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I have a Lister Canalstar fitted, last time I did a reasonable trip was in August last year, when it preformed as expected. The cooling system is an odd one, with a water cooled engine, and a car radiator with an electric fan blowing air through it. It all seems to be intact, and the fan is making the right noises when it's working. I have run the engine from time to time on the moorings over the Winter without any problems, but not in gear. The boat was bought mainly to use as a houseboat, and time and weather have combined against me until now. I started it to go for a trip a couple of days ago, and there was a lot of vibration and it sounded as though it was labouring, the vibration has stopped as the weed growth cleared itself off the prop in the first half hour or so. The engine managed to boil the coolant during this period because the idiot steerer had forgotten to turn on the cooling fan. I stopped for an hour or so, then refilled the cooling system using a couple of litres of water, but noticed that while it now stayed at 70C on tickover, in or out of gear, as the engine revs rose, so did the temperature, until at 1100rpm, it stabilised at about 95C. The coolant level has stayed constant since then. The exhaust sounds to me as if the engine is labouring when it gets over 1000rpm on the dial, although I may be deceiving myself here. The question is what is the most likely cause of the overheating? From memories of a good cruise down to the moorings when I first bought the boat, the prop is unlikely to be the wrong size, and I don't want to start stripping too much down to work out what the problem is. Radiator core blocked? Water pump impeller partially failed? Fan not blowing hard enough? Thermostat partially blocked? Something else entirely? There is no visible smoke from the exhaust, and no 'orrible noises from the gearbox. I should have mentioned, the engine was fitted sometime after 2009, but may not be new.

Hi, I'm still struggling with the engine in my 40ft boat, it's a 1.5BMC with bowman header, skin tanks and dry exhaust, smaller diameter water pump impeller which looks to be in good condition. 82 thermostat fitted which tests ok in a pan. After welding up a couple more suspect areas on the starboard skin tank I took the boat out for a spin around Birmingham on Saturday. The trip was a bit of a challenge. The water leaks have all been fixed and the system was bled fully, each skin tank has a bleed screw on the top From our mooring in Sherborne Wharf we got as far as the bridge before the engine cut out, a whole 100yards maybe. It would run ok in neutral but stall as soon as drive was engaged. After pulling up outside Banatynes, getting a late lunch and letting off a bit of steam, we discovered the prop was fouled. So, with that cleared we carried on, the idea being to complete the Lozells Loop as a test run. However as we got around the corner it was apparent there was still an issue with the cooling system, the gauge steadily climbed up and up to the red zone so I shut the engine down. We pulled up, had a check of the system and discovered the port skin tank was stone cold whereas the starboard was warm. The pipe between the two was cold. Last night I drained the tanks, took off all the pipes and gave each tank a thorough flushing for 20 minutes. As I'd been through a similar exercise recently, I hadn't expected to see much rust and sure enough, the water ran crystal clear throughout. One thing that occurred to me is that the gearbox and engine oil coolers are probably not in the best part of the system. They sit, in series, between the port skin tank and water pump with various reducers and adapters in the way. I'm sort of hoping that between the bore differences and the restricted flow through core of the heat exchangers, the pump struggles to lift the water up and around the system and is probably just cavitating. The starboard tank (I assume) heats up through thermo syphoning. If this is the case, a bit of re-engineering will hopefully suffice. Assuming the cooling system is running properly, is there any need for an engine oil cooler? Is there a better place in the circuit to run the coolers? I noticed a picture here recently where the cooler was plumbed through the end caps of the header tank. Any advice or pictures of successful cooling systems will be gratefully recieved. Thanks in advance Robert

I'm relatively new to boating and a complete novice when it comes to engines. What I believe to be my Perkins engine on my narrow boat has started overheating and I currently have no idea where to begin. The engine runs fine for about 10-15 minutes before the temperature gauge begins to rise and steam begins to show on one of the exhausts. A little context and possible causes for the issue; I recently did some renovations on the kitchen as a result the water and boiler were both shut off I thought it may be possible that this had caused air to enter the pump and possibly the engine, it was suggested that the engine radiator may need bleeding but as I said before I'm pretty inexperienced so this could be completely wrong. Also when setting off recently I found the boat was wedged on a shallow shelf, in my inexperience the engine was pushed to high revs in order to get going, shortly after the engine begun to overheat. Ive included some photos of the engine in the hopes that someone may be able to identify the model and if someone with greater experience than myself has any suggestions on how to solve the over heating issue or could impart a small amount of their knowledge onto me it would be hugely appreciated. Many thanks

Hi, I've had a seaflo SFDP1 for about 2 years and in the last 2 weeks, it's decided to start overheating. Nothing had changed so I don't know what has caused it to start doing this. Pulled it apart, can't see anything obviously wrong. Turned the magnets round, checked the connection & checked pressure switch. It's getting extremely hot to touch, and really draining the batteries when it starts overheating (the lights dim considerably, and bathroom pump runs really slow when having shower, so I can tell it's putting pressure on batteries). Weird thing is, is that it has been intermittently working and not overheating! Does anyone have any ideas? Would appreciate any thoughts on this. Thank you.