Just an Idle Question

[blackrat779]

Hi, just waiting for my house to get to the contract stage before I do some serious narrowboat shopping and I have a few questions for now. (I have many more ).

How difficult are the traditional engines to look after? The reason I ask is because while I appreciate the practicality of the typical boat engine, there is something about having an engine room that you can walk around, not to mention the lovely sound of a 2 or 3 cylinder engine and all that lovely brass to polish. 

 

I guess it depends on the make and model of the engine in question but with a popular one, are they easy to get parts for and generally look after or am I going to end up stuck on a bank while some machine shop makes bits that have fallen apart. Are they generally more expensive to run? Also the engine wheel style controls look awkward, is that the case? Would I just be inheriting a mass of problems and are there experts who can survey these sorts of engines before a sale? Which make/model would be a better one to look out for and which to run a country mile?

 

My skill level would certainly be sufficient to do an oil/filter change on a 'normal' engine but this would be my first narrowboat and retirement home for the elderly. Thank you .

[Stroudwater1]

The controls are not difficult and if anything easier because they are right in front of you rather than feeling out for something and missing it. You will get used to it, as we do when shuffling between a car with a gearbox and not. 
 

Servicing is often easier- we don’t have an oil filter so that’s definitely easier. 
 

Spares can be difficult- depending very much on the engine you have. I think Gardners and RNs could be easier to get parts for than some. There are specialists around with most parts.
 

The other thing to mention is that with an engine room it’s much easier to get out at the stern than a traditional boat with an engine further back. (So long as you don’t knock your head on the speed wheel… 

 

As for which engine is best, it’s a discussion that could be longer than the compost loo cassette vs pump out discussion. It’s almost best to find a boat you like rather than an engine. 

[David Mack]

I agree.

Speedwheel controls. Either you like em or you don't, but anyone will get used to them.

Routine maintenance and servicing - generally easier, since they are simpler engines, with fewer bits to go wrong. Well within the capability of most DIYers, but there are boatyards (not all), who are familiar with these engines and can service them for you.

Unlike a modern engine, you may need to go round with an oil can or grease gun once or twice a day when using the engine.

Fuel use - no perceptible difference to modern engines.

Spares availability. The awkward one! If something does go seriously wrong, spares may be hard to find. That said there are people who hold an assortment of bits, new or used, for many engines, as well as places like Ebay. Non OEM pattern parts are available for some engines, especially for things like filters, gaskets or fuel lift pumps. Asking around often gets you to someone who knows someone who has a pile of sprockets from an engine scrapped 20 years ago or whatever. There are also specialists who can modify parts from other similar engines, or make new parts as required - but maybe with a cost and time penalty.

One thing that will usually finish an engine is a crankshaft failure. It's a risk with a heavy flywheel on one end of the engine and the drive at the other, as is usually the case for vintage marine engines (but not always with converted vintage industrial engines). It does happen, but not sufficiently often that you should worry about it.

[agg221]

If you like vintage engines then the up sides described above are likely to outweigh the down, the greatest of which is something breaking shortly after you buy it. This is because most owners build up contacts and a stock of bits that they run across and set aside to deal with repairs.

 

Whilst I agree with the comment that the debate over which engine is best could go on forever, a few thoughts on the more common engines you are likely to encounter:

 

Gardner LW - when well set up runs like a sewing machine. Parts availability is good (at a price) because they are used in many road vehicles and there are some excellent specialist companies which will sort them out to perfection but compared with the others below they are relatively expensive to repair and they aren't so DIY friendly for anything beyond the basic servicing.

Russell Newbery DM2 - surprisingly modern engines are around, made in India. Parts availability is good because of this and they are easy to maintain.

National 2DM - mentioned here because although it is essentially the same engine as the Russell Newbery there are some differences in parts which make them far harder to find.

Kelvin J or K - both very easy to work on and a K installed by RW Davis may well have had a conversion to a modern gearbox which can make it easier to manage but all versions are fine if set up with some care. Parts availability is a bit of a challenge, but there is a network of owners and parts can often be found if needed (we have a J2). There is a mobile engineer (of this forum) who will do pretty much anything needed to Kelvins.

