andy3196

Just happened to remember who posted the original thread so could find it easily Its at http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php...c=17473&hl=

Hinckley - The moorings at Br 16 are probably the easiest for access to the town, if there's any room on them, but it's possible to get into the side along the stretch between 16 & 17. I've never moored on them myself as I used to moor at Trinity, but never heard of any problems and there always seem to be plenty of boats around. Coventry City Centre - Nice moorings, I've never had a problem there and the basin is covered by CCTV as well. Worth the trip down.

Have a look at the Boaters Phone Company. They do adaptors for some dongles. Satisfied customer reccomendation

Details, including link to the booking form, on the Ashby Canal Association Site. It's not at the end of the canal, but at the moorings before the tunnel this year as they have started work at the end.

I don't know how common the problem is, but I wasn't warned about it in the survey when I bought my boat and the engineer that I called out didn't immediately diagnose it as a problem and only mentioned it after seeking advice from someone else who has more knowledge of this engine. I would assume from this that it isn't an inevitability but can occur. I also have absolutely no idea how many hours my engine had done when it failed, nor how it had been used prior to my ownership. Mine was an 80D, possibly the 80E which has different pistons was introduced to correct a fault. There should be a plate on the flywheel housing which identifies which engine it is. Good maintenance will of course help any engine and there were signs that mine had been neglected in it's life. I also did have an overheating incident when a hose split. It could be significant that of the vast number of boaters on here, I seem to be the only one who has suffered a failure. It might be worth calling a few engineers and asking for their opinions, I think there is a list of recommended engineers on the Thornycroft web site. At the end of the day, it is a 20 year old engine. Any engine of that sort of age may well be heading towards the end of it's life and if the rest of the boat was what I would want, I would probably take the risk.

Yes, they are K series based. I don't know of any sites but I have an original Operation Manual and Parts List which are surplus to requirements if you're interested. They are prone to cracking pistons, that much I know about them. When mine did it I contacted Thornycroft themselves and it seems that they can supply a good range of parts for thse engines still. It worked out easier for me to go for a new S4L which slots into the space the old K4D was in without too much trouble. I still have my stripped Type 80D (the 80E is similar but some different parts) if there are any components of interest (FOC)

There's a winding hole at bridge 6A, about 1/2 mile south, but whay not go all the way to the end? The basin is worth a visit and there are nice bits in the city centre.

The towpath side is piled so I would guess that you could get in there, but I normally use the offside on the old wharf next to the goods in gate and near the pipe bridge, so on the store side of the canal. http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?hl=en&ie...mp;t=h&z=20 The closest that you can get a trolley is the bus stops as they have wheel locks, but it would be worth asking at customer services if they have a non locked trolley.

If that is a reference to it now being worth £2000 against a new car, or even something more than £500 to sell to someone who is intending to get a new car, then it isn't. Not a vast amount of detail in the Budget Statement at http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/news/nol/shared...report_2591.pdf (note it is a 2.5 MB file) But it does say this: 4.16 To give a boost to the car industry during the current downturn, the Government announces the introduction of a vehicle scrappage scheme. A discount of £2,000 will be offered to consumers buying a new vehicle to replace a vehicle more than ten years old which they have owned for more than twelve months. The Government will set aside £300 million for this scheme with funding matched by manufacturers participating in the scheme. The Government will work with industry to introduce the scheme next month. The scheme will end by the start of March 2010, or when funding for the scheme has been used if earlier.

Graham Booth's "inland boat owner's book" gives dates of 52607-53554 as 1993 53555-54394 as 1994 These being the date registered with BW, so the boat could be older if it was previously registered on non-BW waters

Canalpan will export to many more formats than just Autoroute, probably the most useful is the GPX format. We had a bit of a discussion on how to get canalplan output onto a Garmin GPS in this thread http://www.canalworld.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=20626 As to what is the best GPS to use, I can't really answer. I tend to use an old Garmin GPS III+ which is pretty good as it's close to indestructible, but mainly as it is the one I had, but I also use my Nokia N95 and intend to play with the output from this to my sim enabled Netbook PC running either Google Earth or Memory Map. Having said all that, and despite my liking of gadgets, it's all just for fun really and I'm never at the tiller without a Nicholsons guide, which has the advantage of far superior reliability They don't run ou of power and aren't too upset if they have a quick swim. Oh, and I agree that a survey is close to essential.

http://www.riverthames.co.uk/boat/chandlery/2442.htm suggests ubc@ubc.eclipse.co.uk (the .co.uk seems more likely than .com.uk) http://www.canalia.com/waterwaysdirectory/chandlerp.htm suggests ube@uxbridge99.Fsnet.co.uk

I'll try a pictoral guide, hopefully the steps will be a lot clearer than with me just trying to explain it. I've been playing with GPS and mapping software etc for years so have probably missed out some bits but hopefully it will be clear. Step1 - Canalplan Having prepared your route in Canalplan, click on the "Export this route as a file" button On the next page, choose "GPX" in the drop down box and click on "Generate export file" On the next page click on the "click here" link and in the options box that appears (Firefox, but IE etc should be similar) select "save to disk" {Update} In Internet Explorer you need to right click on this link and select "Save Target As..." in order to download the GPX file. Step 2 - EasyGPS Start up EasyGPS and click on "open" icon, navigate to your downloaded GPX file and select it With your GPS connected select the "send" icon and it should upload your route to your GPS If the number of waypoints in the route is too large for your GPS it will tell you and you'll need to delete a few, this can be done by selecting waypoints in the list or by double clicking on a waypoint on the diagram and hitting delete. Using the diagram is probably better as it will be easier to see which are the less important waypoints. Once you've finished dleting extra waypoints select "send" again. And then you should have the route on your GPS

EasyGPS *should* upload the route to your GPS, I have just tried it on my Garmin GPS III+ and it works fine (except I had to remove some waypoints to get down to the III+ limit of 30 waypoints per route) So the process is to open the GPX file in EasyGPS and use the send icon to load it to your GPS. If you haven't configured your GPS yet you need to click on "edit" then "preferences" then the "add GPS" button.

It should be possible to get a route from Canalplan to your GPS. I've not actualy tried it but would expect that the following would work 1. Download the route from canalplan in GPX format. 2. Load the downloaded file into a program like GPS Utility www.gpsu.co.uk 3. Having configured GPSu to the correct GPS reciever, upload the route. {edit} Scratch that, the unregistered version of GPSu will not load the full exported route file. (Should have tried before advising.) EasyGPS http://www.easygps.com/ will load the full file but doesn't list the Venture in it's list of GPS units, but the venture could well use the same data formt as other Garmin units so it might be worth a try. {another edit} Venture HC is listed as Etrex Venture HC so it should work Hope this helps a bit.

Meant to reply to this before, even got round to registering to do so, but got distracted. I used to have a Thornycroft engine from 1988 in my boat, until it decided that internal combustion wasn't a game it wanted to play anymore. Mine was a Type 80D, which I found out, when mine died, can suffer from cracked pistons. There is also the Type 80E which was around at the same time which has a number of different parts including the pistons so maybe that was a development of the design which overcame the issue. You should be able to identify which engine is fitted to the boat you're interested in easily as there should be an ID plate on the flywheel housing. I have no idea how many hours were on my engine when it failed as there was no hour meter, and I suspect that it had been somewhat neglected by the PO. In tems of parts availability, the usual service items are fairly standard and available from chandlers, and it would have been easy to get hold of the parts for a rebuild had I not decided to fit a new engine, supplied by Thornycroft with the bits necessary to attach my existing marinisation parts. Hope this info is useful to you. Andy