January 10th 2009

Spent the day at the boat again, continuing with the engine rebuild. I tried to start my generator to do the little bit of welding of the oil splash plate on the end of the crankshaft. It wasn't having it! It was so cold that I think the oil and fuel had all but frozen solid. I plugged into the landline but as I'm a long way down the moorings its a poor electric supply. I tried with the Mig welder and was lucky. The steel is only about 2mm and and it only had to be tacked on. Once that was on I continued with the rebuild. I put the radiator and fan back on as I won't get the swim tanks connected up for a while. I then connected a battery to turn the engine over to lubricate it a bit. FLAT Battery. By then I was getting pretty cold so I finished for the day. I bought a new 100Ah battery and took it down to the boat during the week. That turned the engine very well but I had no time to do more at that time

January 13th 2009

I dropped in on the guy cutting out my fuel tank this week and nothing had been done there. His sheet metal folder was out of action and awaiting repair. So I bought some steel from him and took it to where I'm doing my turning class. TVU Reading. They have a guillotine and folder there. I got there very early and I cut out the pieces and folded them before the lesson proper started. I still have to trim some pieces so have left them there till next lesson.

January 17th  2009. 

I cut out a few small bits of steel brackets before I left home and finally got to the boat at about midday. Finished putting the last bits on the engine then started scratching my head over the control linkages. Its hard to know where to start. I have turned down some lengths of rod to fit some bevel gears that I bought. But until I know the exact lengths I can't turn the other ends of the rods. I also have to weld the pigeon box onto the roof and cut the hole under it. The rods will be fitted under the box so I can't fit any mounts for the rods until then. I did try to work out the length of the bar that will be the pivot for the gear change. I have to do a bit of machining to this bar so I can do all that at home.                                                                                                                                                            I then hooked up a temporary line to a jerry can of diesel and bled up all the lines, pumps and injectors. After some huffing and puffing and some more bleeding of fuel lines my Petter PJ3W finally started. BUT The prop shaft was spinning as well! I put into neutral . No good. Forward, reverse, neutral again. Still spinning. Forward, reverse, neutral again. Still spinning! So I shut down the engine and disconnected the prop shaft. I guess I know what I'll be doing next weekend. Stripping the gearbox. I've never indulged in that Black Art before.

But at least the engine is now running!

24th January

I stripped down the gearbox today. I'll have to take a parts washer to the boat next week as there is a lot of crud within! The main shaft was seized solid so that's why nothing worked. I'll take some fine emery to it next time and get the surface rust off, then clean it all up. I hope it works alright after a bit of TLC. Also tightened the alternator belt on my daughters Toyota, whilst I was resting!

31st January

I stripped the gearbox right down. The main shaft was really binding in the plain bearing at the front of the gearbox. I took it to Exchange Gearboxes in Harlington and left it with them. I didn't want to take too much off. They have the expertise to free off the shaft and know what kind of tolerances to use. Well worth it for £20.

14th February

Got the gearbox all back together, and bolted onto the engine. Fired up the engine - Nothing. Gearbox still does just about nothing. There is a small amount of movement but no change of direction or neutral. Did a lot of head scratching! (Mental note - wash oil out of hair tonight!) Took the gearbox off the engine and stripped it all down again just to make sure I hadn't missed a blocked oil way or something stupid. I took the oil pump off. I dipped one end into a tub of oil and spun pump by hand. No flow. Spun pump the other way and oil gushed. If I was still a smoker, this is the time I would sit down and roll a smoke.

Then the penny dropped. I've been dogged by this problem since I bought this Petter engine. My engine is a PJ3W (clockwise rotation)

The engine I bought from Worksop to get the bell housing and gearbox was a PJ3 air cooled. What I didn't know that it was probably a PJ3R (reverse rotation) I didn't know there was such a  thing until I learned it from Jim Perkins (Ex Petter engineer)  when I was trying to locate a camshaft. I drove to see one and had a wasted trip because it came from a PJ3R engine. These were fitted mainly in Thwaites dumpers. As I bought the engine and gearbox together, it stands to reason the gearbox was built for a reverse rotation engine too.

I tried turning the pump through 180° and put the gearbox all back together again and bolted it to the engiine. Started it up - still no good. Give up and go home.

