Engine and Some Sun

Finally I've been able to put the refurbished injection pump back on the engine. The background for this is that the exhaust seems to be leaking black 'gunge'. I suspect it may well be worn piston rings, but on the other hand, the engine always starts first time, even in freezing weather, so it can't be that bad. With that in mind, I took off the injector pump and had it refurbished at CJ Diesels in Isleworth. They found that the pump elements were sticking and the phasing was out. Sounds like I know what I'm talking about, but I'm just repeating what I was told. Here are all the parts cleaned up and ready to re-install.

Note the red painted governor lever, this runs on ball bearings and the originals on the left were pretty worn. I was able to get standard imperial sized replacements off eBay for about £3, so worth doing. They are a press fit into the lever.

The parts didn't take too long to replace, I finally had some peace and quiet time as Mary and Nate had gone into London to visit friends.  A new experience was 'spill timing' the engine to determine the point at which the injector should fire. This was actually a pretty straightforward process once I'd got the hang of it. With the injectors installed and bled, the engine started first time, which was more satisfying than it probably should've been.

Another little addition was a tachometer or rev counter. I'd got this from the Russell Newbery Diesel company, Nate helped me wire it up, a 20 minute job taking over an hour thanks to a lack of basic skills (well, he is only 27 months old). I was pleasantly surprised to see that it only read 50 RPM too high compared to the hand held laser tach that I have. Not enough to worry about.

For once the weather was on our side, as my sister and her family (and two dogs!) joined us for a trip on the bank holiday weekend. We went downstream to Shepperton and found a great mooring outside the Thames Court hotel.

Brother in law Steve settled into the life, and indeed as I walked back towards Misterton after seeing the others off on the ferry to Weybridge, I found him mooring up a much newer craft.

The crew were on their way upstream from Southampton and wanted to stop for lunch so Steve invited them alongside. We had a good chat with them and it was nice to see the old and new boats together.

I'll post of some pictures of the trip when I get them, but we all had a great time. Although they have visted Misterton many times, my sister and her family have never been out on her. Hopefully they'll want to come on another trip someday.