Singing RCR's praises...

[BlueStringPudding]

Two days ago a bolt fell out of our engine. There was no trace of the nut that fitted into it, but when the engine was turned on the air filter box was jumping around like a thing possessed, making a gawd-awful racket and threatening to break other bits of itself.

 

So after much oily delving, we established where the bolt was supposed to go, but there was nothing to screw it into. Wedging the air filter box in place with a variety of household odds and ends proved futile as they vibrated out of place or just smashed. So I spent the next day trundling around chandleries, motor spares shops, DIY places and builders merchants trying to find either a nut that would fit this bolt or a new nut and bolt of similar size. No luck.

 

On my way back to work I bumped into Bill our maintenance man, told him the tale, and bless him if he didn't know a bit about boat engines and had a similar bolt which with half a tonne of washers might just do the trick.

 

So last night I got back to the boat (engine hadn't been useable for two days by them) to find the batteries downs to 11.6V because Kev seemed to think it a good time to charge his mobile phone (AGAIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! )

 

Much tinkering and experimenting with the bolt and washers still proved problematic because although the parts seemed secure, when the engine was turned on, the noise and vibration was even worse and it started shaking it's other bolt loose!

 

So I rapidly turned it off and decided to phone RCR.

 

The phone rang and rang - no answer (this was at about 6.30pm). So I rang their lo-call number. Same. So I rang their emergency number again ten minutes later - it rang and rang and rang and rang and then it put me through to an answerphone! I left a message expressing my surprise at an unmanned 24hour emergency hotline number and asked them to phone me back. Half an hour later they did, I explained the trouble and that a solution might be "parts" related but an interim fix would be great.

 

Their Stafford engineer (all of twelve years old!) phone me back as our local one was off, and he was great! So helpful on the phone, drove for two hours to get to us, fixed the bolt problem (by tweaking the bodge bolt we had acquired, but interestingly said it's probably stronger than the original!) tightened all the other bolts on the engine (it now hardly vibrates at all... and he was surprised how loose everything was when we'd only just had the engine serviced (have I mentioned what I think of that engineering company?)) and then he asked us if there's anything else we want to ask him about since he was there! Brilliant. So we asked him about our ineffective bilge pump (sludged up new loose cable ties and with grease from having the stern gland repacked at JBJ Engineering (have I mentioned what I think of them...?) and he told us how to dismantle it and clean the impeller. Then we asked him about the Eberspacher. So he worked on that too! It turns out that the fuel pipe had never been bled (full of air) but even then it never fully fired up. He suggested (off the record) that whoever we'd paid £200 for a service to hadn't done their job properly and we should get it serviced again - with a mind to checking for faults with the circuit board using a laptop. (Have I mentioned what I think.... )

 

What an amzing chap this RCR engineer feller was - really helpful, explained everything in layterms (without being at all patronising!) and did far more for us than he needed to. So we gave him a bottle of wine before he went!

 

Good old RCR!!!! Took them a while to answer our call, but when they did, they more than made up for it. So for the first time in days (pooee! ) I had a PIPING HOT shower! Yay! And we charged the batteries up to full (but I'm concerned to say they dropped back to 11.9v by the end of the evening Hope they just need a few days of generous charging )

Edited August 3, 2007 by BlueStringPudding

[carlt]

I've no personal experience of them but when two young ladies broke down at my mooring, and I couldn't fix it, they called RCR. The guy arrived and it was even more serious than I thought, so he couldn't fix it either. He rang and booked it into Braunston marina and then declared he was going to bow-haul the boat the mile or so to the marina. I took pity on him and towed them down so I got the bottle of wine (two actually). But he was definitely prepared to go above and beyond.

[John Orentas]

A bit surprised that you are encouraging a 12 year old to drive around the countryside even if it was for a worthy cause and I am sure you should not be plying him with alcohol.

 

Nice to hear some good news anyway !

[Mr Baites]

jus gos tas show ya that norallt kids ar bed thes days

[MaryP]

We had the same lad from Stafford when we broke down on the Llangollen 2 weeks ago. He fixed the problem, better than before. Fixed our tunnel light in addition, and left me with a handful of fuses just in case.

Excellent!!

 

The reason he had a 2 hour drive to us, was that there aren't enough members in that area to warrent employing an engineer.

[saltysplash]

We had the same lad from Stafford when we broke down on the Llangollen 2 weeks ago. He fixed the problem, better than before. Fixed our tunnel light in addition, and left me with a handful of fuses just in case.

Excellent!!

 

The reason he had a 2 hour drive to us, was that there aren't enough members in that area to warrent employing an engineer.

 

Whats his number, ...ill go private with him....ooo..er..missus

[debbifiggy]

Two days ago a bolt fell out of our engine.

Big snip

 

Their Stafford engineer (all of twelve years old!) phone me back as our local one was off, and he was great!

 

another big snip

 

 

What an amzing chap this RCR engineer feller was - really helpful, explained everything in layterms (without being at all patronising!) and did far more for us than he needed to. So we gave him a bottle of wine before he went!

 

We think RCR are fab, we've called them out 3 times in 5 years and the last time was the chap from Stafford and he was fab. Thoroughly recommend them. Worth every penny.

Debbi

[StoneHenge]

I'm near enough to there to get him. Not that I want anything to break mind, but at least I know!