Vaughan

Can't help with that! It used to be Duffields in Norwich but they are gone now. They developed the Lowline engine, as well as the Perkins MC42. Best ask a boatyard, I suppose.

Yes! Then I imagine that, in among the grease, you will find a threaded ring round the shaft, held tight by a lock tab. Turn the shaft until you find where the lock tab is, and prise it open. You can then loosen the ring until the shaft slides free. Sometimes they need knocking free, with a soft hammer on the forward side.

Well done! That looks a good solid job. I haven't seen that type of bearing before, so God knows how you loosen its grip on the shaft. There may be some sort of thread inside that cover, with lock tabs.

Beautifully put! And all true! I would just say that the Perky 4108 should have an oil change every 100 hours, as per the manual. 150 hours will do, but no more, or they will sludge up. I have seen them with so much black sludge around the rocker shaft that when you take the cover off, the shape of it remains there in the sludge, just like a jelly mould! If you then turn the engine over on the starter, the jelly wobbles about as the rocker arms move up and down in it!

I am conscious you have already told us about a shaft bearing which is mounted on a loose bearer and I think this is almost certainly a Plummer Block or thrust bearing. In which case you need to loosen it so that you can slide the shaft. How you do this depends on what type it is. Show us a photo please! You have a Vetus type flexible coupling and you are best to undo all the bolts and remove the whole unit. When you re-fit the gearbox, you then slide the shaft forward so that the two coupling flanges butt up together. You can then check alignment by loose fitting the bolts as Annv describes. After this you need to check the engine is in line by inserting a feeler gauge between the flanges. You are allowed 1 thou of play per inch of diameter, so if it is a 4 inch flange, it must not be more than 4 thou out of true. Check the top and bottom alignment first and raise or lower the engine as necessary using shims under the mounting feet or by adjusting the nuts if you have SILENTBLOC mountings. Then check the sideways alignment in the same way, and shift the engine sideways using a lever until it is in line. While doing all this, constantly check that the bolts still pass freely through the holes in the flanges. When you are happy, tighten down the engine mounting nuts. Then check again, as tightening them can shift the alignment. You can then slide the shaft back and re-fit the flexible coupling with new NYLOK nuts. These nuts are for use once only. You cannot check the shaft alignment with the Vetus coupling in place as it is flexible. With a GRP boat, you must ensure you only check the alignment when the boat is in the water. Then don't forget to tighten up the Plummer Block when you have finished. Phew! Griff does not need to do this as he has universal joints on the prop shaft. The Vetus coupling is not a U.J. It is just there to take up vibration and the engine must still be properly lined up.

Just thinking - again : That gearbox oil cooler also looks like a new replacement part, so if your surveyor thought he saw ATF oil in the bilges that could be where it came from. This also points to overheating in the past.

1/. An average season's hire use is around 700 hours. With the Perkins, yards would try to rebuild them every 7 years in rotation. The important thing with the older engines is regular oil changing, especially the Perkins. In this case an ex hire boat engine can perhaps be trusted better than a private one but that is only a generalisation. 2/. The Nanni (and Beta) can be re-built and I have done so but it is not economical as the parts would cost more than an exchange engine. Exchange units are available from Nanni. These engines do last for a very long time though, if you change the oil regularly. 15,000 hours is no problem, it seems! 3/. This can only be a generalisation as it depends how the owner has looked after it. It is true that running in neutral to charge batteries without a load on the engine, can glaze the cylinder bores. This is no problem on a Perkins, we have found. There is no hard and fast rule for this. You have to look at each individual boat and consider its history. Buying an ex hire boat from a reputable yard (dare I mention Stalham?) is a good bet as the engine has been maintained and they will also offer a fair and comprehensive after - sales service.

Just been thinking - on the "Lowline" version which you have, this would not be possible. Never mind!

If you have had a replacement cylinder head - on a private boat - there have been cooling problems in the past. The Perkins has an unfortunate habit of bending the head when it gets badly boiled up. The colour of the paint on the rocker box cover speaks volumes to me. Another problem might have been a restriction in the exhaust water injection bend but you have got that off for cleaning so that's fine. You are absolutely right to fit the raw water intake pipe in spiral re-inforced pipe, which cannot kink, or squash flat because of suction. Try to arrange the pipework so that the raw water runs to the engine heat exchanger before the gearbox oil cooler. If you have an engine oil cooler you can take this off for Broads use, as you will not be revving fast or long enough to need it. Don't get me wrong, the Perkins is a great engine and all the work you are doing on it will be of good benefit. It can be run in neutral for charging batteries without glazing the bores ; it will come up to temperature at the same time, for hot water heating, without needing to be run in gear and with that Borg Warner 2 : 1 reduction gearbox you will find it very economical. They didn't fit them in at least half of all hire boats, for nothing! By the way, don't forget to test and clean the pre-heat glow plug in the intake manifold. This plug heats the intake air but also opens a valve which drips diesel onto it. Hence the white smoke which comes out before you start. By this means you are drawing burning diesel into the engine when you turn it over and it works very well! There used to be a little "K Gas" tank on the bulkhead to provide this diesel but I see that yours is piped from the return side of the fuel filter, which is good. Have fun!

