Grifter

Mine is for sale at the moment, and seems to fit the bill. It's actually 56'1"x10'6", (which maximises the width allowed in band 2 of the new widebeam charges and still fits in the northern locks). I have cruised it extensively in the northern canals, from Liverpool to Leeds, York, Rochdale, Newark and Nottingham. Apolloduck Link 3D Tour

Do you have a controller with the facility to read fault codes? If you have the 701 controller, see Operating Instructions for how to read them. I found a service cured my similar symptoms after various issues.

Looks ideal. Cheers. I'll give it a go.

I've got a leak from the exhaust of my engine, from a collar between two muffler boxes that has been welded in the past. The weld is bad - just little patches of pigeon **** - but I can't really grind and re-weld as there's no space, and don't have suitable power. So... I'm looking for some kind of sealant. I think the putty would sit in the fillet of the joint and would be liable to blow off with the vibrations over time. Does anyone know of anything that would be a bit more "searching" and would work its way into the joint a bit more?Cheers,Joe

Thanks for the responses. Job done! The paint had been on for 5 days. Tape was on for just less than a day and came off fine. Pressing the tape on with a credit card is a good tip, and left a good clean edge.

How long would you leave new paint before applying masking tape on top of it? I’m going to paint some coach lines and have had good success with frog tape in the past. It’ll have to be on for 24 hours as i’ll be doing two coats. The paint is Epifanes Yatch Enamel. Don’t want to pull it off when I remove the tape. Cheers, Joe

That's solved that then!

The reduction box is 2:1 as prop shaft speed is the same as cam shaft speed when in forwards (measured with a laser tachometer). My query is because prop shaft speed is about 20% lower than cam shaft speed when it's in reverse, and I'm wondering whether it is meant to be or whether the clutch is slipping.

Can anyone tell me if the ratio in reverse is 1:1? Or have an exploded view where I can count the teeth?

Yes, I had a slowly rising oil level. It would rise an inch over the course of a few months, so it must have been a very slow fuel leak. I took off the fuel pump cover and watched with the engine running but I couldn't see anything. There was splats of oil going everywhere, and it's dark and cramped down there, so I could have missed it. After that, I decided to clean the cylinder fins and have the injectors serviced so I took most of the fuel lines off anyway. I've run the engine for a few hours since and haven't seen the level come up. If it does come up eventually, I'll have another look now I know what I'm dealing with. Good luck. Ah well. The cylinders are both stamped with HSR, which made me think it was an HSR, having seen the document here... http://www.marineengine.co.uk/Recognising%20Lister%20Air%20Cooled%20Engines.pdf which mentions high speed SRs.

I'm moored there at the moment and the boat behind me has a ticket on it. I've seen plenty of others too. I wonder if you need explicit permission? Could it be that the land is owned by the county council, but the water is still C&RT owned?

Cheers bizzard. I'll have a go tonight. A couple of pictures, in case it is useful to anyone else.

Ok, for that I'll need to draw the operating shaft across so that the rollers are clear of the rockers, but I can't move the shaft at the moment. Having removed the set screw from the casing, should it be free to move when in forwards, or neutral perhaps?

A couple of questions about my gearbox, which I suspect is slipping in reverse. Firstly, is the gear ratio the same in forwards and reverse? I measured the prop shaft speed with a laser tachometer and it rotates about 20% slower in reverse than in forwards, in which case it has the same speed as the camshaft. If it is slipping, do I need to adjust the roller that acts on the rockers in the gearbox? How do I know how much? I took the cover plate off and removed the screw from the keyway to try to slide the operating lever across but it won't budge. It feels like there is a lot of force on the rollers preventing any movement. I tried all lever positions. Have I missed something? Cheers, Joe

Ha. I've just cleaned the engine bay as well.

Right, I'll give it a try. Cheers Richard, Joe

Ok thanks. How about when I disconnect the oil feed? Would you still run it then? For how long? Joe

Hi, The fuel in my SR2 is leaking into the lubricating oil. It's not too bad but I'm having a go at finding the leak. Whilst I'm at it, I'm going to give it a thorough service and maybe a decoke, depending on how things look. I've got a couple of questions though - I haven't worked on diesel engines before. I've got Marine Engine Services document from http://www.marineengine.co.uk/LubricatingOilDilution.pdf but have got stuck. This is the engine I took off the air ducting and cylinder head covers and found out I have an HSR2. (which is nice!) I ran it briefly but could see no obvious leaks. Video here (but not very good quality) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12O7N44sJbE I took off the fuel pump housing door There's no chafing or anything obvious. I haven't disconnected the oil feed to the rocker arms yet because I can't find any suitable tube. Then it says to operate the fuel pump by hand to check for leaks. How do I do that? Is it by turning the engine manually, and if so, how do I deal with the compression? It will only be a small leak so it'll have to be turned over quite a few times, I think. Do I just have to man up or is there a way to decompress the cylinders without the cylinder head covers on? Or shall I just run the engine as it is? Cheers, Joe

