adrianh

Went through Swineford lock twice last week. As with most of the locks on the river section, this one is in an almost unusable state The top gate is impossible to open without many people assisting and/or without the use of at least a 2 ton winch, which luckily I now carry after meeting a hire boat that had been stuck in the lock for 4 hours last year. Weston ( below Bath ) lock has now got arrows on the bottom gate centre posts which you have to try and align to reduce leakage. Non of the locks seem to get any form of lubrication on any of the moving parts, you often require 2 people per gate to move them. Surprisingly there was only 1 long term Moorer on the visitor mooring at Hanham, however Bath visitor Moorings are non existent on the end of the Canal for some distance before the locks as they are full with permanent boats - this has been like this for a long time now. Luckily we managed to find a bit of space on the Lower Wharf river moorings on 2 occasions

This is a standard industrial normally closed diaphragm solenoid valve ( 12 or 24 volt DC ) by the looks of it. Isolate the water and electrical supply, undo the nut on the top of the blue solenoid coil and slide it off, undo the 4 screws that hold the brass cover plate onto the diaphragm and lift it off. Expect some water to escape and take care not to loose the spring that is possibly on top of the diaphragm. Inspect the diaphragm closely for a split or for excess damage in the area that seal the water flow. This is a differential valve that should have a feed through a small orifice from the incoming pipe to above the diaphragm . This can easily get blocked so check that this is completely clear ( reverse air or water blast is best for this - large syringe?). Check also that the solenoid plunger that is inside the stainless steel solenoid tube is shutting off correctly. Any valve of this type will suit this operation, I think CEME are a cheap type .

Have you checked that you actually have 12 volts going to the glow plugs for the preheat and post heat time after start up. I had the same issue when my heater control relay contacts gave up. The relay had 2 input controls. The 1st from the key preheat position, this also had an output to light a dashboard lamp for about 6 seconds ( seemed to vary according to ambient temperature) giving indication of when to switch to starter motor, the 2nd tapped from the starter motor brush feed ( a standard feature on the starter motor used ) triggers a further post heat time which kubota engines like to help combustion when cold. After market relays on Amazon sold for tractors etc. My old engine is actually a Type V1205, yours may be a V1305

Make sure that after flushing you refill with premixed anti freeze and distilled water. Mix your own as you will need a maximum of 25% antifreeze. If the mix is too strong it does not conduct heat away from the burner quick enough ( as your fault) and the small circulation pump cannot cope with the higher viscosity. After a flush/refill I got all this wrong and had to start again to get the system running!

If you mean the supply to the heater then I would think yes unless it has diodes in the controller to protect against this. If you mean the pump then reversing the polarity probably will not damage it but may move the internal slug only slowly and possibly in the wrong direction as the magnetic field will be wrong relative to the internal magnets. Incorrect polarity feed to the fan and water pump would make them spin in reverse so I do not think the controller would allow this. As I understand the controller all functions are monitored at startup, hence the ability to shutdown and display the various flashing light codes on the controller if things are not right. You only need a corroded fuse in any of spade holders or poor power supply for this to happen, along with poor fuel feed, dirty flame gauze, almost burnt out glow plug and poor/blocked combustion air flow to trigger these errors. Over the years I have found tired batteries to be the biggest cause of startup failure, along with the main supply fuse holder becoming heavily corroded. I now have a small bolted 20 amp fuse in the main supply and 6mm square size short wires directly from the battery isolator. Since doing this update it is usually a dirty flame gauze that messes up ignition, luckily a fairly quick fix in situ sorts this. The glow plug is readily available on line, details on the boat but available if you need info.

Good luck fixing this, are you sure that you have a free flow of fuel to the pump? My experience a long time ago was that the pump does not self prime easily and that you need to have the internal plunger of the pump ' wet' for them to get pumping, so you may need to suck fuel through manually if you can I do not think that any other pump will work as the amount pumped per pulse is critical to get the correct combustion parameters. On start up the pump pulses quite frequently, so you should hear (or feel) that OK. If you have spare control boxes then try another one, for a while I had firing problems but luckily was able to get hold of another controller to fix this. Mine got quite damp and this upset the electronics!

No, don't apply 12 volts directly to the pump as I think it is design to run of a lower voltage. I think the operating voltage is about 9 volts and only short pulses at that. Before you suspect a faulty pump rig up a guaranteed air tight feed pipe to suck fuel from a bottle preferably higher than the pump, then use the heater control box startup with the pump outlet open to see if it primes. This pump is not supposed to be installed horizontally also.. Have you checked any fuel filters before the pump ( it should have 1) for blockage or diesel bug. Only once in 25 years of running this pump have I had to replace the 3/16 inch od copper pipe from the tank to heater after it became blocked with a wax deposit, this was caused by prolonged use of red heating fuel at the time. Spares for this heater are almost impossible to find, pm me if you have other questions, I will help if I can

Ask for a self centering type of dowty washer. Unless the fitting has a small taper just above the thread against the hexagon, the standard washer can tighten off centre and fail to seal correctly. Otherwise if you have to replace try a get a steel hydraulic fitting. Take care not to overtighten a brass fitting as they can develop a crack at the top of the thread, I would replace the fitting if you can especially if it has been in and out a few times before.

