Ribble crossing/engine maintenence

[Diana 1991]

I will be crossing the tidal ribble this summer. The engine will be out of its usual 1200rpm comfort zone for a few hours and I am concerned that this may reveal issues. What are the maintenence issues I should be paying particular attention to?

 

How high will I need to rev the engine during the crossing? It is a Perkins MC42, PRM 150 gearbox, boat length 57 foot, not sure what the propeller is. The engine produces smoke at about 1800rpm. I intend to use 20W50 oil to hopefully reduce this smoke then replace with 15W40 for the winter.

 

As always thanks for any advice.

[RobinJ]

I will be crossing the tidal ribble this summer. The engine will be out of its usual 1200rpm comfort zone for a few hours and I am concerned that this may reveal issues. What are the maintenence issues I should be paying particular attention to?

 

How high will I need to rev the engine during the crossing? It is a Perkins MC42, PRM 150 gearbox, boat length 57 foot, not sure what the propeller is. The engine produces smoke at about 1800rpm. I intend to use 20W50 oil to hopefully reduce this smoke then replace with 15W40 for the winter.

1200rpm indicates (given normal cruising speed) that you have a bit of power available.

Good service and check beforehand, ensuring there are no loose bolts, mountings, fuel pipes etc., any vibration problems? Remember to take spare fan belts or anything that could be required for quick fixes?

 

A lot depends on when you go, state of tide etc. At springs you have more water, but its there for less time (it comes and goes quicker), so you may need to push 5 or 6 mph for a time, which may take you to 1800rpm. The trick is to maintain a reasonable speed, going down the Douglas there may be shallower water and at different times you may have the tide with or against you, if you are good, you know when to open up and gain headway.

 

Check the oil level before you leave Tarleton, you should not use a great deal on the crossing, but all engines tend to stir up the oil at high revs.

[churchward]

another thing I would add to consider is your cooling system. Assuming you are using a skin tank and if you haven't changed flushed this recently I would do so. It is worth back flushing the system to try and get any gunk out of the system and give the engine best chance of keeping within normal temperature range. Some new antifreeze won't do any harm either.

 

If you have wet exhaust system then I would take the opportunity to flush that out and make sure the pump and impeller and hull intake is fully clear of any rubbish

Edited May 13, 2009 by churchward

[Tony Brooks]

I will be crossing the tidal ribble this summer. The engine will be out of its usual 1200rpm comfort zone for a few hours and I am concerned that this may reveal issues. What are the maintenence issues I should be paying particular attention to?

 

How high will I need to rev the engine during the crossing? It is a Perkins MC42, PRM 150 gearbox, boat length 57 foot, not sure what the propeller is. The engine produces smoke at about 1800rpm. I intend to use 20W50 oil to hopefully reduce this smoke then replace with 15W40 for the winter.

 

As always thanks for any advice.

 

 

For goodness sake ensure there is no significant amount of water in the fuel tank - long tube into lowest point and pump.

 

If not fitted, fit a water separator in the fuel line.

 

Add water removing additive to fuel NOW and keep using it.

 

Change & clean filters and water traps a few days before the passage (to allow time for problems to show).

 

Carry spare filter(s) and know how to change/bleed the fuel system.

 

If its smoking a 1800rpm Then the prop is probably slightly too large so is causing the engine to overload. I doubt the oil change will make a significant difference, but prop changing id probably not worth bothering with. Just back the throttle slightly and the smoke should clear.

 

I would try and get the boat on a river in the very near future and use a gps (a car one will do) to check the maximum speed. I have heard that 6 mph is the minimum for this passage but I am sure someone will say if this is wrong. If you are too slow you will miss the tide and have to go to divert to Preston marina.

 

Hold the speed for a while to ensure the cooling system is up to the job. Your speed will probably be over the limit, but you do need to know that the engine will not overheat and that you can actually complete the trip in the time allowed.

[Keeping Up]

In addition to all the above, I'd recommend taking the fanbelt off to examine it properly, and also check that your spare is OK and the right length. Then when you put it back, make sure you put the spanners somewhere handy.

 

When we went down the Severn last year I'd looked hard at the fanbelt in situ before the trip and had tightened it up, then when we reached Gloucester after a full half-day of hard running I took it off and looked at it again because it was a bit loose once more. It still looked OK from the outside but in fact it had almost completely split on the inside, and would probably have lasted only a few more minutes leaving me without power in a very dangerous section of the river. I know I can change it quite quickly, but when I tried to put the spare on I discovered it was quarter of an inch too short (I'd been sold it as the right one for the MC42, but it turns out the early ones had a larger alternator pully from the later ones) and I spent a happy morning trudging around Gloucester to find somewhere that could sell me one which was the right size.

