Nickhlx

Can anyone say how much it costs to get a boat over there ? - Did you wait for a really calm day and sail it ? and how much does it cost for mooring / licence etc ( I know fuel is likely somewhat cheaper !! ) Thanks, Nick

Whilst not strictly on a canal boat engine, there may be someone here that can help I have a carb that seems to have had fuel evaporating in / throughout it, for some considerable time and needs a good clean-out - I imagine it has lacquer or similar in the jets and casting passageways.. it won't run above idle, sounding like fuel starvation.. Any recommended products / chemicals I can flush through or soak in to clean it out? I have chemicals and solvents including Carbon Tetrachloride, Xylene and Acetone, meths, petrol, paraffin, sodium Hydroxide ( not good with aluminium) and others that maybe of use or is it best to get a certain product ( which ? ). Thanks, Nick

Can anyone confirm that "red diesel" has a more relaxed specification as to its composition than white / road diesel ? I know about the Cetane value and sulphur content mentioned above but what else is "permitted / likely to be found in it ? Kerosene, petrol, used engine oil, home-made biodiesel ? All substances that will work perfectly well in small proportions in fuel for low-stressed diesel engines typically employed in many of our canal boats, albeit with possibly altered power outputs, and all substances I can quite easily see finding our way into the supply chain... call me a cynic, but I imagine that when the fuel is being sold at £1-20 a litre there must be a temptation to "dispose" of it in a "useful" way... Nick

when you un-did it you failed to notice that the sealing washer had done a runner into the bilge and upon re-assembly you could hear it (albeit very faintly) laughing its sock off somewhere under the engine ? Nick

What are the basic limitations for getting on the French canals ( presume max length / width and draft) ? Thanks Nick

The comments apparently coming from Barrus ( technical guys - I assume ?) quite alarm me - and if the alternators being fitted to their engines come with such a wide "tolerance" of "acceptable" voltages, it fills me with concern what other situations may be deemed "acceptable"... How can an alternator output voltage be established unless the type of battery it is charging is determined ? Do they say that " this alternator is designed to charge "X" type of battery chemistry, or supply different ones designed to work properly with the battery type in use ? It is making me lean towards specifying a Beta Marine engine.. Nick

"Diesel Bob" is a good source ( Google for him) for info on what injector pumps can and can not take vege oil / biodiesel - manly car orientated but does do injectors / pumps conversions to suit the alternative fuels - interesting web site too.. Nick

One thing that concerns me is that there is mention of an item ( a.c. generator?) that supplies 110-0-110 instead of 240-0 ... i.e. both live and neutral mains conductors at 110 volts from earth... or centre tapped / earthed output. Is there any equipment that assumes that the neutral is at earth potential - I have a valve radio in which the chassis is connected to neutral, and there are also "aerial and earth" connections on the back - Would this earth be at 110 volts from "hull earth", and therefore "live" ? How many other items may be like this ? Concerned... Nick

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So is this "product" not going to be taxed under the new rules due in ? October ? Nick

...same sort of system is also coming available at Lidl, I think from Thursday, at £64-99 Nick

Surely part (most ?) of the problem lies in the (apparent) fact that the specification for "red diesel", 35 second oil, 28 second oil, and kerosene, ( take your pick) all have a relatively relaxed specification and the composition has been varying and trending to contain cheaper fractions over the last year or two ? In contrast, road diesel / white diesel, actually has a quite tight specification if it is to conform and is much more rigorously and frequently tested to ensure it conforms to being within spec and hefty fines if it strays outside permitted tolerances. Our diesel engines are really very low stressed machines (40 hp out of 1.8 ltrs ???) around a third of what a road diesel engine produces, so I guess is much more tolerant of the rubbish it is being fed... Heaters using diesel or kerosene need to burn the fuel efficiently, else soot results, or it quickly burns out components - if the fuel is not as the manufacturer designed it to be run on, I can see it is logical to expect problems or at least diminished performance, and how can we expect a loosely regulated fuel to be consistant in its composition ? Until several random tests are done on fuels available on the cut, we will never be sure of what is being sold. I would expect to see fewer problems by consistantly running engine and heating on white diesel (possibly sourced yourself from road filling stations) assuming that the heaters are properly set up - domestic boilers have their air/fuel mixture carefully set up and/or exhaust gas temperatures adjusted to be within spec.... Perhaps the answer is to have a petrol engine converted to run on gas and use domestic gas central heating boilers all run off a properly installed bulk tank on board ? Of course there will be re-fuelling issues but if that approach caught on it would not be long before gas stations appeared on the banks... At least it would stop red diesel being "contaminated" by ? 5 to 15% old engine oil, chip fat, waste vegetable oil and whatever else is worth chucking in to sell at 60p per litre - or even £1-20 / ltr.... At least propane is a little more difficult to "fiddle with" - we do live in rip-off Britain..... Nick

