cheesegas

Much appreciated, putting the brand names of commercial stuff less known about in this thread is really quite useful. I'll try and remember to get a photo of the franken-propshaft, I think this poor guy's been duped by the seller given how nice the boat is inside, compared to the bodged state of the electrics and mechanics. Engine isn't the original, it's a Dutch barge but the bearers have been chopped around and the mounts are bolted to a questionable arrangement of angle iron.

Forgot to get a picture of it, but it's such a mess I recommended replacement. The scale jammed the tube stack in there pretty good, it took a lump hammer and a chunk of wood to shift it, and the mating surfaces where the O rings sit are all chewed up. Not sure if the brazing from end plate to tubes was damaged by our efforts with the hammer too, it was a good hour of whacking it back and forth a fraction of an inch before it could be extracted! The end caps' bolts are both sheared flush in the heat exchanger, and it's hard to work out what's bolt and what's brass! Could try and drill them out and tap the hole a size up I guess...but it's also not my boat, and whilst I'm happy to help him out after he's been screwed over by a dodgy engineer, I don't really want to spend hours on it. He's sourced a new tube stack at a reasonable price together with O rings and bolts, I'll help him fit it and hopefully will be on his way. Shouldn't be stuck again...but the Hurth mechanical gearbox or something in the driveline was making some pretty awful noises going into gear. Might just be the weird propshaft though...R&D coupling, then a double cardan joint, followed by two pillowblocks and finally a Centraflex. No thrust bearing, just a standard stern tube, all in the space of about three feet. Recommended that he avoid the semi tidal Thames until it's proven not to explode. Thanks for the info on descaling though, very useful!

Yep, it sounds like this was an ongoing issue, maybe caused by a poor coolant loop design which was impossible to bleed. Turns out the calorifier is at the front of the boat with garden hosepipe going to/from it, probably an 80ft round trip. I reckon air in the system continually caused it to boil over out the cap, they kept on adding plain water and it eventually scaled up the tube stack. There's no paint around the cap either, a clue it's been happening for a while. The boatmover then wasn't aware of it and didn't refill properly, so it overheated. The mechanic must have only flushed the raw water side of the tube stack, there's no way to rod through it with the alloy end caps bolted in place. Or he plain lied and didn't do it at all! Thanks for the tip on the thermostat, I'll recommend it!

Thanks all, think this is solved. Drained the system, bypassed the calorifier and refilled carefully to avoid airlocks. Still cold raw water from the heat exchanger, but at least the water level wasn't increasing with heat now. It still vented from the cap after 20 min of idling though. Removed the tube stack - the two allen bolts sheared as soon as any pressure was put on them as predicted. Luckily, they thread into the tube stack assembly and not the block. Got it out after a lot of whacking with a mallet and bit of wood, and the coolant side is completely blocked with crud and scale. Given the sheared bolts and state of it, he's ordered a new heat exchanger. As it's Vetus it's £££ but it should solve the overheating.

Thanks. Definitely no expansion tank at all in the system so it must rely on headroom in the manifold, using it as a header tank. Image of the engine below, it's the same model in a different boat. Just the one cap on the combined header tank/manifold. Just realised I may be using the wrong terminology for this sort of thing, I'm from a car background!

This heat exchanger doesn't have rubber boots - they're alloy caps to reduce the 3" dia to 1" of the hose, manual says there's an allen bolt inside in direct contact with water which clamps it on. Bet it's seized solid as well, hence it not being removed... Sorry, think you missed what I put above, it's been a fast thread! (thanks for all the replies). The cap is sealing properly, rubber against the seat and it holds pressure, it's got to be pushed down against the spring. If I release the cap with a warm engine, once the rubber seal unseats, it vents so pressure's being held fine. And yep, agreed that 1 psi is nothing, I was just comparing the current cap to the original cap. Although the new part number for this same engine states a venting pressure of double...wonder why it was changed. There's no expansion tank fitted to the system, although the Vetus manual says it should have one. Looks like two styles of OEM cap available, one without a pressure relief valve and one with (the type fitted to this engine), so I'm guessing the valveless ones are for the installations with an expansion tank. Will check for air locks and report back... If that doesn't work, I hope he finds a good engineer, I don't want to go pulling his heat exchanger apart only to strip bolts etc when it's not my engine.

Ran it with a warm engine, thermostat open and cap off and the water rose up until it came out the filler neck. Good point, didn't think of an airlock in the system! The air heating up might be expanding and pushing the water out the cap. I haven't drained the coolant since the engineer visited so he may not have bled the system properly. I'll advise bypassing the calorifier with a bit of hose, draining the coolant and refilling. Thanks.

