alan_fincher

I think you have the right Mary. It seems she was Doctor Mary Gibby OBE. I really had no idea!

I agree that many historic narrow boat sales seem to be by word of mouth, rather than advertising publicly. As suggested some potential vendors maybe keep contact details for people who have expressed an interest in owning the boat concerned. I obviously never achieved the "canal cred" to make it on to any of these "preferred buyers" lists, so could only ever look to buy boats that were openly advertised - quite a limitation, as I suspect more are "not advertised" than those that are. Both my current historics came via Apollo Duck. Back to the original question though - some unconverted boats in largely working trim do make it on to Apollo Duck, Ebay, etc., though I don't remember many recently. Another approach is to buy a boat with a largely life expired conversion or even a part completed conversion. BRISTOL (aka DIPPER) was an example of the first and OTLEY an example of the second.

I don't think they wanted to sell it before, and I don't believe they do now. What they actually always wanted to do was to pull it down and redevelop the site for housing. Not having been allowed to do that it has been allowed to fall into a state of dereliction, and one can imagine they are hoping for it to fail enough that it is beyond restoration. When it first closed and was put on the market a friend of mine tried to buy it with a plan to put it back into use as a pub. She offered the (then) full asking price, but the vendors showed no interest in accepting it. A shame as my friend is local to the village, and would I feel sure fought hard to make it a successful concern.

Unless you have both an alternator and a starter motor that have both their positive and their negative terminals completely isolated from the bodies of the alternator and the starter motor, then your engine will have a connection between battery negative and the engine itself, because the alternator or starter battery is connected to negative, and so in turn to the bodies of this equipment and so in turn to the engine itself. You can get special marine alternators where both terminals are isolated from the device, but these are rare in canal applications, and I would suggest it is highly unlikely that a 30 year old Thorneycroft T90 would be so equipped. From my understanding far from trying to mount your engine on insulating feet, (and you would need to do the same for prop-shaft, exhaust, etc.), what you actually need is a negative lead direct from engine casing to battery negative. Perhaps there is some nuance here I'm missing? If so, I'm sure someone can quickly put me right.

Excellent - thank you!

I have two boats, each fitted with a Lister HA2. It turns out that whilst the Fuel Lift Pumps on each looks similar, the way the inlet and outlet ports are orientated on each are in fact different. One looks like this, and is, I suspect the way they normally are:- The other looks like this.... I suspect this to be the non standard one - not the least because having paid a lot for the engine involved, it has proven fairly problematic in my ownership, and quite a number of non standard hacks have come to light. I now want to replace this pump, but all the examples I can see on pages for Lister parts suppliers, or on eBay look to have the ports positioned as per the first image, and not like this one. However it looks to me if one were to release the 5 screws that clamp the upper and lower parts of the pump body together, it should be possible to rotate the top through one fifth of a full turn and clamp it back together, with the ports now aligned as per the second picture. Does anybody have knowledge of this please. In particular can the two parts of the pump be separated, without damaging the diaphragm, which I assume to be trapped between the two halves?

aka "Triagulum". It was owned by a once very well known member of the forum. Is it still?

In the BMC 1800 Handbook I still have an original copy of the recommendation is actually always for a multigrade, (mostly but not exclusively 20W-50). None of the recommended oils for UK temperatures is actually a monograde. When we had a boat with a BMC 1800 we always used a 20W-50.

I would imagine that if looking for a new build from any of the suitable builders you would definitely need to be in no rush. I imagine that most, if not all, will probably have very long lead times.

Round here most B & M vans relate to a care home company. It as, of course, also the Birmingham & Midland canal carrying company, trading out of Gas Street.

2 Bar? 2 Bar?? I can only dream of 2 Bar!

It looks to me like the owner (initials "RH") is associated with Phoenix Canal Carriers on LinkedIn. However I am not signed up to LinkedIn, so can't personally drill down further, but it might be worth you creating a log in?

Personally I would ask Dave Ross who trades (I think!) as DCR boatbuilding on the Stretton arm of the Oxford where Brinklow Boat Services has operated for some years. The best Northwich copies, (they call them "remakes") have always come from that site.. Do you just want the Northwich shape, or do you want rivets (false or otherwise) as well? From memory ARUNDEL probably has none - my preference, unless it is an actual historic, not a copy.

Is that what Collingwood told you?

On the Southern Grand Union canal, the following arms have no locks... Paddington arm Slough Arm Wendover arm None of these are long enough to "continually cruise" on though!