28th February

Took the gearbox off again and tried to figure it out. Ahaa! The oil pump  drive wheel doesn't mesh with the gearbox input shaft. Sooo- I can't turn the pump 180°. Put the pump back as it was and had another head scratching session. In the end I decided to reverse the oil suction and feed pipes. I bent some pipes out of 15mm copper to suit and will have to make some brass flanges to attache the pipes onto the oil pump. I bought a lump of brass and took it to my evening class  but didn't quite get the flanges finished in one week. But I'm fairly confident now that I understand the problem and have figured out a way to sort it.

I'm still working on my gearchange levers and speedwheel linkage system between trips to the boat. I can understand why marine engineers charge so much when you have to make all parts to suit one-off installations, but its getting there. (It will be much quicker next time I build a boat!)

14th March.

 I dragged my plasma cutter and compressor to the boat today and cut out the roof panel from inside the pigeon box. I had put a piece of plywood on top of the engine to protect it from sparks. when the piece of steel fell from the roof it flipped the plywood, pulled down a jerry can and poured 2 or 3 litres of red diesel all over the place. DOH!  I had a swift trip up to Sainsburys for a bag of nappies to soak up the diesel. I must get some proper absorbant mats for such occurrences.

21st March

As I didn't have any gearbox bits finished and as the sun was out, I thought I'd try doing a bit of insulation. I spent a couple of hours sticking masking tape back where it had fallen down, then got the new cans of foam connected up. One of the hoses was partially clogged so I had a lot of trouble. The mixture wasn't coming out evenly and in some spots it wasn't curing properly. And I was putting it on a bit thick. I'll have to order another couple of tanks for next week aand scrape off the insulation that hasn't cured by then and redo it where necessary.

28th March

You may notice that I only usually get to do any work on the boat on Saturdays. The spray foam had not cured properly so I had to scrape quite a bit off I have ordered a couple more drums and will do some more insulation when they arrive. I soldered my new oil feed pipes onto the flanges I made and got all the gearbox back together again. Lifted it through to the engine room again and finally bolted it all back onto the bell housing. I started the engine and Voila, the gearbox works. It creeps a bit in neutral but I'll adjust that next week when I get all the prop shaft all connected up again.

5th April

Spent last night on the boat after a Canal World Forum banter at the Swan and Bottle. It was B*****y freezing. I only had an airbed and a sleeping bag, with one blanket. But it was nice to finally spend the night on my own boat though. Wish I had  got my Brunel stove connected up! I didn't work much at the boat yesterday because I had some family stuff to do with my daughter. I only had a couple of hours there trimming back some insulation and sweeping up floaty bits of polyurathane foam. Managed to fill 4 black bags , so it really was a bit too thick. I spent a few hours today working on the speedwheel linkages.

9,10,11 and 12th April

I spent the bank holiday weekend knocking down an old, rotten, wooden shed at home and rebuilding it in blocks. I also had to fill in a huge hole in the floor which took 10 bags of ballast/cement. I think it was just subsidence but no-one knows how old the shed was! Julie spent the whole weekend stripping paper off the hallway, filling holes, sanding and painting. She has also been painting a couple of doors each night this week. It was nice to go back to work for a rest!!!

18th April

I got back to the boat for a couple of hours in the week and did some more measuring and made up a few more brackets before I left home today to fit in the boat to then measure up the next stage. I also got the prop shaft all connected up again. I lifted the back cabin floor and checked the tightness of all the bolts to the stern gear, bolted the cardan shaft onto the gearbox and tightened down all the plummer blocks. I connected  the speedwheel gears  as far as I had made up and clamped a pair of mole grips on in place of a speedwheel. I the started the engine up. Way-hey!!! The gearbox works well. The creeping in neutral stopped now that the drag of the shaft is on. I put it in forward and my boat was straining against the ropes. The first time under power. I couldn't run it too long as the cooling system isn't yet connected up. The radiator  is still cooling the engine okay but the gearbox oil cooler is not connected to anything. It will eventually be connected in  with the engine cooling system to the skin tanks. I still haven't finished making my brass banjo union for the oil cooler so that is now a priority. But I'm getting into the realms of plumbing now so I feel quite happy that I will be able to cope with that.