Barrus Shire 45

[Terrierious]

Hi All. 

 

We have a Barrus Shire 45 with just over 4000 hours on the clock. It’s very smokey, we’re also getting some smoke in the engine bay when it’s running hot. The engine has been serviced and looked over by engineers but I’d really like to find someone who specialises in Barrus Shire. Ideally, i’d like to replace the injectors, drive plate and exhaust as i’m sure they’re all original. It’s also a little clunky in low revs - we have a python drive and PRM hydraulic gear box.

 

Any suggestions for good engineers in the Surrey area? We’re moored on the River Wey. Many thanks  

Edited August 28, 2023 by Terrierious

[Tony Brooks]

Fraid not, but do you really mean 4000 miles, so barely run in, or 4000 hours?

[Tracy D'arth]

4000 Miles or Hours?

Shires are known to smoke a bit especially if they have glazed bores with too many hours idling charging batteries. 4000 hours is not a lot of hours on a diesel engine in a canal boat. It should not need injectors or drive plate work.

Edited August 28, 2023 by Tracy D'arth

[Terrierious]

I did mean hours, thanks Tony - corrected!! 🙂 

The boat has only ever been used for cruising, never for battery charging as we have a Travel Power fitted which keeps everything topped up. The engine smokes wildly when the travel power is engaged. Having had an Isuzu and also a RN DM2 in the past, the amount of smoke does seem excessive, as does the rattling at low revs. The most recent engineer couldn’t see any issues and did a thorough service but i’m not convinced that something isn’t wrong. 

[Tracy D'arth]

10 minutes ago, Terrierious said:

I did mean hours, thanks Tony - corrected!! 🙂 

The boat has only ever been used for cruising, never for battery charging as we have a Travel Power fitted which keeps everything topped up. The engine smokes wildly when the travel power is engaged. Having had an Isuzu and also a RN DM2 in the past, the amount of smoke does seem excessive, as does the rattling at low revs. The most recent engineer couldn’t see any issues and did a thorough service but i’m not convinced that something isn’t wrong. 

If you are running a travel power to charge whilst also cruising, its a bad idea as the revs are too low when you are not running at a reasonable speed. If you did this with a Beta you would tear the front pulley off.

Travel powers should not be run under 1500 rpm as you are then overloading the engine at low speed where it does not develop enough horsepower and hence as with all diesels if overloaded it will smoke horribly and run unevenly.

[Tony Brooks]

12 minutes ago, Terrierious said:

I did mean hours, thanks Tony - corrected!! 🙂 

The boat has only ever been used for cruising, never for battery charging as we have a Travel Power fitted which keeps everything topped up. The engine smokes wildly when the travel power is engaged. Having had an Isuzu and also a RN DM2 in the past, the amount of smoke does seem excessive, as does the rattling at low revs. The most recent engineer couldn’t see any issues and did a thorough service but i’m not convinced that something isn’t wrong. 

 

Just out of curiosity, what revs to you use when the Travelpower is working, what is the idle speed set to, and if you have a rev counter are you sure it has been properly set up for your engine (most are adjustable).

Just now, Tracy D'arth said:

If you are running a travel power to charge whilst also cruising, its a bad idea as the revs are too low when you are not running at a reasonable speed. If you did this with a Beta you would tear the front pulley off.

Travel powers should not be run under 1500 rpm as you are then overloading the engine at low speed where it does not develop enough horsepower and hence as with all diesels if overloaded it will smoke horribly and run unevenly.

 

Seem like we both have similar suspicions.

[nicknorman]

9 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

If you are running a travel power to charge whilst also cruising, its a bad idea as the revs are too low when you are not running at a reasonable speed. If you did this with a Beta you would tear the front pulley off.

Travel powers should not be run under 1500 rpm as you are then overloading the engine at low speed where it does not develop enough horsepower and hence as with all diesels if overloaded it will smoke horribly and run unevenly.

Obviously it depends on how much load you put on the travelpower and which travelpower it is (3.5 or 5kw). For charging batteries I would doubt there would be more than 1kw load on the TP (that is around 100A charge current) and at that load, 1000 rpm or so is fine. You only need to go up to 1300-1500 rpm if you are extracting the full 3.5 or 5 kw

[Tracy D'arth]

27 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

Obviously it depends on how much load you put on the travelpower and which travelpower it is (3.5 or 5kw). For charging batteries I would doubt there would be more than 1kw load on the TP (that is around 100A charge current) and at that load, 1000 rpm or so is fine. You only need to go up to 1300-1500 rpm if you are extracting the full 3.5 or 5 kw

Not according to the instructions from Electrolux Travelpower and Beta. 1500 rpm minimum.