Lister JP - another of the 1930s engine designs like most of the above, with good parts availability due to the long model life. Again, simple and easy to work on. A few quirks such as the strange governor design and the water pump which is often changed for a Jabsco, but easy enough to manage. There are good mobile engineers.

Fowler/Ruston Hornsby/Gardner L/Ailsa Craig/Armstrong Siddeley/Dorman/Petter - all found but relatively uncommon and that makes parts a bit of a challenge. There are some specialists such as Paul Redshaw who can probably get just about any of them going again, but if you found a boat you liked with one of these, I might be inclined to ask him the question about parts availability before buying.

 

Note, there are other Lister models but I don't know enough about them to comment. I am also leaving out semi-diesels as the odds of find a boat with one in are minimal.

 

A general point on cooling. As installed, most of the above are raw water cooled. That means they pump canal water in and heated canal water out. This was very simple, but has a couple of drawbacks. The first is that the system can become blocked. Easy enough to spot if you keep an eye on it but important because it risks damage if not stopped fairly quickly. Secondly, it means you can't add corrosion inhibitor which wasn't much of an issue when new but becomes far more important when trying to keep scarce parts in service for as long as possible. Thirdly, you can't produce hot water from the engine which is a minor drawback but useful. Air cooled engines came next and work OK but are noisier and you can't get hot water. The best option appears to be to add cooling tanks or pipes to a water cooled engine. This allows the best of both worlds. A water cooled engine which is currently raw water cooled can of course be converted to tank or pipe cooling but you need to budget for it (and the associated disruption).

Alec

Edited Tuesday at 20:20 by agg221

[David Mack]

1 hour ago, agg221 said:

As installed, most of the above are raw water cooled. That means they pump canal water in and heated canal water out. This was very simple, but has a couple of drawbacks. The first is that the system can become blocked. Easy enough to spot if you keep an eye on it but important because it risks damage if not stopped fairly quickly. Secondly, it means you can't add corrosion inhibitor which wasn't much of an issue when new but becomes far more important when trying to keep scarce parts in service for as long as possible. Thirdly, you can't produce hot water from the engine which is a minor drawback but useful.

Your couple is actually 3, but you have missed out the most important one, which is that with no antifreeze in the coolant, it can freeze in cold weather which can result in engine damage. It is therefore imperative that the engine is drained down fully when left at any time when there may be sub zero temperatures. In practice this means around October to March or so. A raw water cooled engine should have a drain cock which is left open in winter (with the seacock closed). This drain usually empties straight into the bilge, but you could configure it to collect in a suitable container for subsequent discharge over the side.

[Stroudwater1]

47 minutes ago, David Mack said:

Your couple is actually 3, but you have missed out the most important one, which is that with no antifreeze in the coolant, it can freeze in cold weather which can result in engine damage. It is therefore imperative that the engine is drained down fully when left at any time when there may be sub zero temperatures. In practice this means around October to March or so. A raw water cooled engine should have a drain cock which is left open in winter (with the seacock closed). This drain usually empties straight into the bilge, but you could configure it to collect in a suitable container for subsequent discharge over the side.

Without stating the obvious it’s similarly imperative to open the system up and fill with water again in the Spring preferably before setting off !  
 

Im not sure how many are cooled from canal/ raw water. Certainly many historics are but I suspect the majority of traditional engines fitted in the 1980s onwards are skin(water) tank cooled? Ones we looked at albeit not that many all were. 

[GUMPY]

Winterizing is simple put the inlet hose in a bucket of antifreeze run the engine until the outlet turns blue, job done. That's what I used to do to the raw water side of my indirect cooling and no problems in 21 years despite having proper winters then.

Oh I nearly forgot, pour the remains of the antifreeze in the mud box 🫣

[David Mack]

But what antifreeze do you use than can be discharged into the cut?

And it all gets wasted if you want to do a day or two's boating during the winter.

[blackrat779]

Thank you all for the very informative posts, not only was the information useful but also included stuff that I had never considered.

An interesting side issue that has come up is around raw water cooling and winterisation. Again topics that I hadn't considered but also that raise questions.

Can these older style engines be used successfully for continuous cruising? For example if conditions are freezing is it ok to tie up for two weeks just running the engine to charge the batteries? Does this change if you are iced in? With the engine and cooling system being indoors, my guess would be that its all fine as the engine itself will be kept warm by the central heating, fire etc. For the rest of the pipes going to the outside running the engine for several hours each day should fix that, I would have thought?