I'd be interested to see. I often play around in ProEngineer making boat shapes and layouts. Not really with the idea of building them, just to see how they look. It would be good to see some professional drawings. Any chance you could upload them? Regards, Joe

I've put my working on dropbox too now. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14846300/draft_trim_calc.pdf I took moments about the bow but you could equally solve them around the centre of gravity, or the centre of the boat. I think there is general agreement now: when a load is added, there is a point about which the boat rotates, but this point does not stay at the same depth in the water (although the change may be small in comparison with the boat's weight). Regards, Joe

In response to a post about how much the draft and trim changes with an additional load, I wrote a program to calculate it. I though I would post it here, in case it is useful to anyone in future. The script is hosted in my public dropbox at https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14846300/boat_trim_calc.m and can be run in MATLAB or Octave or online using http://www.compileonline.com/execute_matlab_online.php. It uses Archimedes' principle and static equilibrium of forces and moments. Making a few assumptions (rectangular boat, small angles, no dynamic forces, etc.) and putting in boat dimensions, masses and the locations of those masses allows the draft at the bow and stern to be calculated. For example, if I add 600kg of water 2m from the bow of my 10 tonne, 15x2m boat, according to these calculations, the front goes down by 64mm and the back comes up by 24mm, which seems to correspond to reality. Also, by swapping the width and length values, I can look at how the roll angle changes with load. If I add a 60kg load at the extremity (e.g. me standing on the gunwhale) then the boat lists 12mm down at one side and 12mm up at the other. Hope this might be interesting to a few people. Regards, Joe

I saw this the other day and thought it was interesting, and that it must be possible to calculate by making a few assumptions (rectangular boat, small angles, no dynamic forces, etc.) so I had a go. I wrote a script in Matlab to calculate the draft and trim of a boat with an additional load using Archimedes' principle and static equilibrium of forces and moments. Using the original poster's data (boat is 6m long by 2m wide weighing 6 tonnes (a guess) with an even trim (central centre of gravity)) the draft is 500mm. With the addition of a 300kg load 1m from the bow (centre of front third) the calculations predict that: Draft at bow is 575 mm (22.64") Draft at stern is 475 mm (18.70") Boat is 100 mm (3.94") deeper at the bow Trim angle is -0.955 deg See the output plot here https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14846300/trim.pdf. As intuition tells us, the front goes down and the back comes up (but by a smaller amount). If the load was added in the centre of the level boat, the draft would indeed change by 25mm, as calculated in earlier responses. To level up the trim, the OP would then have to add 200kg at the very back, and the new draft would be 542 mm (21.32") I've put the script in my dropbox if you want to have a look. There's a free program called Octave that will run Matlab scripts or open it as a text file to see what's in it. https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/14846300/boat_trim_calc.m I'm happy to show my working if anyone is interested. Regards, Joe

It is a best practice recommendation that... "To avoid vibration damage and early deterioration, we recommend that the fixings are not spaced more than 500mm (20 in) apart." (chapter 7.8, p23 of 2nd edition http://www.boatsafetyscheme.org/media/180428/bss%20guide%202005%20complete%20web.pdf) As you say, it is a requirement that... "All LPG pipe joints must have fixing clips attached no more than 150mm (6 in) from each joint connection and must not move under light manual force" (7.8.4) Sounds like you will be fine. Regards, Joe

To wrap up this topic from a while ago, I bought and received the 4kW Vortigern V013S / Sunrain JA013S stove a few months ago and have been very pleased with it. It arrived well package and I fitted it myself. It is quite a bit smaller than my last stove for a similar heat output. It looks the part, although you can tell some parts are not as good quality as the more expensive stoves: the bottom vent screw mechanism, for example. The lining is cast iron, rather than vermiculite. It's easy to light and if you're using coal, you can turn it down low enough to get it to burn all night easily. On the negative side, the riddling mechanism doesn't do too well at clearing ash (better to use a poker) and when burning wood, the top vent alone doesn't seem to let in enough air. Also, in hindsight, I wish I'd gone for the 5kW version as my boat is not well insulated and does get cold in winter. In my opinion, a great value-for-money stove. I don't see how the Squirrel stoves etc can be 3 times better. Hope this helps anyone who's thinking of getting one. Joe