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Hello After another fix, I've just located a steady drip of fuel seemingly coming from the screw for my throttle lever on my BMC 1.5. I can't seem to find any useful information on tips to maybe replace the washer on the screw or if it is something further along into the governor housing. Has anyone had this issue before and if so, got any tips? Thanks!

Is it possible to have this starter motor rebuilt or should it be replaced? If so, by whom? or replaced with what? And would it need to be an insulated earth? I'm getting confused 😕 Thanks for any help given.

Hi all, I have these ancient metalastik type rear engine mounts on my BMC 1.5 that have given up and need replacing. This one had broken before and was fixed as part of an engine rebuild by Calcutt Boats, it looks like they just filled the centre with a rubber washer. I know these are obsolete, does anyone know of a source to buy some used or a way of changing to a different mount? A search of the forums revealed I'm not the first with this issue but I couldn't see how it was previously resolved.

Hi We need to fit a new lift pump to our BMC 1.5 . We've never done this before so would appreciate any tips of things to be aware of or to make the job easier Thanks Jackie

So about 3 months ago the nightmare began. The engine’s cooling system has always been a bit leaky but that’s never been an issue, I would top up the bowman heat exchanger before cruising and everything was fine. until one day it wasn’t. (as an aside the calorifier never worked either) The inevitable happened and the coolant must have gotten too low, steam, hissing and dead. Head gasket was my first thought. But i thought, I’ll give some other things a try before I start dismantling the engine. I bled the fuel lines and it went! All good! How Weird! 500m down the canal and a slow dying of the engine began, it spluttered dead and we had to catch a boat to pull ourselves to the towpath. Milky oil, not starting at all. We took off the engine head, which I had never done before and it was pretty nasty looking. Seemed obvious, head gasket had gone due to cooling. so we put it all back together, what a tough one. Nothing quite wanted to go back the same way, we had leaky fuel lines, broken bolts, dodgy threads and eventually had to make a change to the fuel return system as a spill rail bolt on the cav filter was near impossible to source. This was the fuel return line that before went from the injectors to the top of the cav filter and then also back to the tank through a double banjo bolt setup. The change we had to make was to put the return back to the cav through a single banjo bolt as that’s all we could find that would fit the large diameter of the filters’ hole and just not bother with the tank return. I replaced the leaky rubber ends of the bowman head exchanger and tightened up any seals that dripped water before and that was all sorted too. After this final problem we got it to fire! There was tears and everyone, me, my partner and the mechanic we hired was overjoyed at this. It was quick to start especially due to the cold weather. And we thought the headache was over. All good, we said goodbye to the mechanic and had a drink to celebrate. The next day we fired her up, what a lovely sound it was. But after about 10 minutes of running I heard a tick sound come from cylinder 4. Which I assumed was just a misfire maybe. But it seemed to then cause a consistent loud ticking and puffs of compressed air from just below the glowplug on cylinder 4. I thought maybe it was a bad glowplug and we had made it have a dodgy seal when we had the engine head off. So I replaced all 4 glowplugs and tried it again. Still ticking and now I notice all the white smoke coming from the exhaust. My heart sank. We are trying to stay positive as it’s been a tough winter without power, being able to move and finances taking a huge hit. I check the oil and it’s dirty and milky, but not as milky as the first time. but the engine seems to run okay. i have checked the tappets and push rods, nothing is visibly broken. I doubt it’s the head gasket again as we barely ran it before it did this, it couldn’t have overheated. Surely not. It seems like maybe a seal somewhere is bad. Or something to do with timing maybe? I’m totally lost as to what has happened. Any ideas? I’ll add some pictures and video links to this thread ASAP. -Matthew