[Bee]

Smoke could be something like dirty fuel or air filter clogged, after that it could be time to get the spanners out. Smoke in the engine bay could be crankcase breather or whatever system its got, worth just taking the oil filler cap off when its running just to see if its puffing fumes, more likely is a bit of an oily exhaust that seeps out of a tiny leak. IAs for clattery running at low revs, if you do find the problem let us know - mine has always done this and I have never found a reason.

[IanD]

1 hour ago, nicknorman said:

Obviously it depends on how much load you put on the travelpower and which travelpower it is (3.5 or 5kw). For charging batteries I would doubt there would be more than 1kw load on the TP (that is around 100A charge current) and at that load, 1000 rpm or so is fine. You only need to go up to 1300-1500 rpm if you are extracting the full 3.5 or 5 kw

This shows the output and engine load for a 5kW travelpower (on a Beta 43) -- Beta state that high-current charging must not be done below 1200rpm (IIRC the "pulleys falling off" was many years ago before they changed the design). To get the full output out of this Travelpower needs about 2000rpm, at 1200rpm it's about 2.7kW. Maximum load in only about 30% of engine maximum torque so this in itself isn't a problem. Obviously all this only matters if you're loading it *really* heavily... 😉

 

Edited August 28, 2023 by IanD

[Tracy D'arth]

9 minutes ago, IanD said:

This shows the output and engine load for a 5kW travelpower (on a Beta 43) -- Beta state that high-current charging must not be done below 1200rpm (IIRC the "pulleys falling off" was many years ago before they changed the design). To get the full output out of this Travelpower needs about 2000rpm, at 1200rpm it's about 2.7kW. Maximum load in only about 30% of engine maximum torque so this in itself isn't a problem. Obviously all this only matters if you're loading it *really* heavily... 😉

 

I had a case of Beta pully drop last year on a later designed engine. ( splined crank end fell off )

It still happens, especially as in this case, when the owner uses the travel power whilst cruising, working locks etc. to charge the batteries but heaven knows why you would need to.

[nicknorman]

13 minutes ago, IanD said:

This shows the output and engine load for a 5kW travelpower (on a Beta 43) -- Beta state that high-current charging must not be done below 1200rpm (IIRC the "pulleys falling off" was many years ago before they changed the design). To get the full output out of this Travelpower needs about 2000rpm, at 1200rpm it's about 2.7kW. Maximum load in only about 30% of engine maximum torque so this in itself isn't a problem. Obviously all this only matters if you're loading it *really* heavily... 😉

 

 

That is the 5kw version which does have to be spun quite fast to get the full 5kw

51 minutes ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Not according to the instructions from Electrolux Travelpower and Beta. 1500 rpm minimum.

 

I have never seen such instructions, could you cite your source?

[IanD]

1 minute ago, nicknorman said:

 

That is the 5kw version which does have to be spun quite fast to get the full 5kw

That's what I said -- I don't have the data for the 3.5kW one, IIRC it wasn't exactly easy to find...

Edited August 28, 2023 by IanD

[Tony Brooks]

1 minute ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I had a case of Beta pully drop last year on a later designed engine. ( splined crank end fell off )

It still happens, especially as in this case, when the owner uses the travel power whilst cruising, working locks etc. to charge the batteries but heaven knows why you would need to.

 

I seem to recall at least one boat where the Tavelpower replaced the domestic alternator, so used the Travelpower plus 240V battery charger to charge his domestic bank.

[Tracy D'arth]

Just now, Tony Brooks said:

 

I seem to recall at least one boat where the Tavelpower replaced the domestic alternator, so used the Travelpower plus 240V battery charger to charge his domestic bank.

Advised not to do it by Beta.

[nicknorman]

1 minute ago, Tracy D'arth said:

I had a case of Beta pully drop last year on a later designed engine. ( splined crank end fell off )

It still happens, especially as in this case, when the owner uses the travel power whilst cruising, working locks etc. to charge the batteries but heaven knows why you would need to.

We did hear of a Hudson with Beta 43 built around the same time as ours (2010) that had this problem. So one is best to keep the revs up somewhat but as I said, it depends on the load.

We used to run the tumble drier (2kw) from the TP but it was always a problem slowing down for moored boats etc. I then got around to enabling power support on the Combi so when we are out and about, the current limit from the TP is set at 4 A (1kw or so) and the other 1kw comes from the inverter and from the Iskra alternator. I hope that with these two things being at quite a wide angle to each other, the crank side  load is not as bad, and certainly the belts are a lot happier

[IanD]

Just now, Tony Brooks said:

 

I seem to recall at least one boat where the Tavelpower replaced the domestic alternator, so used the Travelpower plus 240V battery charger to charge his domestic bank.

