DShK

Great advice, thanks! Oh, I didn't know there was general guidance docs like this from gardner, that's a great help!

Ah that makes sense. I'll point the injector out the hatch, then it's any passer-by's problem 😆 I'll try the other suggestions then I'll take a look at the injectors, thanks!

Yeah I gathered it's a bit of a dodgy thing to do. I will see if I can find some advisory videos before attempting. So I guess at the very least I need to wear rubber gloves, not let the injectors touch anything, and expect to just clean up the diesel? Hopefully I can keep the spray away from my batteries and electrical system, as those are fairly exposed to the engine... Quick question, what is the "HP Side" of the fuel system? Ah, I didn't think about the priming levers, that makes things easier! I actually have an extraction tool, I had previously mentioned I thought my sprayers might need a clean, so my mum got me the tool for my birthday! haha Regarding cooling - the previous owner fit a valve to keep water from entering the skin tank while it heats the calorifier up. I found his post history on here, and I gather he only opened it when on rivers. He made no mention of how to keep water away from the calorifier when doing the handover. He did mention going to a lot of effort int the past of getting the right thermostat - I guess I need to look into whether water is making its way to the calorifier immediately. I would think that a properly functioning thermostat would just recycle the coolant until the engine is up to temp - but perhaps the thermostat isn't working correctly. Ah, typo on my end: It misses a beat just OVER tickover. EG when passing boats.

I'm afraid I wouldn't know how to do that, can you suggest something or do I need to do some engine specific research? Maybe so, I'd like to eliminate it being anything else though! No day tank unfortunately, comes right from the main tank. I would like to fit a day tank one day though! Great Advice, I'll do that, thanks. With the sprayers, I read in my basic diesel maintenance book that I can check the spray pattern by flipping the injector around and (running the engine?/turning it over?). Is that worth doing? Regarding getting to temp and smoking, I mentioned because I had read on here that it was a myth that a gardner will be a bit smokey - that it should be smokeless after a few minutes. I am in no position to say who is wrong or right, but I thought perhaps it was a potential symptom of a problem.

Hi, Looking after an engine myself is a new thing for me - one I am excited to do, but still a big newbie at. The boat I bought a few months ago has a lovely gardner 2LW (I didn't post this in the vintage engine subforum as the problem probably isn't something specific to my engine?). I've noticed that occasionally my engine seems to miss a beat - this seems to happen when underway and low revs just under tickover. It feels like its happening a bit more than it was. But perhaps the low revs element is simply because that's when it's most notable? Is this misfiring? My understanding is that if it is, it could be a few different things - blocked injectors, other fuel supply issues, maybe compression? My exhaust is a bit smokey for a good while, it does largely clear up but it takes a good while, maybe 30 minutes of proper cruising - not sure if it's just my engine taking a long time to get to temperature though. What do you think? What are my best bets for diagnosing the issue?

Update: Adverc were very helpful, they sent me a document with images on how to do it, or they could do it for me while servicing the unit for £30+PP. I appreciate that they gave both options, great customer service (given technically I am not even a customer!). My CO alarm has not been set off by either my charger or my solar since changing the voltages, so I think this problem has been solved. Thanks to everyone who posted suggestions and help!

I should be able to figure it out from that! Thank you! I ordered some crocodile clip leads for my multimeter so when those arrive I'll give it a go.

That's great info thank you! I will give it a go - is the pot to change the voltage easy to get to?

I had a little search now you've mentioned this, and I found a thread where, who I believe to be the original owner of the boat was asking how to adjust it! Also mentions you can send them back to Adverc to adjust if required. Seems it can be a little bit tricky to do, as you have to watch the voltage and only adjust it when it's hit a certain part of it's cycle. Thanks for the info. I assume pulling the plug out just means the alternator won't fully charge my batteries - no real problem at the moment.

Ah okay! Yeah that's worth a go, I'll get in contact with them and see if it's possible for me to modify it. I really feel like I'm missing something - clearly some effort has been put in to charge these batteries at 14.8V. I wonder why? The batteries are about 4 years old, but the boat is 12. Perhaps they replaced the batteries with something different and didn't think to update this stuff. After all they told me they "did gas sometimes, but we just increased ventilation" (which I read as opening the hatches).

