srod

Can anyone tell me the part numbers for oil, fuel, and air filters for an ST2? Gotta service on on Friday, as it's Easter I can't just read off the part numbers and go and buy them. Any other ST2 service tips and tricks appreciated, Cheers, Shane.

Had a window kicked in the early hours last weekend, any ideas where I can get a replacement windowpane like this one: it's off a stowe hill boat, would like one with a matching engraving if they exist as a standard. Cheers, Shane.

I'm on mains hook-up most of the time and have a galvanic isolator in-line with the earth, the standard set up and this is all good... Just use 12v for lighting and the pump, so I need to keep these topped up. The boat's previous owner used a standard car batt charger plugged into the mains on the boat and connected across the domestic batts to maintain the charge, which seems fairly straight forward and works well. However - I was wondering if this setup would cause unexpected stray currents, and therefore some galvanic corrosion on the hull? The battery grounds are bonded to the hull at various points, so connecting the ground of the battery charger to them is effectively making a circuit between the hull and the mains supply? Or would the 240/12v transformer provide enough isolation between neutral and ground?

I have webasto central heating - a 5.2kw unit connected to 2 radiators and hot water tank. Does a fine job of heating the whole of my 65'er, hot water only ever gets luke warm when both rads are on max. Just wondering what sort of litres-per-hour I should expect for it. Just comparing red at 70p per litre vs coal at 8 quid a bag before winter properly kicks in! cheers,

I've got 2 Fuel filters on my BMC 1.8. The first is inline with the fuel tank and the lift pump. It sits low down in the engine compartment. My Webasto also draws fuel from this filter. (So one line in - fuel tank; two lines out - engine lift pump and webasto pump) The second is inline the with the engine lift pump and engine injection pump, and is mounted high up on the engine itself. Looking at a standard marine diesel installation diagram, it would appear that the first filter should be a water seperator the second should be a crud filter. Great! However my only question is, both filters have the same model cartridge filter (crossland 522) - is this correct?

We cruised past this old barge a few years back, assumed it must have been grounded during the winter high water... Back in the area again, so went for a wander past this morning to see if it was still there. It was indeed, but at a slightly different angle, having had some serious welding work done to it... Certainly makes the job easier!

That's good to know - I was wondering what 1mm of steel with say 10mm of that good hard solid rust on top would look like to the meter... 1mm or like and erroneous 5mm?! So they really are that good? what about welds?

That is very interesting indeed... leads me to another question... I replaced my alternator, exchanged my old dead 55amp unit for a 75amp from a boat chandlers - cost me 70quid. Was miles from home, didn't have the choice to shop around, was lucky the boat yard was a 20min bus ride away and the boat yard guys gave me a lift back, so in this instance that actually was a real bargain! Recently had to replace the alternator on my sisters boat too, took the reg off and the brushes looked right on the min, thought about just trying to replace that part but when I took it in to a motor factors and could get a new 70amp part-ex for 35quid it didn't seem worth bothering (especially as the old unit was a 50amp, so this also was an upgrade). Could I have just got away with replacing the reg and brushes? So, for next time, would it been worth spending a fiver trying?

cheers, is that something I could get from a standard automotor factors?

Just wondering how accurate these are when there is a lot of rust... on the inside of the hull! My bilge area at the back has some insane rust flakes growing in it that I'm too scared to chip off to repaint incase I put a hole in the hull Recently bought the boat, and had the hull surveyed, and the surveyor paid particular attention to this area and said it was fine - but how accurate is that sonic meter thingy? Say you have 6mm baseplate - measurement spot polished with a ginder to bare steel, but no rust, the other side of this spot on the inside ot the boat is rusty as hell... how would the sonic meter read this? Are they capable of just measuring the good steel, say you have 5mm of good steel with a 10mm layer of rust (assuming 10mm rust = 1mm steel), would this measure as 5mm? or just a bad reading?

About 100hrs ago I fitted a new alternator (a 75Ah lucas type), and re-did a lot of the wiring as it needed re-doing, pretty certain all the wiring is correct, everything was was functioning properly after I did the job. The alertnator was always charging at around 14 to 14.4v. I run three domestic batts that are fairly old but hold a decent charge, the starter is reasonably new. We draw a lot of power, a fairly ineffecient 240v fridge and nearly always run a 2kw washing machine when cruising (have a baby on board!), so the alternator is always working pretty hard. About 50hrs ago the revcounter went screwy, reading double revs, or just plain wrong revs (but not zero). I never found the cause of the problem, but it sorted itself out a few cruises later and has been fine since. The past couple of weeks we have been on hook up, so have been keeping the batteries charged up via the mains, so when running the engine now the voltage across the batteries has been getting up to 14.8v (just the starter) or 14.5 (starter + domestics), which seems too high. I don't have any battery management system. Is the regulator stuffed? Could the dodgy revcounting been a sign of the regulator becoming stuffed? Do I have a problem here, if so can I just replace the reg or do i need a whole new alternator unit? cheers!

thanks for the advice. i shall check the valve clearances, check the engine for movement when it's not runing (great tip, so simple!) and maybe re-do the exhaust section. how tricky a job is checking the timing chain for slack, and tightening it if necessary? Anyone feel like explaining or pointing me in the direction of a simple step-by-step guide to checking the valve clearances on a BMC? I can see what to do in theory (and by looking in the BMC engine handbook), - but how does one know when the vavle is fully open/closed etc. could I check the timing while I was at it? Just a basic 'how not to make it worse than it was before' guide is fine. My engine mechanical experience goes as far as replacing filters, fuel pumps and alernators, so I know which end of a screwdriver to hold. Never taken the rocker cover off before though (except on Tony's course, but that was 7 years ago and I have never dared do it on my own engine and have since forgotten)

My old BMC rattles quite a bit in various ranges of rpm, seems noisier than other BMCs I've heard too. You can see the vibes down the side of the boat when the engine's running and we're tied up. What can I do to calm things down a little? Engine mounts haven't worked loose as far as I can tell, does the rubber wear out - would replacing them help? There's also no flex in my exhaust system - the silencer is bracketed to the hull, the pipe from the engine to the silencer is rigid, would adding a flexy section here help much? Do silencers become less effective with age and sooting up? Cheers for any advice, great forum!

Anyone know where I can get a replacement temp sender for an Icknield temp gauge? Or any other temp gauge/sender combo for a BMC - the only ones I have seen in chandlers so far are the Durite brand ones and the thread is much smaller than what I have already, so not a direct replacement, or is this the only option with some kind of sleeve? cheers,

Well this all ended happily, I bought the boat, I'm on it right now infact. Bargaining process was a little ugly and not that enjoyable, but we came to an agreement that suited us both. The handover was all on good terms. Funny thing was the surveyor rocked up today to finish off the survey, to find us moving aboard, "oh.... so you've bought it then..?!" Now I can lie awake at night thinking about pitting... I've a few lingering psychological scars from an old 5/5/3 springer I bought a few years ago that was fully replated after surveying out at 2.3mm along all the folds. The new plate, done in 4mm (got ripped off by the boatyard ) suffered from such insane electrolytic corrosion that you had to wonder if there was any point, I sold that and bought a house with dodgy foundations that started to fall apart from the bottom up, luckily I got free of that too. I think a caravan might actually be a safe bet...