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Just some information that might help someone! My engine etc is Vetus but this probably applies to all setups. Recently I had cause to take my boat in for a check since vibration and noise were becoming apparent. Also there was water starting to drip from the prop at the stern gland. On inspecting the prop it was found that one of the flutes was badly bent. When the boat was taken out of the water for replacement of the prop it was found that this damaged prop and/or the collision that caused it had also damaged the prop shaft, rear shaft bearing, drive plate and gearbox! The rear bearing was oval and hence the water dripping, the prop shaft was slightly bent, the gearbox was noisy and had lots of slack (a 6 month old box) and the drive plate was noisy although it looked OK. After replacing all of the above except for the Driveplate we set off only to find that there was still noise and vibration! The Driveplate was changed for a new 'universal' plate and we set off again. Still noise and vibration... So after discussion with various authorities we changed the Driveplate for a new R and D design - problem solved - noise gone and vibration reduced considerably. So - my conclusions are that the prop needs checking regularly for damage since it can cause damage all the way through the drivechain and that the Driveplate needs to be the correct one for the drivechain. John

Help and advice please! Apologies in advance for being completely clueless, but I'm here to hopefully learn how not to be... This morning I turned on the hot water (Morco gas heater) to do the washing up.. Water didn't get hot so I went back to check and the pilot light had gone out. There were loud rattling/banging sounds coming from the calorifier. I turned off the water pump and the sounds continued for about 20 seconds. I've tried turning on the pump again and the sounds come back. I have realised that the coolant for the 2 litre expansion tank has run dry.. Is this the cause? How much damage has been done by allowing the coolant to run dry? I currently have no understanding of how the system is put together so don't know what connects to what, what feeds what, etc... All I know is that sound is NOT GOOD. Any help greatly appreciated. I appreciate the info I've given is a little convoluted: please be gentle, I've only had the boat for 6 days...

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