A spanner has been thrown into the works this afternoon. Not a very big one, hopefully, but frustrating, and for a while a bit worrying. Got a call this afternoon from Brian at RN. They'd decided - very presciently - that before going any further with reassembling the engine they should offer up the gearbox cone to the crankshaft. The reground gearbox cone, that is, the one that was reground specifically to match the reground crankshaft. The one we had to take to Wolverhampton because there was no one else that could weld them up and grind them to match.
And of course it didn't fit.
After much to-ing and fro-ing on the phone it turned out that it wasn't really anybody's fault; Custom Crankshafts had done what they were asked to do, but it had been done too far up the crankshaft, something they had no way of knowing at the time. The solution, which Brian has already put in train, is to get a new cone cast. This made me gulp somewhat, but apparently, using the old one as a pattern, this will only (!) cost about £300.
So we end the day with everybody relatively happy and all friends again, but I think some people had a few nasty moments with Jim on the other end of the phone ...
Technical moan. I've tried and failed to post a photo direct from the Webshots site, as I can't actually find my copy (the horrors of digital photography). If you want to know what the parts in question look like, it seems I can do no better than offer you a link.
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4 comments:
Oh, this sounds so familiar. We had a few technical hitches with our new engine. We don't actually moor at Atherstone, though it did feel like it for a time. We took the boat down from Anderton (our moorings) at the end of May for a short stay whilst the engine was fitted. By October, and after many, many journies from Edinburgh to gee things up a bit, we were hopping up and down, making noises about not being able to make it back because of closures. We finally reached home base at the end of October. Such is the way it goes on the waterways it seems. You have to go with the flow . . . .
And we kept getting told, oh, we can't start on your engine yet because Ian's still working on King ...
Now come on Sarah - We were told that OUR engine installation was being delayed because of work that had to be done on another boat's engine. Own up, it was YOU.
Thinking about it, we were only wanting a completely built and ready to install engine fitted into The King - and that took five months. Weather, holidays, wrong fittings, didn't fit onto the bearers, legs in the wrong place, pulleys need moving.......(read the book for the rest).
Your completion date? I would suggest you put a pin into next year's calendar, that's as accurate as anything.
By the way it was me that did the "up and down" the motorway, not my darling wife - 610 miles return at least every 2 wks for 5 months. Plus 2 nights in the Days Inn at Nuneaton when our batteries were out and the engine room roof was off - which was for ever!!
Oh to go boating.
Five months! Luxury! We've allowed a year ...
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