unclepumble said:
If you ever get up around congleton, give me a shout I only live 300 yards from the Cut, you can come round for a few :drink: :drink: and a nose round the brewery.
Bugger, been there, done that, won't be coming around that way again anytime soon. Nothing wrong with it, but we've done the Macc, Peak Forest, Bridgwater etc, and still have plenty of other waterways left to explore. Anyway ........
The best laid plans of moles and men gang aft aglay
(that means they often get fecked up).
Finally set off last Wednesday evening. Loaded the boat with beer, wine, other provisions and some clothes in the early afternoon, put the key in the ignition and turned it. Engine whirred a little bit but didn't even attempt to cough into life.
Boat has one traction battery plus 3 leisure batteries, but all were bridged into one bank and all were flat. Solar panel trickle-charger had become disconnected at some point in the last few months.
Took traction battery round to a local motor factors to be tested.
Verdict: âit's a bit flat but it's a good batteryâ. :thumb:
Went home for battery charger.
Filled the water tank and gave the old tub a bit of a tidy up while the batteries got a bit of a jolt. Turned the key again - she still didn't want to know.
Fetched the battery off my car together with some jump leads, fired up the boat, chugged off to Stourport (that's all of 3.5 miles and 3 locks).
Thursday morning, nobody was in any hurry to get up, had a late brunch, went to the chandlery and asked if they could test my leisure trio.
Chandlers have two branches, Wolverhampton and Stourport, but only one battery tester :wha:
It was at Wolverhampton :evil:
âI can bring it with me in the morning if you'd like to waitâ.
Although it's right on our doorstep, Stourport is quite pleasant, so we had a walk along the river and the girls went into town and we didn't really mind staying over for another night.
Friday morning, chandlery doesn't open until 10am, but she had remembered the battery tester.
Took along the first battery, no dry cells but didn't show green in its little window.
A bit flat, but nothing to indicate that the battery was knackered.
Took along the second battery, no dry cells but didn't show green in its little window.
A bit flat, but nothing to indicate that the battery was knackered.
Took along the third, slightly older but better grade of battery, no dry cells and this was the only one which DID show green in its little window.
Indicator said âthis one's feckedâ and one of the cells started fizzing.
One dead battery bringing down the rest of the bank, replaced that one, bank card didn't get hit as hard as we had feared.
Fired up the engine, cast off, chugged about 200 yards to the locks (there are two pairs of locks from the basin down to the river), tied the boat, I set the first lock and opened the gate, Mrs. Mole cast off, jumped onboard, put the boat into gear, turned off the engine, jumped off and grabbed the centre line and made frantic gestures that I should come and take a look at something.
Something had squealed, something had rattled or flapped around a bit and the boat had gone nowhere. I removed the weed hatch and found nothing fouled around the propeller. I checked for any visible damage or broken belts and found nothing. I started the engine, that seemed fine. I tried forward gear but the propshaft didn't turn. I tried reverse gear but the propshaft didn't turn. I switched off the engine and phoned River Canal Rescue (the waterways equivalent of the RAC).
RCR engineer came out to us mid-afternoon, I got the impression he had come from another fairly unpleasant call-out and wasn't in a very favourable mood. He poked, prodded and felt around a bit, complained about and criticised just about everything he saw, decided that the drive plate (marine equivalent of the clutch plate) had probably gone, went back to his van and made a few phone calls, obviously didn't feel inclined to start removing our gearbox just then and was passing the buck to another local marine engineer who would come and see us tomorrow (Saturday).
No more boats came up off river for the rest of Friday afternoon, so we spent the night tied up on the lock moorings.
Saturday morning, we got in the way of a few boats which were going down to the river, until eventually one came up off river and I begged a tow back to the visitor moorings. While I was trying to get our boat turned around and pass ropes to the other boat, the engineer phoned to ask where we were, so I explained that was us just getting towed back to the other side of the basin.
Tied up on the overnight moorings, engineer took a look, agreed it was most probably the drive plate and started taking things apart. He seemed like a far more amenable sort of bloke right from the outset, and certainly appeared to know what he was doing. The engine was jacked up and the gearbox removed quite quickly. Drive plate was indeed well knackered, bits of it were all around the bell housing. Hoped he should be able to get one on Monday morning from a much bigger chandlery.
Phoned Son to ask him to fetch me back to my car, and explained that we were probably going home that night.
Son was horrified.
We had known that he would probably be having âa few friends around for the eveningâ.
Turns out that there was only going to be one friend, AND that he was cooking dinner for HER, and it might appear that a long-term platonic friendship may be taking a new direction, so he really didn't want Mom and Dad and Little Sister cramping his style.
Sent the girls back to daughter's friend's house for the night.
Myself and Mrs. Mole returned to the boat, went for a bit of a walk, had a drink or three with a nice meal, then had an early night. I got lucky. Twice. Sunday morning lie-in completed the hat-trick.
Went home, Mrs. Mole collected the girls and they have gone off to Wales to her parents' (by the seaside) for a few days.
I went back to the boat and had a pleasant afternoon / evening chatting to other boaters and sharing some homebrew around.
Monday morning, I whiled away a few hours walking the riverbank, picking blackberries and helping a few boats through the locks. I had decided that I would leave it until lunchtime before I called the engineer (if I hadn't heard from him), but just as I was about to phone him he knocked on the boat roof, and was indeed carrying a new drive plate.
It took him about 4 hours to fit that, re-attach the gearbox, re-mount the engine and do a few other bits of servicing. I also asked him to fit a new throttle cable which I had been carrying around for a few months, so he removed the old one, which I knew was well knackered, but was then told that it had been far too short, was a bit kinked in one place and had melted through in another place because it had been running far too close to the exhaust. The replacement I had been carrying was the same length, so he suggested that I kept that as a spare for the gearbox and bought another at least a metre longer for the throttle. Stourport chandlery doesn't open at all on a Monday, but he showed me that it was easy enough to do it myself.
Spent another evening chatting and drinking with other boaters.
Tuesday morning, chandlery doesn't open until 10am, then I bought and fitted a longer throttle cable.
Tuesday afternoon, Son helped with shuffling cars around and getting boat home.
So I've spent just under a week doing a round trip of just under 8 miles (plus 6 locks), still haven't got to the Droitwich Canal, met some nice people, drunk a lot of homebrew, now have the name and number of an excellent (and apparently very widely respected) marine engineer, collected a LOT of empty bottles from British Waterways' recycling bin, and have rediscovered that my wife can be a lot of fun if we can get some time to ourselves.
Not quite what I had in mind, but I'm not complaining.
