There is a very scary thing on the BBB. It lives under the floor on the stern. It’s quite loud. It can be very hot and interacting with it involves confidence.
What do you think it is?
Do you need some more clues? Everyone has an opinion on how to care for it and it is very important.
Okay – one more clue! It is mechanical.
Yes, the engine! Well done!
The engine is a vital piece of machinery in a narrowboat. It gives us hot water, electricity and propels us through the water. Whilst we have other ways of getting hot water (the Webasto water/radiator heating) and electricity (solar panels), the engine is vital. It will give us electricity when it is too cloudy for the solar panels to work and hot water when we don’t want the heating on. So far it has been a very reliable piece of equipment. And I am keen to keep it that way.
Just like car engines, boat engines need regular servicing. I understand that this is very important, but doing the service is very daunting. The engine works – I don’t want to break it! Paying someone seems like a good option, but most engineers have a very long lead time. You need to book the next service before the last one was done!
Boat engines are very simple, compared to car engines. They don’t have the computerised systems; which should make the service very simple. So simple that we could do it ourselves.
Woah, stop right there! Service our new and very good engine on our own! What kind of insanity is that! We might break it!
We have watched youtube clips, Googled and studied the manual and we were sure that it wasn’t that hard – but also quite certain that we couldn’t do it.
Through a Google search, I found the River Canal Rescue run a two-day course on diesel boat engine maintenance! Perfect! So the three of us booked onto it.
It was fantastic. I now understand how a diesel engine works. I know where the fuel, air and oil filters are and I have practiced changing them. I know how the fan belts should feel and I know how to adjust and change them. I also know what they are there for! I understand the coolant system, which is quite amazing. Before the course, I couldn’t grasp that coolant and antifreeze were the same (antifreeze is added to the coolant). I thought that coolant cools – antifreeze warms? Now I understand that coolant contains antifreeze to stop it freezing (no surprise there) and to stop the metal corroding; and that it runs through the hot water tank (calorifier) and the keel tanks to cool it down before it travels around the heat exchanger to keep the engine cool.
There is not a part of the engine that I can’t identify! The tutor was able to explain how things worked on the demonstration engines, and then could explain to us how it looks on our particular engine.
It was also fascinating to meet the other students on the course. Everyone’s story was different. We met a lovely guy who owned his narrowboat as part of a consortium. Their boat was being regularly used and went all over the place! One couple had a 1966 cruiser. They were based near where we used to go on holiday. One guy hadn’t bought a boat, yet. He has a much better idea of what to look out for, now.
We were the only liveaboards. People who liveaboard don’t have to worry about the same things as people who don’t. We don’t have to worry about damage in the cold weather because we are there keeping it warm, but we have to service the engine more often because we use it more.
When we arrived back after the weekend, the batteries were low, so we switched the engine on to charge them. Screeeech! Squeel! Aha! One of the fan belts is loose and needs tightening! We’ll do that tomorrow, in the daylight! It was a great feeling of independence.
We had a look in the daylight. We checked the fuel filter and found there was no water. Great! We moved along to the fan belts and found they were very different from the ones we had seen. And they were hard to get to. And it was getting dark. And the batteries were going flat in the torch. We did our best and felt deflated and frustrated. We decided that we would look at it again the next day, in the light. Life got in the way and we had to move the boat before we got a chance to look at the fan belts. And they worked brilliantly! Charged the batteries and made no noise! Go us! Go the River and Canal Rescue!
I am going to order the parts for our service tomorrow. I never thought I would say this, but I can’t wait! Working on a boat engine is like trying to play Twister while tied up in a string bag. There is no room – any room you have is not near where you need to be. I know that doing the service will probably make my back ache and everything will hurt, but I am looking forward to it more than I thought possible!
And you guys know that I will tell you exactly how it goes! Fingers crossed!
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