Sweetcorn in the carburettor

[koukouvagia]

Those who are familiar with Kelvins know that some have a petrol start. This involves pouring a small amount of petrol into the carburettor.

Melvin (the Kelvin) refused to start one day last week. It turned out that an empty sweetcorn tin I'd been using to transfer the petrol hadn't been cleaned out properly and a piece of sweetcorn husk ended up blocking the jet.

 

Kelvins made a wonderful brass petrol dispenser. I've never managed to find one for sale – but I live in hope!

[rjasmith]

Those who are familiar with Kelvins know that some have a petrol start. This involves pouring a small amount of petrol into the carburettor.

Melvin (the Kelvin) refused to start one day last week. It turned out that an empty sweetcorn tin I'd been using to transfer the petrol hadn't been cleaned out properly and a piece of sweetcorn husk ended up blocking the jet.

 

Kelvins made a wonderful brass petrol dispenser. I've never managed to find one for sale – but I live in hope!

 

When I got involved with the Water-Lily thing (Floating Kitchen TV prog) and started poking about in the engine space on the boat I found an old box lying in the bilges containing the proper Kelvin brass carburettor filler and also a fiendish looking brass hand operated pump dispenser to charge the priming cocks on the cylinder heads. I’d read about them but never seen them before.

 

I managed to get some photos (not terribly good unfortunately) but here they are.

 

 

More recently I’ve thought about trying to make my own version of the carburettor filler and have obtained a brass WW1 shell case from eBay to make the container part. The filler cap assembly from an old 2 gal petrol can will form the lid on the top. The rest of it will have to be made up from bits of brass sheet and tubing etc.

 

The whole thing has to work rather like those sugar dispensers found in seaside cafes in the 50s/60s that gave out approx one teaspoon’s worth of sugar each time they were inverted.

 

Using various bits of plastic bottle, tubing etc I’ve made a prototype which works using water as a test liquid (not into the Kelvin I hasten to add!). Hopefully I’ll make the real thing one day. Has anyone else tried making one or got an original perhaps?

 

Don’t think I’ll bother making a replica of the rather more sophisticated priming pump as a small pump type oil can works well for that and the proper one on Water-Lily seemed rather awkward to use. I think it was meant to work with the spring loaded priming cocks (another thing I’ve never seen – every engine seems to have the little manually operated taps these days).

 

Richard

[BEngo]

When I got involved with the Water-Lily thing (Floating Kitchen TV prog) and started poking about in the engine space on the boat I found an old box lying in the bilges containing the proper Kelvin brass carburettor filler and also a fiendish looking brass hand operated pump dispenser to charge the priming cocks on the cylinder heads. I’d read about them but never seen them before.

 

I managed to get some photos (not terribly good unfortunately) but here they are.

 

 

More recently I’ve thought about trying to make my own version of the carburettor filler and have obtained a brass WW1 shell case from eBay to make the container part. The filler cap assembly from an old 2 gal petrol can will form the lid on the top. The rest of it will have to be made up from bits of brass sheet and tubing etc.

 

The whole thing has to work rather like those sugar dispensers found in seaside cafes in the 50s/60s that gave out approx one teaspoon’s worth of sugar each time they were inverted.

 

Using various bits of plastic bottle, tubing etc I’ve made a prototype which works using water as a test liquid (not into the Kelvin I hasten to add!). Hopefully I’ll make the real thing one day. Has anyone else tried making one or got an original perhaps?

 

Don’t think I’ll bother making a replica of the rather more sophisticated priming pump as a small pump type oil can works well for that and the proper one on Water-Lily seemed rather awkward to use. I think it was meant to work with the spring loaded priming cocks (another thing I’ve never seen – every engine seems to have the little manually operated taps these days).

 

Richard

The priming pump is a wonderful beast, and the carb filler pictures are nice too. There was a carb filler for sale at the Whittlefest at Napton a couple of years ago- made £65 I believe. I sketched the layout of the pipes and chambers then and will eventually make one when my stock of circular tuits is sufficient. Quite a clever widget, but needing to be assembled in the right order if you don't want to end up soldering down a long tube. Getting the authentic dents in the right places will be interesting

 

I think the spring loaded priming valves were removed because they generally leaked. I too have never seen one on a runnable engine, though the sectioned J4 in a museum in Melbourne still had them.

 

N

[Theo]

Plugging up the Thames in March 2008 in a howling gale and much rain we went under Newbridge, I think it is. High water and rapid current and the engine started "smoking". Could not stop. The banks there are not all that good so we plugged on up to Shifford Lock and got special permission to overnight on the lock moorings above the lock. A long chat with an older man at RCR. He discussed down the line of raw water problems. A youngish mechanic from Uxbridge came along eventually and could not understand what the problem was, but in the absence of anything else to do he looked at the fuel filter and changed that. We were delighted to see that there was no "smoke."

 

We had a few "smoke" events over the weeks and SWMBO noticed that they were always in wet weather. In the end I tracked it down to restricted intake for the raw water. This meant that the water coming out of the exhaust pipe was warmer than it should be and there was condensation in humid weather. I managed to keep things by making sure that I scraped the strainer pipe intake from time to time but a fortnight ago with no 1 son and no 2 son booked for cruises I decided to bite the bullet and sort it out. I went down the mud box and cut off the last foot or so of the pipe, brought it home and investigated. It was so bacly corroded that only two of the the twenty holes in it were clear. This morning I drilled 32 holes in a foot of plastic pipe which I will couple to the cut off end. That should sort it.

 

The old chap from RCR was on the right track, though.

 

Nick

[Lady Muck]

Those who are familiar with Kelvins know that some have a petrol start. This involves pouring a small amount of petrol into the carburettor.

Melvin (the Kelvin) refused to start one day last week. It turned out that an empty sweetcorn tin I'd been using to transfer the petrol hadn't been cleaned out properly and a piece of sweetcorn husk ended up blocking the jet.

 

Kelvins made a wonderful brass petrol dispenser. I've never managed to find one for sale – but I live in hope!

 

If I were you, I'd take a trip up to Sawbridgeworth. Next to the canal, just before the road bridge (and the visitor moorings) are serveral old maltings now serving as an enormous junk/antiques indoor market. They have lots of brass junky thingies that look just like the thing you are after. Big old vintage tools section, we loved it. I recommend any boater to go and have a rummage - lots of brassware, ribbon plates, hearth sets, crochet and all really cheap.

[Sir Nibble]

What's your most mystifying breakdown?

 

Customer's car, battery keeps running flat, slight discharge traced to somewhere in the B+ line behind the dashboard. So, dashboard out and there it is, mobile phone taped to the wiring and drawing a small current from the battery. Car came from auctions and the mobile was a bug, previous owner was a drug runner!

[Peter R]

Not actually a breakdown, but my engine did once 'eat' it's air filter!

 

When I got the boat inside the filter housing was a ring of foam sandwiched between two mesh disks. However, when I came to do the first service, I took the lid off to find the two mesh disks, but no foam - I can only assume it disintegrated and got sucked through the engine, doesn't seem to have done it any harm though!

 

I've used paper element filters since.