In my stream of conscience thinking .... is running these older engines for hours to charge the batteries a problem? How about air cooled engines when the boat isn't moving? It's better to find these thing out now rather than later so that I can come to terms with having a Black Cab engine under the boards. Thanks again for all your comments.

[Wafi]

When I was looking at boats with traditional engines, a fairly high proportion of them also had proper generators fitted - water-cooled diesel jobs (Paguro is a common one). I found the same as @Stroudwater1, traditional engines fitted into more modern boats often have a modern closed-cycle cooling system.

 

The boat I ended up falling for has a Russell Newbery DM2, with a closed-cycle cooling system that heats the calorifier (hot water tank) and radiators, so it just needs antifreeze like a modern engine. Basic servicing items (filters etc) have been easy to obtain, it sounds like spares for bigger jobs are also fairly readily available. The boat came with a Paguro diesel generator, though I haven't needed to use it in anger yet.

[GUMPY]

2 hours ago, David Mack said:

But what antifreeze do you use than can be discharged into the cut?

And it all gets wasted if you want to do a day or two's boating during the winter.

Did I say it went in the cut?

The water outlet was removed (dry exhaust) and put in a bucket.

[Stroudwater1]

5 hours ago, Wafi said:

When I was looking at boats with traditional engines, a fairly high proportion of them also had proper generators fitted - water-cooled diesel jobs (Paguro is a common one). I found the same as @Stroudwater1, traditional engines fitted into more modern boats often have a modern closed-cycle cooling system.

 

The boat I ended up falling for has a Russell Newbery DM2, with a closed-cycle cooling system that heats the calorifier (hot water tank) and radiators, so it just needs antifreeze like a modern engine. Basic servicing items (filters etc) have been easy to obtain, it sounds like spares for bigger jobs are also fairly readily available. The boat came with a Paguro diesel generator, though I haven't needed to use it in anger yet.

Yes that was the set up on a boat we looked at. As well as that they had a very neat small chest freezer underneath the bed in the boatman’s  cabin. They continuously cruised from March to October for 25 + years. 

 

[agg221]

8 hours ago, blackrat779 said:

Can these older style engines be used successfully for continuous cruising? For example if conditions are freezing is it ok to tie up for two weeks just running the engine to charge the batteries? Does this change if you are iced in? With the engine and cooling system being indoors, my guess would be that its all fine as the engine itself will be kept warm by the central heating, fire etc. For the rest of the pipes going to the outside running the engine for several hours each day should fix that, I would have thought?

In my stream of conscience thinking .... is running these older engines for hours to charge the batteries a problem? How about air cooled engines when the boat isn't moving? It's better to find these thing out now rather than later so that I can come to terms with having a Black Cab engine under the boards. Thanks again for all your comments.

I don't have experience of living aboard (ours is a leisure boat) but we do use it all year round, regardless of the weather. The engine is currently in a fairly good mood so when we turn up on Saturday I am not expecting any issues, despite the boat having been unheated since we last visited some weeks ago in early January (missed out on our normal Jan/early Feb cruise due to work). It will be even easier in that respect if it is kept warmer. These engines weren't really designed to run alternators but they seem to be fine if you sort out a pulley that lets it run at a sensible speed. Like any diesel engine, they are happier under some load so lithium batteries are probably better for them than lead-acid, but they don't seem to come to too much harm so long as they get run up to a decent speed when you do go cruising. One trick if there is a suspicion of bore glazing is to cruise in a shallower part of the canal at hard revs to suck the back end down. That makes the engine work hard without excessive speed and when the smoke clears the bores are clean again!

 

Most cooling systems have tanks on the inside of the hull, fairly low down. The ice rarely gets more than a few inches thick so actually the hull area is above freezing point anyway, plus they contain antifreeze. Even the cooling systems which do use external pipes (such as ours) contain antifreeze so are fine.

