Mr Fixit no can do

Despite Rainman’s excitement at my promise of more on weighing logs, I’m going to keep him waiting because I have something else to write about today.  I think he’ll be mollified though by the fact that I am about to show you a picture of a bit of Herbie’s engine.  Here it is

 

You see? Even more interesting than a log.  I spoil you don’t I?

That bar thing with the knobs on each end is the throttle linkage which turns that disc with the holes round the edge to squirt more diesel into the engine.(You can tell I did an engineering degree).  See where that arrow is pointing? Somewhere there is the source of a leak which drips diesel into the engine tray below.  The engine runs alright, but it makes a mess and wastes valuable diesel.  To be fair, I couldn’t spot myself where the drips were coming from.  The source was spotted today by the mechanic at the boatyard. Sadly though he declined to fix it because it means dismantling a bit of the injection pump and as far as they are concerned at the boatyard, that is one of the Dark Arts.  He could remove the injection pump as a whole and send it away for fixing, but removal and refitting is itself a non trivial, hence expensive task.  I was a bit disappointed, but in mitigation he did compliment me on Herbie’s nice clean engine.   Anyway I came home and looked the leak up on CanalWorld Forums and it is apparently a fairly common problem which can be fixed with the pump in situ.  I shall search for a more experienced mechanic and get it done in due course.  In the meantime, an ice cream tub under the leak can catch the drips, and if they are clean I’ll pour them back in the tank.

Yesterday, in order to turn the boat and give my Ranger pal Alan a ride we took Herbie all the way down to Slough basin and back.  We didn’t see a single chav, or floating armchair and the canal was just about deep enough but it’ll be a lot better after they dredge it.

Logs next time.