Jess--

not if the engine & gearbox alignment is good, on our boat which has recently been sold both were original to the boat and not touched since built 28 years earlier. I suspect that it was still running on the original packing. however a misaligned engine can do damage fast, a friends boat had an engine mount fall through a box section bearer (in a way that couldn't be seen), 6 hours of running (to get back to their mooring) gave an overheating engine from the extra load, the stern tube was worn oval and the prop shaft had some lovely grooves in it. after everything was rectified (new bearers, new engine mounts, new prop shaft and new stern tube) the gearbox failed about a month later

I once ended up sprawled across the roof of a stepnell van (probably a bedford HA), no damage to me, the bike of the van (other than a few years of people laughing about it) I have no defence... I was racing, I was concentrating on gaining against someone else and failed to notice the parked van... I was also 7 years old. I was also quite merciless when years later a friend managed to end up riding (on the wrong side of the road) head on into a parked articulated lorry (the lorry was bright white and it was a glorious sunny day)... he was trying to see where a squeak was coming from on his front wheel (It didn't go round afterwards let alone squeak)

before you try and start it.... have you changed the oil. the lpws4 has a low level oil filler (in addition to the one on the top) which from the sound of it has been underwater and I wouldn't like to guess how well the filler cap has held out the water.

we had the lpws4 on our boat and had always used the smaller filter (because that's what was on there and the ice cream tub full of old filters suggested that was what had always been on there). then someone on here had some unused oil filters for sale that the part number suggested they were for the lpws4, these were the larger ones and we found that they fouled the throttle and engine stop controls.

Knowing my dads haunts I would say theirs was around somewhere between Berkhamsted and Rickmansworth and that another was as far up as Leighton buzzard. since the bit of the headline I can make out is about teenagers (and looking at my dads age in the picture) I would guess at 68/69 theirs was motorised although probably not original, I know it started out with an open hold and slowly changed to wood / canvas top and then wooden top without adding any height because the bare hull only just cleared bridges. I wonder if this was the one that caused BW to stop allowing them to be licensed, as the story sounds similar enough (bollards pulled out) for it to have been twisted a little by the towpath telegraph

I'm unsure of exact details as it was before I was born but around the late 60s / early 70s there were a few thames lighters being used on the GU, by all accounts they only just fitted in the locks and had to have rudders turned fully to close gates, after one caused some problems by pulling bollards out when a pound drained amongst other things BW refused to license the craft making them unusable on the canal network. extremely battered picture shows My father & friends who used to live on one of the lighters holding a local paper with an article about it.

I noticed that someone who had spent a lot of time driving forklifts picked up steering a boat almost instantly

we used to get pulled and dipped about twice a year for driving a battered transit this was usually on the main road into skegness during peak holiday season, so I suspect that it was picked as a good spot to get vehicles that were not usually in the area. There were usually a few vans parked up with fed up looking owners.

Aren't they currently banned from the towpath?

we have a 10kva diesel generator that is rated to run on diesel or heating oil, however for heating oil it notes that you should derate the output to 9kva, that the exhaust will be smoky and that the time between oil and filter changes should be halved

may also be worth checking the tiny breather in the filler nut / dipstick is clean & clear (assuming they are the same type as the hydraulic boxes)

Our boat had a key hidden on the outside (well hidden and needing a screwdriver to access) in case we were ever locked out. once inside there was a spare padlock key (all padlocks on the boat were keyed alike) and ignition key. getting into a friends boat was done by removing to top hopper glass from an open window and then using the brass curtain rod to open further windows until we reached the window by the back door, once there we reached in and opened the yale lock.

one thing to check... on our boat the bathroom radiator was looped in with the feed to the calorifier from the alde boiler (all the rest were on their own isolatable loop), so if you went round turning off all the radiators you got no hot water from the alde, but if you left the bathroom radiator on you got a tank of hot water.

we have no way of knowing why they are still there, perhaps they have broken down or had some medical issues and CRT are aware that they are overstaying in exceptional circumstances or of course they could just be taking the pi**

if the 160 is a hydraulic box the first thing to check is oil level