This all sounds as if it's a fundamental issue to me.... A good battery that's well-charged should not be accepting 20 to 40 amps with only 12 volts being applied to it - ok even a well charged battery might do so if it were hit with 14.8 volts or more, but not just 12... So first thing I would verify is check that your voltage measuring device(s) are telling the truth ( borrow someone elses to compare ?) Lidl / Maplin / some garages do very basic ones for a few quid... Not sure if its an option to charge the batteries from a known good mains charger or if you are on the cut... but that would verify that you have known good ones and not a duffer amongst them... I would verify all the batteries in a bank are individually reading around the same (good) voltage after lifting a lead from one end of each.. All a bit difficult if you are not in a marina / moored up and pre-occupied with wanting to get somewhere... Nick

Hi Andy, Yes a .pdf would be great and I have just PM'd Larkshall to see if I can get his copy for my file too.. Will try to get along to Crick.... Nick

.... could scan and e-mail me an article, or has finished with the mag and could send me it or cut out an article within ? For some reason I missed my copy and when I realised all had sold out... The article I am wanting is the review on the "Narrowboat Chough"... would prefer either the original mag or the pages from it as it no doubt looks better in original form.. Quite happy to pay all expenses of course... Thanks, Nick

and in a similar vein, Sat Navs record internally ( not visble on most screens) you average leg speed for legs of a journey that are typically only a few tens of feet long... so effectively they are spies in the cab for driving over the speed limits... logging time , place and speed at thet time - so, if you need to, delete your track / log history - can only get to mine on a PC hookup ! Nick

and loads and loads ! ! Nick

I dunno what you guys are on, but can I have some too please ?? Nick

Great ! Still trying to see what the bottom line saving is - but think its around an hour a day from around 7 to around 6 which is a saving of around 14 %... with the initial cost near enough zero to not a lot more, I reckon this has to be a superb bang for buck rate of return... Also it reports a 6 hour on in 24 hrs, using 3.5 amps which is only about 21 ah/24hrs, if my sums are not omitting anything... which if correct sounds pretty ( very ) good ! I assume its approx a standard size fridge ? Thanks Nick

Would it not be more meaningful to measure the efficiencies of the various inverters at no load, 1/3rd load, 2/3rds load and rated max. load as power in against power out ? Gibbo - have you time to do this for a couple of the more popular ones ? - it might be more real life than just off-load readings ? Nick

Roger, I am following this thread also with some concern as I could be in this very situation in about a years time... I think I would take a sample of the fuel now, ( a litre say ) just in case an analysis becomes necessary.. or if you have a friend in the business, have it analysed. What I have deduced from the many bits of information is that there seems to be a query over the quality of supply and just because you may have purchased from a completely honest and reliable source is no guarantee that the fuel is as the manufacturer intended. It may have been old stock, contaminated or stored in an above ground tank in direct sun at a higher than usual ambient temp .... the possibilities are numerous. One less expensive way to verify the equipment may be to run it for a while off a small header tank of white / road diesel newly purchased from a filling station. I will certainly be specifying separate tanks, filling each appropriately and providing for drain down easily into jerry cans in case of need. Whilst I appreciate it is not down to the new owner to sort out any problems, I don't have confidence some builders know how to approach the solving of a problem such as this, and may well not have the interest or abilities some of the more knowledgable owners here certainly have... I guess you know that though Nick

Thanks, Gibbo... I will have a search Nick