I've got doubts over this too, the last bit of my original post mentions the tracing and research I've been through with the cap. It suggests that the original bayonet style cap is 4 or 7 psi, the new part number with the new screw style filler neck is 14 psi and the non-original current cap is 13 psi as it's stamped on the top. The filler neck looks original but the cap is not. And yep, the seal reaches and holds pressure - if I release it slowly with a warm engine, it vents. Its mating surface is clean and dent-free, and the rubber is in good condition. As it's rated at close to the same pressure as the new cap, I don't think it should be venting. It's filled to just under an inch below the neck but it still may be expansion... The cold raw water output is concerning so we haven't run the engine for long after the cap vents. Thanks for the help! Yep that makes sense, owner says the cleaning was very quick so there's no chance he took the tube stack out for descaling. May have just done only a coolant flush...

Thanks, now I know to expect some kind of warmth on the raw water output. Canal water is pretty cold at the moment so I wasn't sure if the flow rate typically results in cold water. The raw water side of the heat exchanger is flowing fine, so it must be the coolant side which is outside of the tube. Apparently the tube stack was cleaned by the last engineer, but given the standard of his work this may not have been done. Removal is simple, two (hopefully not corroded!) Allen bolts on the end caps, and the tube stack pulls out. Thanks for the detailed reply. I pulled the raw water output hose off from the exhaust injection point and ran it for about 30 seconds, plenty of water coming out which increased with revs. I haven't run it much above idle. There's only four hoses going into the heat exchanger (raw water in/out, coolant in/out) so I don't think it's a bypass type. I haven't verified that the engine coolant pump is working - pulley is spinning and some movement can be seen through the coolant cap in the heat exchanger, but the impeller may have all but totally cavitated away so there's little water flow... However, the water in the header tank is hot but the raw water output is cold so something's not right in there. It has connections for a calorifier which is looped back into itself, I'll pull off the hose and see if there's water flow. Great, thanks - good to know that someone's arrived at the same conclusion as me! Heat's not being transferred across the heat exchanger from raw water to coolant. I'll suggest pulling the tube stack and seeing how the outside of the tubes look, it's not visible down the coolant cap. Good point on the scaling from using water, the history of this engine is unknown and it may have always had plain water in it. I certainly can't see any staining from antifreeze from the first time it boiled over. Thanks, will pass on this info. I don't know how the last engineer made such a mess of it...his wiring was awful too, used a mix of speaker wire and 2 core mains.

Yep, that's what makes me think the coolant side of the tube which the heat exchanger sits in may be blocked. Engine water pump appears to be working, there's visible flow when looking down the coolant filler cap, and all the engine side hoses get uniformly hot.

Hi all. Asking for a boater moored next to me who has been stuck here for a while with engine issues, I've helped with his dodgy electrics and am more intrigued to learn about the engine, as it's different to mine, never seen a wet exhaust one up close. But also give him a hand of course... It's a Vetus P4.25 (Peugeot XD3P based), heat exchanger cooled with a water cooled exhaust manifold and wet exhaust. Starts very easily and runs with no smoke from the exhaust. He bought it and hired a boat mover to get it from East London to Bristol, but the engine overheated a couple of days in so the mover scarpered with all his money and abandoned the boat. It's not known if it was run without water in the cooling system. He's since had an engineer look at it for lots of money, who replaced the muffler and all the exhaust tubing from manifold to skin fitting. I have doubts about the engineer though; he filled the system with plain water (didn't warn the owner to refill with antifreeze when it gets cold out) and left the new drive belt he fitted so loose the batteries weren't properly charging. He also evidently didn't test the engine properly...and isn't returning calls now. Anyway. Water intake screen is clear and has good flow, and a good amount of water is coming from the exhaust skin fitting. After about 5 minutes of idling the thermostat opens and water circulates around the heat exchanger's tank, with the cap off I can see the flow. After a further 5 minutes, the coolant cap's pressure relief valve lifts and it begins to vent coolant. We stopped the engine at this point. However, the raw water outlet pipe from the heat exchanger into the exhaust injection point on the manifold remains cold - as in, canal water cold. Is this normal? I'd have expected a bit of heat here at least. The coolant in the heat exchanger is hot and filled almost up the base of the filler cap. Pretty sure it's not head gasket as the system doesn't pressurise as soon as it starts, and there's no water contamination of the oil. No expansion tank or temperature sender is fitted, and I can't accurately measure coolant temp. My thinking is that the raw water side of the heat exchanger isn't clogged, as there's flow coming in and out. Must be the coolant side of the heat exchanger being clogged, preventing heat exchange to the raw water? It does however have the wrong coolant cap fitted; it's got stamped on it Made in England so I have my doubts, and the venting pressure is 13 psi. Vetus part number STM1017 (image attached) says the venting pressure for this old style of metal cap is even lower though, at 0.5 bar / 7 psi! The new part which replaces the metal filler cap and neck vents at 1 bar / 14 psi which is close to the cap it has now. Any ideas? Thanks.

