Timleech
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Posts posted by Timleech
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Out of interest is your digger project a Smalley rebuild, or something more fundamental?
Tim
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For what its worth my records for GERALD's engine are - Lister HA2 19hp @ 1500 r.p.m. with triple belt drive to an offset Paragon gearbox (exEMPRESS)
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
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I think that there is a belt between the engine and the gearbox. I looked in the engine room at one time and it seemed the shaft from the engine was at a different height/angle to the gearbox shaft and they had been connected together by a belt thingy...
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
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I doubt if there are many boats (if any) who can **measure** their speed through the water.
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
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Yes I got the same advice from Vetus some years ago, as did various one-time members, though oddly the Vetus agent fitted one in my boat! The shaft certainly oscilates when in reverse on my boat, and has done since new.
Recently I was rather abruptly told by a member that " I have contacted Vetus and his isn't so" so I am not certain about this situation now. Some have them, some don't. I have seen a few Liverpool boats with Vetus stern gear and no flexible installed, with many hours on the clock.
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
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In a small way you can do your bit to reduce the population ,
Who are you suggesting should be my target?
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Au contraire.
The number of houses is about right. There are too many people!
There are too many people in the world, that much I agree with.
Tim
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Maybe it is a reverse rotation engine which had to be put in backwards to drive the existing gearbox and prop in the right direction? In any case there isn't an issue driving a gearbox from either end of the engine. Certainly there were quite a few Gardner L2s built with marine boxes on the "wrong " end.
...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.
Presumably with an HA you need to be careful the arrangements stlll allow sufficient free flow of air to the fan on the flywheel?
Yes you do.
Tim
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That only works for six months, and even then its a 'forgiveness' not a legal right.
I'm not so clear on the single person occupancy discount though. It seems terribly unfair that I pay 100% council tax on an empty house I might own, yet if I choose to live there I only pay 75%.
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
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But, (for the uninitiated), why do this, please?
Why not have engine right way round and close coupled to gearbox, and if you want to drive other things do it off (what should be) the front?
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
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As I'm seeing it, the HA2 is the wrong way round, with the flywheel towards the back of the boat.
The gearbox appears to be separated from it, but pointing the conventional way?
How the two are connected is not at all obvious (to me!).
I would be very wary of it, without a lot more investigation.
Otherwise I have always thought it an interesting boat.
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
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Indeed. Shire Cruisers have great ones for about a tenner I think. A pick axe handle would also probably work I think.
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
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Pumps and injectors.
We've probably got 4 to restore. We might get 3 out of them. Don't suppose you've got any more bell housings lying around???
Dan
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
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Concrete ( Seacrete ) as often called has been used for boat hulls for many many years. There were several seagoing Yachts and lots of working barges made from the stuff and it was durable. I have never seen a narrowboat built of it but hey ho why not, they are built of dafter stuff such as aluminium.
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
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I'll join!! Don't suppose anyone has any bits of fuel systems for them?? Or an electric start bell housing??
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
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Is there a general speed limit for rivers? For example, the Caldon Canal joins and leaves the River Churnet at one point, is the speed limit on this section 4mph or 6mph?
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
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River speeds are (I believe) 8 mph down stream and 6 mph upstream, I also believe that this over the ground.
Having said that you need to be going fast enough (engine speed) to maintain steerage.
That's true for the Trent, but others have the same limit either way (eg Weaver, Witham 6mph).
Tim
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I dont disagree. However if all boatyards are booked it leaves you little choice. I have seen many people sanding , grinding, welding,insulating,fitting out and painting along the towpath. Some make a genuine effort to limit any noise and mess some dont. This particular boat roof has only 3 or 4 coats of paint on the roof and much of that is flaking. I think there will be more mess if the paint is removed by sanding than by scabbling. Sanding produces a fine powder which is probably worse for the enviroment than the flakes from scabbling. Its up to the person doing the work to keep any mess to a minimum.Scabbling is also far quicker and on completion only requires a quick flick over with 80 grit to prep for painting. The paint on this boat roof is so badly applied im sure i could complete the paint removal in a day.
If anyone has any better ideas i would love to hear them lol. Roof is 50 x 10.