 

Though this video might be interesting - Mike Askin starting his JP2 after a long period of being unused in the cold:

 

Cold Start JP2 - Not that easy

 

It gives a good sense of doing this by hand, which is perfectly possible if you are reasonably fit (and even easier with a petrol start Kelvin but that's another topic entirely). This is a good point actually - not all vintage engines have had starter motors fitted so be aware of that when looking. Personally I very much like having a hand start and use it almost exclusively, but my wife and daughters can't do it so they need the starter motor.

 

Alec

 

 

[TID Tug Tony]

Many thanks to the OP for starting this thread and to everyone for all your input. I'm finding this really interesting as I'm currently in the process of buying (subject to survey) a tug style narrowboat fitted with a 9hp Russell Newbery engine that's raw water cooled. In a previous life I was involved in restoring old petrol/paraffin stationary engines so a traditional engine was very high on my wish list when looking for a (leisure) boat, and a walk round engine room was a "must", no matter what the engine.

 

I would have been happier if the RN had a closed circuit cooling system and have been thinking about ways of achieving this, one being to fit a heat exchanger, which I presume would also require an extra water pump; ie one for the water in the circuit and one for the canal water. That said, the old stationary engines and pre-war cars relied on thermo-syphon for their cooling, so I also wondered if a radiator fitted to what is essentially a fairly slow running stationary engine would be viable on a boat? Not having seen such a setup I'm assuming the answer is "No", but I just wondered if it had been tried?

[blackrose]

To answer the question in your title; traditional engines generally idle slower than modern engines. 😋

[Mike Griffin]

Really this question should include the dear old BMC 1.5, found in many boats. I ran boats with a 1.5 and and a 2LW, the first was raw water cooled when I got the boat, changed it, incorporating a heat exchanger and , the second was keel cooled, both provided hot water. some thing to watch with vintage engines and slow tickover speeds if the size of cranskhaft pulley, often these are too small to spin the alternator to provide a good charging rate.

 

The comments about crankshaft failure and flywheels is fair, I have seen some Gardners where the flywheel is fitted at the at the end of the drive,  (ie it's the last thing to stop in the event of something fouling the propeller) now that's asking for problems.

[David Mack]

7 hours ago, TID Tug Tony said:

 

I would have been happier if the RN had a closed circuit cooling system and have been thinking about ways of achieving this, one being to fit a heat exchanger, which I presume would also require an extra water pump; ie one for the water in the circuit and one for the canal water.

While you do see installations like this it's really no solution. You have the added complexity of two pumps and a heat exchanger, and you still have a raw water side which has to be drained down in winter to avoid damage. 

Better IMO to go either with simple raw water cooling, or skin tank cooling.

If you have the space and access internally, you can add a skin tank to an existing shell - there's a post from @blackrose detailing how he did this on his widebeam. Alternatively you can fit a 'trombone' - a series of pipes mounted externally on the side of the swim to cool the coolant.

[Tony Brooks]

8 hours ago, TID Tug Tony said:

That said, the old stationary engines and pre-war cars relied on thermo-syphon for their cooling, so I also wondered if a radiator fitted to what is essentially a fairly slow running stationary engine would be viable on a boat? Not having seen such a setup I'm assuming the answer is "No", but I just wondered if it had been tried?

 

Not thermo-syphon, but a DIY steel yacht hull did moor at the Thames yard and that had a unmarinised vehicle engine cooled via a radiator just in front of the engine, close to the engine fan, as in a vehicle, but it had the normal water pump. It seemed to work OK, but I always felt the lack of any ducting to get cool air into the bay and allow the hot air out could cause problems. In your case you will have a proper engine room, I assume, with side doors, but you will have height for a tall radiator that will help with circulation, but I think you may need a fan to draw air through the radiator. After all air cooled engines in engine rooms seem to be fine, although at least some seem to have cooling trunking from the roof.

[Tonka]

18 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

Not thermo-syphon, but a DIY steel yacht hull did moor at the Thames yard and that had a unmarinised vehicle engine cooled via a radiator just in front of the engine, close to the engine fan, as in a vehicle, but it had the normal water pump. It seemed to work OK, but I always felt the lack of any ducting to get cool air into the bay and allow the hot air out could cause problems. In your case you will have a proper engine room, I assume, with side doors, but you will have height for a tall radiator that will help with circulation, but I think you may need a fan to draw air through the radiator. After all air cooled engines in engine rooms seem to be fine, although at least some seem to have cooling trunking from the roof.

