several Lister HA injectors, of uncertain parentage, though. Look as though they may have been serviced about 50 years ago, they still have the little aluminium screw caps over the fuel connections! Tim

One of my first jobs on the dry dock, in the late 1960s, was to repair a hole in the bows of a concrete pleasure narrow boat, I was told it had struck a discarded safe in th BCN. Tim

Which fuel system bits do you want? Not saying I have any, most of my bits went years ago, but I can look. I did eventually find a barrel which someone on here was looking for, but they must have given up & gone away by the time I found it! Tim

No, I'd be surprised if the limit on the Churnet isn't 4mph. Same on river sections of the Calder & Hebble, I think there it's 4mph, although below Wakefield (Technically Aire & Calder but the same river) it's 6mph. Tim

That's true for the Trent, but others have the same limit either way (eg Weaver, Witham 6mph). Tim