If somebody does high-current charging on a Beta below 1200rpm against Beta recommendations -- stated clearly in the manual and I believe now on a sticker/plate on/near the engine -- and the pulley falls off, they've only got themselves to blame... 😉

[Terrierious]

Thanks for all the replies so far. If cruising a decent distance, we don’t use the travel

power as the alternators and solar is sufficient. For charging, we run the travel power at 1200 revs, we have the 3.5kw model.

Even without this it’s pretty smokey, I think we need a decent engineer who understand Barrus Shire engines to take a detailed look. I doubt it’s anything major, but would like to get it sorted 🙂 

[nicknorman]

4 minutes ago, IanD said:

If somebody does high-current charging on a Beta below 1200rpm against Beta recommendations -- stated clearly in the manual and I believe now on a sticker/plate on/near the engine -- and the pulley falls off, they've only got themselves to blame... 😉

The thing is that even with just the Iskra alternator, it can and does put out about 140A at 850rpm which is the specified idle speed. OK with LA batteries this is not likely to go on for very long, but really if they have designed a system which can self destruct in normal use unless one cruises "TOO FAST" past moored boats, it is not fit for purpose.

2 minutes ago, Terrierious said:

Thanks for all the replies so far. If cruising a decent distance, we don’t use the travel

power as the alternators and solar is sufficient. For charging, we run the travel power at 1200 revs, we have the 3.5kw model.

Even without this it’s pretty smokey, I think we need a decent engineer who understand Barrus Shire engines to take a detailed look. I doubt it’s anything major, but would like to get it sorted 🙂 

 

Yes sorry for distractions! When you say "smokey" is it black smoke, blue smoke, white smoke or what? Does the engine use any oil between changes?

Edited August 28, 2023 by nicknorman

[Tracy D'arth]

Have you tried an Italian tune-up? Diesels need working hard now and again.

[IanD]

Just now, nicknorman said:

We did hear of a Hudson with Beta 43 built around the same time as ours (2010) that had this problem. So one is best to keep the revs up somewhat but as I said, it depends on the load.

We used to run the tumble drier (2kw) from the TP but it was always a problem slowing down for moored boats etc. I then got around to enabling power support on the Combi so when we are out and about, the current limit from the TP is set at 4 A (1kw or so) and the other 1kw comes from the inverter and from the Iskra alternator. I hope that with these two things being at quite a wide angle to each other, the crank side  load is not as bad, and certainly the belts are a lot happier

From talking to Beta it's not the side load that's the biggest problem, it's the heavy torsional load at low rpm, which is why they also recommend a freewheel pulley on big alternators/Travelpower -- I asked if this was exciting a torsional resonance in the crankshaft/drive plate and they didn't say no, so draw your own conclusions... 😉

 

(a heavy flywheel ("for smooth running") at the front of the crank and a heavy drive plate/gearbox at the rear is a classic setup to run into this problem, but I doubt that Beta will ever directly admit it for obvious reasons...)

[Tony Brooks]

But the original post is talking about a Barrus Shire, and we don't know how the Travelpower is set up and we don't know how or what they use it for.

 

1 hour ago, Terrierious said:

The boat has only ever been used for cruising, never for battery charging as we have a Travel Power fitted which keeps everything topped up.

 

These words are sufficiently vague to allow suspicions that they may be charging and applying other electrical loads at low revs.

[nicknorman]

1 hour ago, Tracy D'arth said:

Not according to the instructions from Electrolux Travelpower and Beta. 1500 rpm minimum.

I found it in the new manual. It says 1200, not 1500.

[IanD]

6 minutes ago, nicknorman said:

The thing is that even with just the Iskra alternator, it can and does put out about 140A at 850rpm which is the specified idle speed. OK with LA batteries this is not likely to go on for very long, but really if they have designed a system which can self destruct in normal use unless one cruises "TOO FAST" past moored boats, it is not fit for purpose.

 

Yes sorry for distractions! When you say "smokey" is it black smoke, blue smoke, white smoke or what? Does the engine use any oil between changes?

 

I think they say not to do it (high-current charging below 1200rpm) continuously or for long periods. If you think this is such a bad thing then I suggest you take it up with Beta -- I don't even have one, I'm just relaying what I found out when I was looking at a high-power alternator setup with a Beta engine... 😉

Edited August 28, 2023 by IanD

[nicknorman]

3 minutes ago, IanD said:

From talking to Beta it's not the side load that's the biggest problem, it's the heavy torsional load at low rpm, which is why they also recommend a freewheel pulley on big alternators/Travelpower -- I asked if this was exciting a torsional resonance in the crankshaft/drive plate and they didn't say no, so draw your own conclusions... 😉

 

(a heavy flywheel ("for smooth running") at the front of the crank and a heavy drive plate/gearbox at the rear is a classic setup to run into this problem, but I doubt that Beta will ever directly admit it for obvious reasons...)

Our alternator and TP both have freewheel pulleys, I presume it is standard these days.