I have an integral 1000 litre tank on my boat, which has a rear gas locker so it takes up the entire front under the deck, and there's no well deck at all. It was one of the main criteria in buying it - without being particularly careful on water, it'll last two weeks with around 80 litres left. That's two of us showering every other day and running the washing machine twice. It's a 30 year old boat and it was painted inside 20 years ago. I've had my inspection camera in there and there's some rust where a 4" high plate was welded onto the bow and the heat damaged the paint on the inside, but that's it. Due a repaint I think, luckily it's got a massive hatch in it. I've seen boats with a hatch fit only for a rabbit...

Is this the same Ben Frost who keeps on disappearing with people's money after promising to do works? His name is written on the wall of most of the Elsan points in London with a warning not to use him...

I’d mostly agree, but unless you’re on shore power the washing machine isn’t something you can put on before you go to bed and hang out in the morning, or put on before you to work. You’ve got to plan to be home for the entire cycle of the machine. I do find that there’s more cleaning to do because of coal dust though, and if you cc you’ve got to be careful about rubbish storage until you find a bin. I burn all the paper (in the winter!) and use small bin bags so whenever I leave to go somewhere, I take a bag of rubbish. As for water, make sure the tank is big. For 2 of us, my 1000 litre tank can run a 3kg wash twice, showers every other day for two weeks. I wouldn’t go much smaller.

I had one on my Isuzu engined Liverpool boat which someone had bodged another control panel into. It would glow bright orange, but not visible in sunlight at all and if it got wet it would sizzle and pop. Replaced it with a relay very quickly!

I'm not sure, maybe you got unlucky! The Hackney Wick water point is always busy, but Old Ford is 10 min away and it's rarely used. Speaking to people by the water points, it seemed normal to not have to wait for more than one boat. I was even right next to a water point in Little Venice for a week, and there was rarely a queue. Only one of them does, Pete Wakeham's Baron but its appearance is very sporadic and random, and it only services from Paddington through west. I don't think it's been around much this year at all. One thing I forgot - double mooring. It's a given from Little Venice all the way up to the end of Hackney Marshes, You need to be ok with having curtains closed (this is why venetian blinds are better, let light through) on one side of the boat all the time, and either having to walk across someone's boat or have people walk across yours. I've had some nice chats with people double moored...swapped electrical bits for French cheese and all sorts. However, in winter, the person next to you will be running their engine while stationary; if it's knackered...and they have knackered batteries...your boat will smell of exhaust all the time. Bear in mind vents and exhaust outlet location when mooring.

I've cc'd in central-ish London (Kensal to Hackney) for about 3 months, cruising and filling with water every weekend. I'm now out of town again. Ignore all the stuff about water points, the biggest queue I've been in was 1 boat ahead of me with 1 finishing filling, and that was on a Saturday afternoon in mid summer. However, if you have a pump out, it can be very difficult - there's not many points, and due to heavy use they're always breaking down. Consider a cassette or composting with a hotbox on the cruiser stern. Lots of coal boats which post regularly on Facebook, and do weekly routes; one serves the whole system, two go almost the length of the Lea from Kings Cross and two go west from Paddington to Bulls Bridge. They all do gas, diesel and coal and you can have them drop stuff on the boat if you're not in. You're never more than a week away from one passing, very easy, and they always have stocks. Power however is not easy - due to all the high rise flats shading the canal with the sun low in the sky, solar does even less in winter than if you're out of town. You need as much solar as your roof will fit, and to turn the fridge off in winter. I have 1kw which is just keeping up with lights/pumps/charging phones at the moment, in an unshaded spot. Outdoors is your fridge in winter! With regards to spots, it's never been an issue. Leave a whole day to find somewhere/get water, and don't aim for a certain area. You'll often find that if you stop at the first place you see, it won't be far enough to satisfy your license conditions. As said above, don't stick to the central areas, go further afield up past the M25 and to Southall, it gets very nice and green quickly. I didn't have any problems with crime despite mooring in some dark/dodgy feeling areas, boats occasionally get broken into but it tends to be in certain areas (Limehouse) or if you're away for weeks at a time. You can turn a 45-50ft almost anywhere, much bigger than that and you're going a long way to turn! I've got a 45' boat and the longest I've had to go to turn around was a few boat lengths.

Only think I can think of is that the indicator is actually a series resistor indicator for the plugs, as used on some tractors and old Pentas (I think!). The plugs' resistance is low when cold, drawing lots of current through the resistor, causing it to glow red. When the plugs are hot, their resistance increases, current decreases and the series resistor doesn't pass enough current to glow. As it's in series, if it blows, then you lose power to the glowplugs. Attached is what they look like, before the chrome burns off and it gets all rusty.

