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When I bought my boat in 2003 I had it blacked with standard blacking as part of the jobs as advised by my surveyor. I wonder what is the forum members thoughts on how often to reblack the hull and the best boatyards in the northants/leicestershire area. thanks.

Once again thanks for all the replies. I think I will keep with the Engel until I can afford/justify a new 12 volt fridge. Looking at my boat yesterday I think I will have to be very careful with the dimensions of any new fridge in the future as it will be dificult to actually get the fridge onto the boat. cheers Steve

Hi, is easy to replace the seals on the mansfield "dump" through toilets? Ours no longer holds water. A local hire company advised that they remove their toilets each year and pressure wash to remove the limescale build up on the ball valve is this rather drastic. As usual any comments very welcome cheers Steve

I know this has been covered in the old forum but i was wondering if any one is using one in a similar situation to me. Our boat has an old 12volt Engel fridge which is possibly 15 years old, it works ok but we switch it off at night when staying on the boat as it is rather noisy. We have an 1800 watt modified sine wave inveter installed and when we are on weekend or longer trips tend to cruise for 6 to 8 hours minimum so charging of the 3 x 110 amp batteries should not be an issue. My idea would be to replace the Engel with a 240 volt AA rated fridge, a narrow fridge as i can only get a 500 mm wide fridge onto the boat. Any thoughts/reccomendations would be appreciated Steve

I eventually found a loose connection on the volt meter and everything appears to be ok again so once again thanks to all for the advice I have purchased a clip on ammeter (Durite £14.00) and a Lucas Ammeter to fit at a later date any help with fitting /wiring would be appreciated. I have also purchased a Durite 180 amp split charge relay to replace the Lucas 33RA relay which is currently fitted. One thing I thought of the other day that with a lot of the problems the forum members have often after all the advice given on the various topics, the completion/solution is not reported on so perhaps we could encourage everyone to bear this in mind for the future. Cheers, Steve

Hi Gary, I have forwarded these details to the guy who sign wrote our boat and his work is excellent cheers Steve

Update I have now completed works to my holding tank and so far everything is spot on. I took John's advice and improved the pipework i.e replaced the flex pipework with solid abs pipe(ATORE thick wall from Lee Sanitation), installed an inspection hatch and used uniseals for the new inlets/outlet connections. I have also installed a computer fan in the breather pipe so prior to flushing the mansfield toilet the fan runs to put the tank under a small amount of negative pressure and prevents smells escaping into the bathroom. This idea was from a previous post on the old forum by Rog Guiver and so far all appears to be working fine. I forgot to say that we filled the tank up with water and Jeyes left in overnight, pumped out and then cut the inspection hatch and cleaned the tank as thoroughly as possible" bloddy horrible". We are now using odorloss which appears to be ok. this may be of help to other forum members

I am after some advice re my volt meter reading not rising when the engine is running. I have 1 start battery and 3 x liesure batteries charged by one alternator via a split charge relay (Lucas). I have a volt meter which until this Sunday always went up to about 13.5 volts when the engine is running. The alternator belt is fine and the charge warning light did not come on and I know this is working because it comes on when i stop the engine and turn on the ignition. The volt meter reads 12 volt whether engine is on or off but does slightly move when the engine is on. I will check the alternator output with one of the battery/alternator bits of kit. I would appreciate any other advice. Cheers Steve

I have found a TV/DVD combi unit that works off this inverter. Phillips Model no 14T6107 for sale in Comet for £ 100.00 When i spoke again with Sterling they advised me that combis with non transformer power supplies would work but they could not advise which ones so after speaking to a local repair company i found out about this Phillips model. Hope this helps other forum members.

Hi, my father has just purchased a boat with one of these engines installed, the engine starts ok and has just run for on average 12 hours a day without any problems. The only niggle is the smoke emitted when picking up the speed from idling when in locks to move back and forth for instance. TW marine say this is the norm for this engine due to the low operating temperature when idling. I wonder if any forum members have a similar engine and have improved this problem? Has anyone used a product called "Forte" to help with emissions? cheers, steve

Sean, look at sterlings website for the online manuals www.sterling-power.com i think this is the correct website. I have an 1800 watt modified sine wave on my boat everything works ok but avoid tv/video combis as ih ave yet to find one that works. cheers, Steve

Sorry I have been a muppet, All sorted Steve

I may be being stupid, is it possible to view the old forum? I have tried looking at the archives but no success. Steve

Who would the members recommend for manufacturing a cratch board and plank in the midlands area. I have seen Ken's covers advertise, Wilsons and A.J Canopies. Any advise gratefully appreciated. Cheers, Steve