I have just purchased a new shoreline undercounter fridge and agree with all the above comments. As I monitored the power consumption of the old fridge (it was powered through the load terminal of the victron) it is easy to see that the new fridge has worse insulation properties and uses more power in a typical day, not what I expected for such an expensive item! Quality of the item is also questionable but as we needed a 500 wide unit even the 240 volt options were limited from the usual high street suppliers. On the plus side the danfoss compressor, which appears to be an AC motor driven by its integral DC powered inverter is very smooth and quite. This unit is capable of a lot more than Shoreline seem to set it up for and can be set for better battery saving options with respect to low voltage. All in all go for the mains powered and inverter route if you can. I am sure you can get a far better end product than Shorelines offering!

The 12 volt Danfoss compressor fridges have a low voltage preset value of about 10.2 volts below which the compressor stays switched of to protect your batteries. I have found that at least 2 110 amp hour batteries are needed to keep my almost new Shoreline fridge running overnight, they are only capable of this if fairly new. One has just failed as badly sulphated ( battery case bulged and eventually leaking acid when trying to charge, surprisingly it was almost 4 years old so had done well! ), just prior to that I had the same symptoms with low power in the mornings. New batteries fitted and all now ok. If you want something with more capacity then buy 135amp hour leisure batteries if you have the space for the extra height. You can check the liquid level in these unlike most cheaper batteries. Price was about £135 each

Plenty of places on the river to turn. Mooring at Broad Quay down river of the last canal lock has usually got spaces, after that it can be difficult as the visitor pontoons are usually permanently occupied. Do not proceed beyond Hanham look until you have spoken with the Neatham lock keeper as you cannot stop again on this section of the river. It takes approx 1 hour Hanham to Neatham. Currently the lock keeper takes payment and also has power and pump out tokens. Check Sail Bristol app for details or the council website. It will get busy soon with the hire boats but currently boat movements seem much reduced, Bath on the canal is not easy for any moorings at most times. As far as I can see you no longer have any closures to stop you.

My mikuni does the same due to the build up of deposit around the end of the glow plug. Effectively this blanks the end of the plug and reduces its ability to ignite the fuel. On reduced voltage this is worse. Firstly check all the blade fuses for corrosion on the blades, I fitted a proper bolted fuse on the glowplug supply in the end as this one often corroded due to damp/high current/just old age! Supply to the control box needs to be at least 4mm square cable to reduce voltage drop also. After that remove the entire glow plug assembly, 2 philips screws- usually very tight. Carefully move this around to slide it out with the gauze and glow plug as a total unit. You should then see the state of deposits. Next you need to remove the 5 screws that hold the burner tube cover plate, prise off, slide out tube ( loose seal ring on the end) ,clean etc. Rebuild is the reverse but the glow plug assembly needs to be fitted through the hole in the burner tube then refit end plate . Take great care not to damage the gauze around the glow plug. It seems that glow plugs are the only spare now available, ask if you need a number as I have this on boat. I have just done all above on mine, normal at least every 12 - 18 months I always found them a good heater but they do not like red diesel and now get an different deposit build up with the increase in biofuel content. If you buy new I would love your old unit for spares as updating to Webasto will need a lot of reworking pipework. Good luck!

Re the key height error, either you have an 8 x 8mm key fitted instead of an 8 wide x 7 high (which is the standard for metric shaft) or somebody has machined the shaft incorrectly. Imperial taperlocks and shafts have different key sizes. Either way you should have at least 0.5mm clearance at the top of the key after assembly. Yes a 38mm taperlock can feel tight on a 38mm shaft as the cast item can close up smaller when the slot is machined through. Deburr the end of shaft and gently tap it on. As others have said do not use any form of lubricant on the id and od or screws and clean/degrease/dry all mating parts. Before you refit the rubber tyre rotate both coupling halves and visually check for wobble/runout. Taperlocks rarily run 100% true but runout needs to be minimal, more than that you may still have a problem! Good luck, hope it all works for you. PS. If using a new key in an enclosed slot then tap a m5 through from the top face so you can jack it out easily if you need to. Standard keys are easily available in increments of 5mm length, you may have to buy a bag of at least 10 though. If you have an open slot you may need to put a couple of centre punch marks to make sure a loose key cannot slide out.

Good plan, please keep us all updated about what you find !

Yes, even easier especially if fitted with a 1.5mm stainless abrasive cutting disc. One of my favourite toys.