On a Petter PD2 the hot air is sent out through the roof

[Tony Brooks]

6 minutes ago, Tonka said:

On a Petter PD2 the hot air is sent out through the roof

 

I feel that if using a radiator and fan it would be easier to use a roof duct to get cool air into a cowl in front of the radiator and allow the hot air to exit the engine room doors or, if it does into smell of hot oil/diesel through the boat. I get the feeling that a blowing engine fan (as per Mini) may not be as efficient. 

[cheesegas]

5 hours ago, Mike Griffin said:

The comments about crankshaft failure and flywheels is fair, I have seen some Gardners where the flywheel is fitted at the at the end of the drive,  (ie it's the last thing to stop in the event of something fouling the propeller) now that's asking for problems.

It's interesting that a lot of engines which are designed as marine engines from the ground up rather than adapted industrial or automotive engines also have the flywheel at the other end of the engine to the gearbox. Volvo MD7, MD2, Bukh DV24, Sabb 2J... I wonder if on shorter cranks it's not an issue?

[BEngo]

6 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:

 

I feel that if using a radiator and fan it would be easier to use a roof duct to get cool air into a cowl in front of the radiator and allow the hot air to exit the engine room doors or, if it does into smell of hot oil/diesel through the boat. I get the feeling that a blowing engine fan (as per Mini) may not be as efficient. 

Hence the proliferation of Kenlowe fans on 'tuned '  BMC  minis.

 

A rad cooled boat  engine will produce a lot of hot air, which will want to rise, if it is not sent somewhere. 

Thermo syphon into a rad with no fan assisted air flow is a recipe for trouble, even at broad canal powers, especially so at river power,  because the whole power  unit is practically stationary.  Earlyish cars got away with it (until traffic jams were invented) because they were creating airflow by moving. Post jam, they needed water pumps and fans.  Fit a keel cooler or a skin tank.  Make it plenty big enough.

[David Mack]

32 minutes ago, Tonka said:

On a Petter PD2 the hot air is sent out through the roof

And most Lister air cooled engines have trunking sending hot air out through the roof or hull side.

[agg221]

On the subject of installing a closed cooling loop, I believe in keeping it simple.

 

Water cooled engines have a pump, so the water needs to be pumped between the engine and a cooling surface to transfer heat to something else, the options being the air or the canal. The issues with transfer to air are that heat transfer becomes less efficient as the temperature differential drops so transfer into the cabin is not effective, let alone becoming tremendously oppressive on a summer day (we have a trombone cooling loop and one summer after a 16hr run the heat from the engine was so intense that we had the doors open all night to cool it enough to be able to sleep - imagine that with deliberate heating of the air!) External surfaces such as the cabin sides and roof are not ideal for mounting radiators and a large area would be needed to achieve effective passive cooling without a fan.

 

Heat transfer to the canal is therefore much more effective. This can be through the hull, eg by welding up a box with one face being the hull plate, or by running a pipe outside the boat (trombone). As a retrofit if there is space under the floor alongside the engine that would be the easiest and least disruptive option. The baseplate may be thicker than the hull side so a larger surface area may be needed. If that is not an option, eg because the space is already occupied or you have a riveted iron baseplate (which in our case is also curved with heavy ribs) then trombone cooling may be easier. We have a flow and return pipe which run along the inside of the hull, back as far as the swim, exit through the hull in a fitting and the external pipe runs in the angle between the hull side and the swim plate. The pipe is steel and is fairly well protected there. Even if it did breach we would effectively have a raw water cooling loop which would be rapidly visible because the outlet from the engine is pumped into a header tank with a sight gauge and the colour would change. The system seems to work fine.

 

Alec

[BEngo]

Bottom mounted skin tanks are easy to fit, but are much less effective than side mounted ones, so need to be larger.  The reason is that the water against the boat bottom rapidly cools but, effectively,  only in a thin layer.  This layer then has to cool the water above it by conduction, leading go a temperature gradient in the wrong direction  across the skin tank. Ideally you want the hottest coolant against the coldest cooling surface.

 

 They do effectively shed a lot of heat upwards, providing a warm engine 'ole or back cabin, and provide an ideal environment for any sludge in the coolant to settle out, further reducing  their effectiveness.