Hi, Iknow this subjct has been covered many times but I wonder if any members have had similar problems to me? My boat is approx 15 years old and I assume the plastic holding tanks are the original ones and incidentally they look very similar to the ones on sale in Mindland C's. I have replaced the hoses withmarine grade sanitation hose. The suction pipe for discharge is connected to a spiggot in the bottom corner of the tank so obviously waste will lie in the hose also. The problem is the smell under the bed ie. where the holding tank is stored. I have checked and there are no leaks so has the polypropylene tank become porous and allowing the smells out? By the way i have 1.5 inch breather pipe. I am also trying yeast as recommended by Lee Sanitation but may go back to blue. Possible solutions. Replace mansfield and holding tank- cost but also a lot of construction work as bulkhead appears to be built around the tank. Modify tank so a dip tube is fitted so that waste doe not sit in the pipe. It has been mentioned using jeyes fliuid, is it worth pumping out tank and filling up with a jeyes solution and leaving for a couple of days. Any other ideas? Previously Bernie suggested vanilla pods for somebody whose tank had leaked to neutralise the smell does this work and where would youpurchase these from.

Success, I had the lift pump looked at by a local company which remanufacture diesel engines and basically the mechanism in the pump was worn out. I have replaced the lift pump,fuel filter, added a sedimentor pre filter and repiped the fuel supply and everything is working fine. One thing i have noticed is that now i have fitted a new lift pump the engine bleeds up much easier and started first tiime. Finally thanks for everyone's advice. Steve

Alan, thanks for the advice re the temporary connection to the lift pump. I have been considering also replacing the solid copper supply and return fuel pipes prior to the flexible hoses which were fitted in October 2003. The valves from the tank appear to be ball valves. One question I have is why the supply and return are different diameters possibly 12/10 mm for supply and 8 mm for return is this the norm. Also is there any thing special about the compression fittings used? Finally I am trying to check with Perkins to ensure the fitted lift pump is the correct one for this engine because there is nowater trap and mesh filter as shown in the manual even though the lift pump has Perkins 102 and type Y on it. John, I am sure you will read this,I think this forum is brilliant for helping new boaters solve problems Cheers, Steve

John, Thanks for the advice. As a lift pump is only £25 to £30 I will buy a new one and also redo the compression fittings on the fuel supply line. I will let you know how I get on after the weekend. Steve

Liam, I checked the manual for my Newage 160 gearbox and Castrol GTX is one of the recommended oils. I will try and scan the relevent pages and email you Steve

Further Problems. This weekend I took the boat out to reach the local boat yard 50 mins cruising away, in this time the engine stopped six times.!!!! Each time the problem is air in the fuel system. I have tightened all the fuel pipe connections, taken the fuel filter out and refitted it ( I will replace it this weekend). The lift pump appears to be working ok because when operating manually there seams to be strong pressure of fuel coming outof the bleed screw. Could it be a faulty lift pump/diaphragm? Could it be the filter? Could it be a problem with the fuel injection pump? Any thoughts? Cheers, Steve

Hi folks, I have just returned from a three day cruise over easter which has been a nightmare. On two days after 6 hours the engine cut out and would not start I eventually found air in the lift pump and also in the fuel filter lines and also at the injectors. On the third day this happened a further thee times. The fuel tank was only a quater full and the fuel lines are halfway up the diesel tank but i do not know whether these have dip tubes fitted so i wondered if the fuel level in the tank was the problem but this does not appear to have cured the problem. Any advice would be gratefully received Cheers Steve

Liam, I have a D3.152 fitted in my boat. I purhased a manual from Calcutt Boats cost about £ 18.00 but the data sheet was missing for the lubricating fluids etc but I eventually got this page so the oil required is HD diesel oil 15 W 40 or 20 W 50. For the gear box i am sure the manual for my Newage PRM states using Gastrol GTX i will check at the weekend and confirm. Cheers, Steve.

I have contacted Sterling, but they would not advise which models of TV/Combi thta would work due to there being so many variations. I even said that i would not expect them to guarantee a model but just pont me in the right direction but still the answer was no. Apparently Toshiba models are known to give problems. I wanted to try a cheap TV/DVD combi to leave on the boat I will let you know how i get on.

I have a Sterling 1800 watt modified sine wave inverter on our boat it runs a separate portable tv, video and PS2 but when i tried a Toshiba combi unit it failed to work. When i spoke with Sterling they said it was due to a rectifier in the combi unit. My question is has anybody found a combi that works and could you advise the make and model thanks, Steve

Last summer just before the start of the Buckby flight we lost drive , when i raised the deck boards i found that the centreflex coupling had sheared in half. Great start to our summer holiday!!! The cause was a discarded/lost rope fender which had jammed the prop. The fender was easily removed through the weed hatch but the £170.00 for the coupling also easily removed from my bank!!! On a positive note I am now capable of replacing these couplings.