Please lets not get into an enviromental debate,that was not the intention of the post.
You mean that other people do it so that makes it OK?
I think it's perfectly reasonable to make the environmental point, and the suggestion of hooking up a vacuum cleaner is a good one if the machine allows it.
Tim
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Another stupid question: do I need to get back to bare steel to do this measurement, or just clean the bottom of the boat of gunk? I don't think I fancy doing the former in the middle of the Wash, not least as I would have not have time for the paint to dry before the tide comes in again.....
Basically yes you do. Some of the more sophisticated kit will work through a paint coating, but only if the stars are in exactly the right conjunction. Useful if you want to avoid damaging a nice smooth 2-pack coating, but they won't work through rust and cr*p.
Tim
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It may be the weakest way to use the angle, but as long as it provides sufficient strength that's all that matters. According to Murflynn it doesn't need to be particularly strong for the span it's stiffening. This area of the hull has never had any support and it's been in half metre waves on the tidal Thames several times. I think that giving any amount of support is going to help - it doesn't need to be a perfect job.
After I paint it there'll be no way for moisture to get between the angle and plate.
I find that hard to believe.
Tim
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I presume from the scale you are planning to use 2"/50mm angle 5-6mm thick? Yes, 5mm thick As said, angle is better for stiffness then strip and also means you don't have an edge but a nice flat face to fasten things like the battery tray to. I might be getting the angle welded in with the flat to the uxter. I know it's wrong, but I think it will be ok. That area is just used for storage so I'll just store stuff between the angle. It also doesnt flop about when you are trying to tack it in place!
Also, for what its worth, I agree that 6mm seems thin for such a large flat surface.
Thanks for your help.
Apart from being the weakest way to use the angle, it gives you a wonderful moisture/rust trap between angle and plate.
I haven't read every post, but my reading of your spec for the amount of weld seemed far to little. Maybe I misread or someone has already picked up on this.
Tim
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RNs are spawned out of National diesels which were principally designed for gensets aboard Grey Funnel boats (corrections welcomed) as were listers and others. So hopefully bearings and surfaces were generous to allow trouble free continuous running.
So to my mind they are happy to chug away charging batteries - especially if you have the battery type and alternator capacity suitable for quick charging. (invariably ignored by newcomers on these fora).
Thus my point is that provided that your engine is not intrusive through noise or vibration - then that's the better solution.
There have been many threads here and over on the YBW site about the reliability of the small Fischer-Panda gen sets. If water cooled they are direct rather than heat exchanger cooled. Not so much a problem for fresh water, but a disaster on a sea going boat. Because they run at 3000 rpm, hey are noisy.
A better solution would be a 1500rpm cocooned set - but that's going to be large.
If your lifestyle desires to be independent of shops and you prefer mooring away from 'centres of population' and you have no desire to wear hair shirts, then a fridge / freezer is not an option and you need the power capacity to cope.
Actually the other way round. The original design was by RN, later licensed to Nationals. I can't comment on what they were originally designed for, I suspect a general purpose 'industrial' small diesel engine.
Tim
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Occasionally the stove chimney did affect me, but on a still day the fumes exit by by head, at head height, so as the boat moves, the fumes were left behind, as opposed to the engine exhaust which I had to travel into. On a windy day, for most wind directions the stove fumes didn't get to me.
Apologies for using the wrong term for the boatman's cabin or back cabin or whatever but I'm sure I got the message across.
I should have called it the last 8' 6' of cabin space on the boat
I found it amusing that you had both a Gardner and a BMC
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This is only hearsay rather than first-hand experience, but the company has had several owners over the years, and the engines made when it belonged to Vero Engineering in Southampton (c. 1990 to 1998) have a less reliable reputation than those produced before or since.
Now of course someone will tell us that he's had a Vero-made one since new and it's been as good as gold...
I believe that one issue during the Vero period was that they ran out of one type of cam, ISTR inlet cams. Rather than getting a new batch made, they simply assembled both camshafts with the same type of cam. The engines worked, but people spent frustrating hours and days tweaking the settings trying and failing to get a clean exhaust.
Tim
Leaking fuel pump
in Gardner
Posted
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.