While you have got all those pipes out of the way it is a good time to withdraw the tube stack of the heat exchanger and check that it is not "furred up". In the normal way, you cannot get access to do this. I noticed earlier that the size of the raw water intake pipe to the pump has been reduced. If you continue to get problems with engine cooling, it may well be worth fitting a larger pipe to allow a better flow.

I get the joke but a pity that surrender is not a French word. There are quite a few others though : Courage for instance. Bravery, Insistence, determination . . . .

I was once told why a pilot vessel carries a white light over red on the mast. Because the pilot, when he comes aboard, will be wearing a white cap over a bright red nose. It was a useful mnemonic at naval college.

In which case, then consider 800 hire cruisers on the Broads doing a 27 week season each. That is 21600 cruising holidays last year - conducted in safety. That does not include all the day boats. Goodness knows how many thousands of people had a day out on the rivers in those, with no serious accidents that I have heard of.

Sounds as though FR1 and 3 had different propellors.

I was just about to say, I think I'm off to bed now. Hopefully we can get back on the subject tomorrow. Goodnight folks, and don't drag your anchor.

All charter parties have a "hirer" who is the person named on the hire invoice. He or she is the person responsible for the boat, but not necessarily the skipper, or the driver. For safety there should be a recognised skipper but they are not necessarily the hirer. I have known plenty of family parties where the hirer is the father but the skipper is their 15 year old son, as the parents know he can handle the boat much better than they can, so they do the mooring ropes!

They are pretty high temperatures, I admit! In the Midi and Camargue, it is over 30º most days in high summer - sometimes 40º. Even so, it can get over 30º on the Broads as well. I heard it happened twice last year!

I seem to have stirred up an off-topic hornet's nest here, about hydraulic steering. I am talking big hire fleets (which is what this thread is supposed to be about). Would you believe that we have learned not to top up the oil in hydraulic steerings, except in the early morning, when it is cool? The plastic pipes expand in the heat, the inside diameter diminishes and they push oil out of the top filler cap onto the deck. Anyone seen one of those, with a puddle of red oil under the dashboard? By the way, ATF is not the correct oil for hydraulic steering. It eats away at the oil seals in the piston and causes leaks. The correct one is a white hydraulic oil such as Total Equivis, as used in hydraulic drives. A few years ago they brought out a new version with a round bell shaped black box behind the steering wheel. These caused us awful trouble with oil levels until we found the simple remedy of painting it white, to reflect the sun off it. Lo and behold, it worked! If your private boat has hydraulic steering and you are happy with it, I am very glad to hear it. I am talking large hire fleets, where we have not had an easy ride with them. Could we please get back on the subject now and stay "inland" while we are at it?

I suggest it is unhelpful to keep comparing these issues with what happens at sea. The steering Telemotor systems used on a ship bear little or no comparison to something installed on the flying bridge of a boat in the basin at Potter Heigham. You have stated more than once that you know nothing of hire boats, please therefore accept my word, that the type of steering used on inland waterways pleasure cruisers is not especially reliable, for the reasons I have given. It is, in fact, much better installed in copper pipe than with the plastic pipe provided but that makes it an expensive installation. I do not belittle for one moment, your knowledge and experience of the sea and ships. Please therefore offer the same courtesy to mine, where it concerns hire boats on the Broads.

Yes, but he has also stated his reservations about it.

You pretty well have to have hydraulic steering for dual station controls. Some old boats have mechanical dual steering but this usually involves contraptions with a lot of bicycle chain! If you had hydraulic controls then both control levers could be worked independently and concurrently, unless electronic solenoid valves were installed, similar to the hydraulic bow thruster. Again, sure, it can be done. Would it improve safety in the circumstances we are talking about? In my opinion, almost certainly not. you must also factor in hydraulic leaks. Hydraulic steering is not, in fact, particularly reliable. It is even subject to failure in hot temperatures of direct sunlight. Vis : the flying bridge of a dual control boat.

Thank you for that. I mentioned earlier that the first actual regulations for all boats on the Broads were written by the technical committee of Blakes in the late 70s and then accepted by the River Commissioners. They were written by the boatyards in such a way that safety (which we knew was lacking) could be ensured without spending money on un-necessary changes whose cost would put us all out of business. These regulations were soon accepted by all waterways of the then NRA and are now what we call the BSS. It is very little altered from the original rules that we wrote and is indeed, a very good "mousetrap"! Not forgetting that the BSS is a set of installation standards. For design and construction standards, you need to look to ERCD, which all the same, is a sea standard. There are still no design standards specific to inland waterways, here or in Europe. Perhaps there should be, and should have been long ago?

We have already agreed that technically, everything is possible. That's how we got the atom bomb, God help us. What you describe is fine but it is not being used by holidaymakers. It is not what we on the boatyards call "hirer proof".

To be honest, I am not sure it is necessary even now. You can't totally design out accidents. I say this on the anniversary of the Potters Bar rail crash. When you consider the long and complex history of safety in operating railways, there are plenty who might say that couldn't have happened. I am conscious that we are talking about hire boats, which have to be sturdy, simple, reliable and if possible, unbreakable. Every time you add another gadget or widget, especially electric, you are just increasing the chance of something breaking down. Morse/Teleflex controls have been with us for about 60 years of solid reliability. Perhaps we should not be trying to "invent a better mousetrap".

Possibly. It is best done with both hands, as it is. Trouble is, a hirer in a panic to go full astern quick, has a very strong arm!