Working Week on the Boat

For the last fortnight EmilyAnne has been moored at Willington in the new Mercia Marina and over the last week we have been working on the boat and engine.

The first thing we decided to do was try and locate some of the knocks within the engine as while there is nothing wrong with it as such after 20 years service its not quite as smooth as it was when new. There is some slop in some of the valve linkages when the eccentrics couple to the reverse slider and also some play in the big end of the high pressure cylinder. It was therefore decided to take the HP big end apart and measure it for wear with the plan to removed some of the thickness of shims holding it apart. In the end it was decided to remove the 6thou shims and replace them with 3thou shim to reduced the clearance.

We have also be struggling to develop any vacuum on the exhaust of the engine recently which was put down to leaks within the system between the engine, condenser, and airpump. Investigation revealed that as expected most of the joints in the system leak to some degree or other, so work set about disassembling each part, cutting gaskets, and reassembling with new gaskets or silicon gasket sealant (or both!). 

Monday then saw the boat leaving Willington for the steamboat association trentlock rally at the trent valley sailing club which also served as a short test run to prove our weeks work.

Im happy to report that although there is still some knocking within the engine, the harsher knock of the big end is now gone, and although we can still only pull around 10 inches of vacuum (not the 2o we need) we do seam to have cured the leaks (vacuum doesn’t leak away when we stop) so all eyes are on the air pump with an aim to now service and improve that!