[Albion]

snipped

Hold the speed for a while to ensure the cooling system is up to the job. Your speed will probably be over the limit, but you do need to know that the engine will not overheat and that you can actually complete the trip in the time allowed.

 

I would just like to say that all Tony's advice is spot on but I would like to really emphasise this latter paragraph. If you've never been on a waterway where you've had to hold higher revs for much, much, longer than you would ever do normally there is always the chance that a boat builder has under-specced the skin tank size or hasn't bothered to put the baffle plates inside. On a crossing like that it's no place to find out that that is the situation part way across. See if you can run a good test on a river or get onto some deep water somewhere away from neighbours, moor up tightly and give the engine a fair bit of welly under load for some considerable time. If all is well then, for that particular worry, you can't do much more. I've seen a few boats now that reveal an under-specced/incorrectly made tank only under reasonably arduous use.

All the other advice from the various contributors should be done as well, of course.

Roger

Edited May 13, 2009 by Albion

[churchward]

For goodness sake ensure there is no significant amount of water in the fuel tank - long tube into lowest point and pump.

 

If not fitted, fit a water separator in the fuel line.

 

Add water removing additive to fuel NOW and keep using it.

 

Change & clean filters and water traps a few days before the passage (to allow time for problems to show).

 

Carry spare filter(s) and know how to change/bleed the fuel system.

 

If its smoking a 1800rpm Then the prop is probably slightly too large so is causing the engine to overload. I doubt the oil change will make a significant difference, but prop changing id probably not worth bothering with. Just back the throttle slightly and the smoke should clear.

 

I would try and get the boat on a river in the very near future and use a gps (a car one will do) to check the maximum speed. I have heard that 6 mph is the minimum for this passage but I am sure someone will say if this is wrong. If you are too slow you will miss the tide and have to go to divert to Preston marina.

 

Hold the speed for a while to ensure the cooling system is up to the job. Your speed will probably be over the limit, but you do need to know that the engine will not overheat and that you can actually complete the trip in the time allowed.

Sound advice I think. Having toured many miles on holiday in classic vehicles (40 plus years old) in the UK and abroad I have found that nothing beats preparation and preventative maintenance to make sure that you have as near a trouble free trip as possible. I always carry in the car and boat at least one of every serviceable item plus some other things that experience says it's a good idea to have. I carry an alternator for instance on the boat because I only have one fitted.

[onthecut]

And if you find the skin tank isn't adequate, you can experiment with emptying the calorifier periodically, as this will give you some quite effective additional cooling.

 

Mike.

[haggis]

When we were let out of Tarleton lock the boat in front had a problem almost right away with something round the prop and as there is no room for an overtake there, we had to thottle back a bit. This resulted in our engine working VERY hard and us almost going backwards. With the river being narrow there, the tide rises and falls with a lot of force behind it. Our engine was overheating and taking the usual steps of running off hot water, lifting all engine cover boards etc made no difference. For the 2 hours of the trip, pails of river water were lifted up through the side hatch and drizzled over the skin tank. This helped enormously but we only made it through the lock at Savick brook with 10 minutes to spare. It was a high tide that day and we had been warned that a diversion to Preston Docks might be on the cards.

For the return trip, Iain rigged up a skin tank cooling system which worked a treat and from being tail end charlie on the way up (by a long way) we were the lead boat on the way back. The water hose was connected to the cold tap in the back loo and the spray nozzle attached to the other end. During the return journey the skin tank was sprayed with cold water every now and again and this kept the temerature down beautifully.

One thing to be careful of is emerging from Savick Brook into a fast rising tide. All the boats in front of us were swept up towards Preston as soon as they tried to turn down stream. That is how we became lead boat!

When we got to Tarleton all 6 boats gathered at the locks and we went through "on the level".

The day before we came back down, 2 boats had been going up and one of their fan belts broke within minutes of leaving tarleton. the other boat towed them into the (only) boatyard on the trip which was fortunately near at hand before going on alone.

It was a trip to remember! We had cruised the Lancaster several years ago (before the Ribble Link) with our trailable Sea Otter, Gamebird and it was nice to do the trip on Copperkins.

 

Haggis.

Edited May 13, 2009 by haggis