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The direction of engine rotation is irrelevant. The GU gearwheel makes perfect sense either way.

Not if mine's anything to go by, ahead and astern when engaged do the opposite - I was informed that this was due to the original national being reverse rotation. Happy to be corrected if you can throw any light on why this should be.

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Turn it round the other way, it will be correct then

Would be hard to operate, and impossible to read! One thought struck me was that the control wheels were originally mounted on opposite sides to their current positions (see photo) could that be the answer?

post-23974-0-56649100-1480328034_thumb.jpg

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That was said in "humour" mate.. Baldocks gear wheel for information was on Right hand side of the hatches with original National bevel gear setup

I don't know If I have a photo though

Chris

I didn't think you were serious, pretty sure the original national bevel gear, etc is what is still in use on Hawkesbury too.

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I think there is every evidence that the norm for a gear wheel on a GU "Town" or "Star" was on the right, and this did not change when they were converted from RNs or Nationals to (mostly) Petters. The mechanism was simply adapted with a lever to operate a forwards and back shift on the Parsons (or whatever) gearbox, rather than the direct twist on the original Brunton box.

 

What has often been debated is what the engine speed arrangements were originally on the boats, with some evidence that speed wheels were not on all boats the original arrangement.

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Gear wheel definitely was on the right, as you can still see the original mounting position on the engine room roof and rear bulkhead, I assume that the two wheels and their mechanisms had to be swapped due to the throttle position on the Jp, which replaced the Petter.

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Gear wheel definitely was on the right, as you can still see the original mounting position on the engine room roof and rear bulkhead, I assume that the two wheels and their mechanisms had to be swapped due to the throttle position on the Jp, which replaced the Petter.

That would make sense ..

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Were gearwheels later replaced by the push-pull gear lever, or did the two methods of gear-changing exist concurrently, with one company favouring one method and another company preferring the other?

 

I'll comment solely on ex-GUCCCo boats originally fitted with a National or Russell Newbery with a Brunton gearbox. all of which I assume original had a wheel to change the gears.

 

Most of those which survived long enough in the BTC / BWB carrying fleet after nationalisation eventually got re-engined with air cooled engines, usually the Petter PD2 with a Parsons box. (In fact the PD2 a Parsons marinisation of the Petter, with the engine marketed as, I think, the Merganser.)

 

I believe the norm was always to keep the wheel, with levers introduced into the mechanism, to reflect the completely different way of activating the gearbox.

 

Dozens and dozens of boats had Petters, but over time most have lost them, and I suspect less that 10 ex GUCCCo boats now retain them, (but I'm not counting!). Where they have lost them, something else has appeared instead, probably the most popular being Lister H series engines (HA, HB or HR). It is perfectly possible to operate the Blackstone box on a Lister with the wheel in similar manner to the Parsons box on a Petter, but in many cases the arrangements are now changed to push pull of some form or another. This may be done intelligently to provide reasonable travel at the lever, or in a far less helpful manner, resulting in a ridiculously long throw of the lever. The change may even result in a lever mounted by the steerers step, with linkages under the floor, rather than along the roof. The examples I have tried of this are usually ponderous and unsatisfactory.......

 

Similarly any number of other choices of replacement engines may have appeared, the Lister JPs now being popular, though not used in GUCCCo or BW service, I believe, also Perkins engines, maybe Armstrong Siddleys, and even the odd Gardner in some of the conversions. Depending on gearbox type the wheel may survive, or have been substituted to something else.

 

As an aside a carrying boat like my own Flamingo, (formerly GUCCCo Letchworth), was sold out of BW service before it's National was substituted by an air cooled engine, This only happened late in its carrying life with Willow Wren, when it acqauired a Lister HA2 in 1968. We do not know if the current appalling push pull gearshift we are about to replace with something better dates from then, but it may well do.

 

It seems it is remarkably expensive to reinstate a fairly authentic wheel change on a boat where all the equipment and gearing has been lost. A great shame, as we would have liked to revert both our boats to it, but its something we have now reluctantly decided not to spend a lot of money on at this time.

British Waterways , when installing new Armstrongs and Petters, experimented with a footboard-mounted lever and underfloor gear change rod, eg "Bexhill" (Petter), "Foxglove" (Armstrong)

 

I didn't realise Bexhill's footboard mounted arrangements dated from BWB days. We had this boat on hire for a week, and it was fairly tiresome! I recall the forum member who bought Rufford, (which by then had something similar), managed to break the lever off within his first few weeks of ownership.

  • Greenie 1
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The Merganser Peregrine and Gooseander were marinisations of the Armstrong 1, 2 and 3 cylinder engines (known as "Armstrong Sidneys" to some boaters!) - not at all liked in the SE division where some folks did all they could to blow them up!

http://www.parsonsmathwaymarine.co.uk/parsons_engines.htm

Edited by archie57
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The Merganser and Gooseander were marinisations of the Armstrong 2 and 3 cylinder engines (known as "Armstrong Sidneys" to some boaters!) - not at all liked in the SE division where some folks did all they could to blow them up!

 

So now I'm curious! How does a Gooseander, (if that was a 3 cylinder) differ from a Peregrine? The record card for Sickle that shows it having a Parsons marinised AS3 installed in it in 1957 calls it a Peregrine).

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Im currently making a engine control set, using worm and wheel for the speed wheel (resulting in 5 turns from tickover to full power) and two sets of bevels to have a wheel operate the blackstone box (resulting in about a third of a turn forward and same again back...im hoping this is enough and not too hard as to turn the wheel anymore becomes a two stage job) ...how much did they turn when connected to the nationals/RNs?

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I'm a little confused as to which is which, not helped by the Parsons Mathway reference to a 4 cylinder engine!

Parsons Goosander = based upon a 1 cylinder Armstrong Siddeley AS1 air cooled diesel engine (Parsons Mathway website is incorrect).

Parsons Merganser = based upon a 2 cylinder Armstrong Siddeley AS2 air cooled diesel engine.

Parsons Peregrine = based upon a 3 cylinder Armstrong Siddeley AS3 air cooled diesel engine.

 

Each of these marine units will have an engine serial number for Parsons and an engine serial number for Armstrong Siddeley, each on a separate brass plate mounted on opposing sides of the flywheel casing captain.gif

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Im currently making a engine control set, using worm and wheel for the speed wheel (resulting in 5 turns from tickover to full power) and two sets of bevels to have a wheel operate the blackstone box (resulting in about a third of a turn forward and same again back...im hoping this is enough and not too hard as to turn the wheel anymore becomes a two stage job) ...how much did they turn when connected to the nationals/RNs?

From what i have seen some are 1/2 turn from forward to back others are about 8 mine was mad felt like you turned for a life time but was very light you couldnt tell it was in gear by just feel of tge wheel.

 

I swapped my gears round and now its 3/4 full forward to full reverse but its hard to lock reverse now might change the gears to 2 the same size than one bigger than other.

 

It all comes down to the wear i guess to on the box.

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  • 4 weeks later...

How well would a radiator-cooled system work in the confined space of an engine room?

Good question that. I've seen it done, not on that particular type but on a Ruston(?) , worked fine. and also on some total bodges involving car and van engines that failed for many reasons but not overheating. There are plenty of generators and compressors around with rads and all boxed in so why do we go to all that bother with boat engines?

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