Your engine is also known as a 4LB1, instruction manual here but it doesn't really give you any useful info - these are very simple engines. https://www.wincogen.com/wp-content/uploads/PD/Engines/isuzu_4le1_opm.pdf I have a similar vintage of Isuzu engine, and if I forget to preheat it'll do the same thing with grey smoke. Do you have a multimeter which can measure DC volts? If not, buy one from Screwfix, under £10. How the glowplugs are wired depends on the boatbuilder - some switch the high current with the keyswitch, others use a relay. No preheat could be a number of electrical faults - bad ignition switch/relay, broken wire etc. Have someone activate the preheat while you check for voltage between the engine block (find a clean, unpainted spot) and the very top of the plug with the wire/bar on it. Have a look at the image below - only the top part from the hexagonal nut upwards is visible, the rest is inside the engine. You want the probe of the meter to be on the small threaded bit on top. Can you take a photo if you're in doubt? With the preheat on, you should see at least 11.5v. If it's a couple of volts less, you may have a dead starter battery but as it's cranking the engine, i don't think this is the case. If the meter reads zero, you've got an electrical issue and the plugs aren't heating. On the batteries - yes, if you have lead based batteries, a partial recharge again and again will kill them, especially if it's from say 30% to 50% or lower. Every other day they should be brought up to a full charge, depending on the size of your bank this may be 4-5hrs.

I don’t know about efficiency in terms of heat loss of kettle vs microwave, but non-inverter microwaves with a copper wound transformer are an inductive load with a power factor of around 0.8-0.9. Inverters aren’t very efficient when driving inductive loads, so there’s significantly more losses there compared to a purely resistive load like a kettle. Inverter microwaves use a switch mode power supply to drive the magnetron tube rather than a big transformer, so they have power factor correction meaning at full blast they’re pretty much power factor 1. Also, both inverter and non inverter microwaves aren’t terribly efficient. A 1kw output oven will consume around 1.4-1.5kw.

Thanks. It's a very standard 1990s boat, I'll pop the CAD up here once I finish it. Services to the washing machine aren't a problem, I ran all new services with a thermo mixer in its existing position, it would be on the same side of the boat as all the plumbing and I'll put a new skin fitting in. Currently it's plumbed into the kitchen sink's fitting with a T split as I was lazy... Mains is under the gunnels so that's simple too. Heat was fine during the test sleeps, didn't consider a stray pillow falling off though, raised sides on the bed would be needed I reckon.

Been living aboard for almost a year now, I didn't want to make any changes to the layout at first as I wasn't sure how we were going to use the space day to day. Got a much better idea now, so I'm thinking about swapping some stuff around - just wondering if anyone's done something similar and has feedback. My quiet months for work are Jan and Feb so it gives me a good 4 week stretch to do it. Not too concerned about resale value as I'm planning on keeping it for a long time. It's a 45' cruiser stern, conventional layout with stove at the front. Was tempted to buy something bigger initially but kept to this as I can turn it around almost anywhere... The current bed is a cheapo Ikea pull-out day bed I got from Gumtree and modified to fit, I'm a very...mobile...sleeper, much to the annoyance of my other half. There's lots of storage under it, but after being used daily it's starting to fall apart. Size is perfect though, 160cm wide by 200cm long. Washing machine is in the kitchen, it wasn't designed to house one so I've just placed at the end, only a little 3kg Zanussi. We only use the bedroom for sleeping at night, never during the day and it seems like a waste of much needed space on a boat! One of us usually works from home whilst the other is out at work. Thinking of moving the washing machine and all storage to the back of the boat where the bed is now, and totally re-doing the wardrobe as there's a lot of dead space under it where the old pump out tank used to be. This leaves the front of the boat with more space (no under-gunnel storage or washing machine), to put in a decent Sofa Bed Barn cross bed, converting the living space to sleeping at night. I'd also have just enough room for a little desk/workbench at the back. Did a test sleep, moved the mattresses to the front for a couple of nights across the boat and it's all good. Thoughts? Pitfalls?

Yep, we have the bigger version of these at work - 20,000 lumen liquid cooled Panasonics with a mirrored lens. Works great for limited spaces, we use them to project onto buildings and big screens at events when there’s no space to use a conventional lens. Downside is the lens costs as much as a half decent new car…

All those solutions seem quite a lot more expensive and difficult than £10 worth of fans and 10 minutes of my time. 😛 Looked at the back boiler option but my Villager stove is old and the back boiler is impossible to get hold of, and I have something on all my walls below the gunnels…

Try and get the 4 pin versions as you can use a 4 pin fan speed controller like this https://www.amazon.co.uk/Noctua-NA-FC1-4-Pin-PWM-Controller/dp/B072M2HKSN/ These have pulse width modulation fan speed control, which is far more efficient than the 3 pin controllers which just reduce the voltage.