I'm tempted David
If I leave my 300hp Subaru ticking over in the street it will still reach it's designed operating temp' That if some little bugger doesn't jump into it and dissapear
Yes Rod, Simon's water is only reaching luke warm at best, which to me points to the engines thermostat being stuck wide open and thus not allowing the 80c to be achieved before opening and moving the coolant on to warm the next lot up!
Other theories are available though!
I see your point Rod, but what will happen is that as some of the cold water that has been sat in the Calorifiers pipework enters the engine block, it does indeed lower the coolant temp, thus closing the thermostat again until the 80 C is re achieved again then re opens. This Ballet will go on until the water in the Calorifier has reached a similar temp to that of the coolants designed running temp. Usually 30 mins or so...
It doesn't matter what size of engine it is, the fact that it's coolant will not circulate until the coolant temp reaches thermostat opening temp means it must be stuck open in my mind. The whole point of a thermostat in an engine is to achieve a normal operating temp'
I'm not sure it would on a boat David. The Calorifier is heated more on a water bypass type affair, so the engine/heatexchanger setup is more than capable of keeping the engine at normal operating temp' , as can be shown by simply doing away with the Calorifier and blanking feed/return off.
I think your first course of action Simon, would be to see if the engine thermostat is stuck in the open position. This would indeed cause a very slow heating up process.
I would recommend wearing gloves when using the Citrus based degreasers! They tend to be so good at removing grease, oil etc, they suck the natural oils out of your hands in a jiffy, (No pun intended) leading to painfully cracking, very quickly!
Great pictures Simon. The Meercats remind me of the ones I saw at Jersey zoo. As you say, there is always a sentry on guard! and there was some doubt whether they would be able to keep them as planned at Jersey. The keepers hadn't quiet anticipated the reaction of the Meercats to the low flying holiday jets on final approach to the airport! Poor thing had a fit every time one flew over! You can just imagine what was going through their minds " Oh no! 300 ton bird of prey "