Tuition and The Drought

I am a member of the River Canal Rescue, akin to the AA, but for boats. The engine is due a service next month and I am considering arranging for the one-to-one tuition provided by RCR for a cost of £150 plus parts. An engineer comes to the boat, helps/instructs whilst undertaking a service on the engine. This will cover oil changes, filter changes, checks of the alternator belt and stern gland, battery testing, top-up and checks. The tuition will last for 4 hours and can cover further engine specific queries during this time.

This might initially be quite an expense but it could be of help later on, as I could then complete an oil change and keep a knowledgeable eye on the engine so as to flag up any issues.

The weather in the East Midlands is quite frankly appalling. It was hailing again today. However, with the drought on everyone's lips as there is a lack of ground water from the south right up to Leicester, the rain is well needed. There have already been restrictions on the canal network, and the holiday season has not yet begun! This doesn't bode well for a summer of cruising. Oddly, we were warned off from cruising out on the River Trent on Saturday due to it being in flood.

So, here we are still on the Nottingham Canal, awaiting our engine service to then consider any further cruising in either direction on the Trent.

What's going on down below?

It is very autumnal these days and we are wrapping up well for the trip.

We've been doing a fair bit of research about our gear box problem, speaking to various experts in the field of vintage engines. We aren't completely clear what the problem is. It is not the oil, that's checked and fine. We now know that as we can reverse and run in neutral the hydraulics are fine so it is possibly something mechanical as the problem is with the forward gears.

We have spent the last four days going from one solution of a £3000 new gear box to being told that it could simply be a small adjustment. We may require new clutch pads and it turns out that parts are pretty sparse for the Lister engines (often parts can be found stored in an enthusiasts shed!) but there are some older mechanics around the country who are able to make the parts to order. Leigh and I don't quite feel equipped to open the gear box and do any mechanical adjustments ourselves so we plan to take the boat to a Lister engineer who can put their expert gaze over the engine.

We left Cowley today to get to a Lister Engineer in Croxley Green. The engine was running swell, things are looking good.

Here is a look underneath our stern boards at our amazing Lister SR 3 cylinder engine.

It is an air cooled engine, having three large vents...

Here is our LM150 gear box...

Also in the engine bay we have the stern gland. I give this tube of grease a turn after every day's journey to keep the prop post well lubricated.

And the weedhatch...

located above the propellor, it's exactly what it says on the tin - a hole to access weeds or tyres or umbrella's that have been churned up and wrapped around the propellor.

Here is our electricity generation. Thanks to PB and MB for their suppport in getting a new alternator making our charging more efficient.

Notice the belt and fly wheel - these were the items we replaced on our way down to London.

And below are our batteries, two 6volt traction batteries (wired up to make one 12 volt) which is what we use to run our lights and a 300watt invertor and we have one 12volt starter battery. These were all newly installed when we were in Atherstone last spring and have been a brilliant investment indeed.

We had travelled over half the way to Croxley Green today and as the night was drawing in we 'parked' at Tesco to get a bit of shopping.

Handy don't you think?!

We barged over to the towpath side of the cut to moor for the night.