My problem is hardwired into my alternator regulator 🙄 These don't look to be sold anymore - looks like you can get them cheap enough on ebay but no mentions of voltage unlike my one. What's my best bet for alternator regulation? Oh and I'll just pop this in here so I don't make another thread for it - I have a smart bank for split charging, and the relay it connects to makes a constant loud squeeeeeeeeeeeeeee noise when it's connected - is it supposed to do this? Is there an option that won't drive me as mad??

Okay great, this sound really hopeful then! Now I worry what other stuff the previous owner (who did the fit out) might have done wrong elsewhere 🙃 I checked the spec sheet and they are Antimony, so I will set the absorption/bulk to 14.4V and the float to 13.7V. Fingers crossed this solves the issue! Thanks so much for the help, hopefully this is the end of this saga!

Yeah I guess that would make sense about equalisation. But then it makes no note of what float should be set to. The charger is set to (by the previous owner) 14.8V, so I set the solar controller to be the same. Is this voltage difference enough to cause the gassing? So I should measure the voltage across the batteries when they hit their peak voltage (reads as 14.8V on shunt/solar controller)? No, I was aware that having the panels connected to the controller without it being connected to the battery could fry the controller. I connected the controller to the batteries first, then wired in the panels. I have a breaker to isolate the panels between the controller and the panels (which I'm using now to stop the gassing!). In any case I don't think there is anything going wrong with the solar - it's doing the same as I would get with a shoreline. I just think the old panels/controller were not powerful enough to keep up with power consumption to get to this point (400w vs 1500w).

Update to this - batteries continue to gas when charging from a moderate discharge state. I just fitted 1500W of new solar panels and these are now causing the alarm to go off. I began to wonder if the previous owner had set the voltage wrong - so reached out to the battery supplier for info. They are monbat GC2B 6v cells. I can't quite make heads or tails of the datasheet they gave me though - the graph given for voltages doesn't match my understanding for a IUI charge profile. It looks like 12v raising to 14.4V for bulk/absorption. But then it raises even further to 15.9? I don't understand why this graph doesn't drop to a float voltage. 15.9 Seems extremely high. The charger is currently set to 14.8V which is higher than that 14.4V value - perhaps this is causing the gasing? Or do my batteries just need replacing? As a perhaps point of note - it seems to me that the alarm is always getting set off when the smartguage has hit 100% - not sure if just latency, but I did turn on the charger when the batteries were already at 100 (I think I accidentally turned the charger off, unless the switch on it is also somehow a breaker?) and the batteries began to gurgle quite loudly.

That'd be lovely 🙂

Welcome! I almost bought this boat a few months ago, she is a lovely craft indeed. I am somewhat jealous you're taking her on, look after her! Please do post updates!

I never considered that I should keep those cannisters in the gas locker too. Makes sense really, will start doing that!

Care to elaborate on that?

Even without a mast I feel quite vulnerable in a storm! Certainly makes me take my washing line in...

It pained me to get the oven going even. One of the evenings I just got a camping stove out and cooked outside instead.

Seems like a poor idea to swim in the canal either way. So polluted and full of disease. Most waterways are now.

Moored up in a nicely shaded area, chucked a bunch of stuff on my roof and suspended a bunch of damp white towels/sheets on top. Tin foil covers all portholes/prisms. Seems fairly cool so far, we'll see how I fair monday/tuesday!

Some solid advice here, thanks. I have some big solar panels on pivot mounts on my roof. Not all are installed yet but I'll throw the other two up there and chuck as many damp towels etc as I can. Hoping the air gap from that + trees will stop the boat from baking. Just today I bought a generator from my neighbour so I can run that for power on monday/tuesday. As for the pub solution - if I find monday too difficult I will resort to that. I work on the boat so that complicates it, but if monday is problematic my employer will understand.

That's a fair point, on tuesday it's supposed to be pretty windy which can obviously be cooling, but in this kind of heat it might not be a good trade off. I think I need an internal/external thermometer! Ooer, that's confusing. I guess I'll err on the side of caution on that one... thanks for the info