Tuesday 26 February 2008

Time will tell!

Still moored at Shenton Aqueduct, Ashby Canal

Today we had an appointment with the guys from Albatross Marine to try and solve the problem of the self emptying gearbox.  Due to the backlog of work while they had been manning their stand at the NEC Boat and Caravan Outdoor Show last week they were unable to get to us until this afternoon, 2pm to be precise. I am glad that I didn't attempt the job myself as I found that there is a trick to getting the old 'O' ring out. Once you have disconnected the cable and the gear shift arm the spring, spacer  and ball bearing come out easy but to get the 'O' ring out you have to start the motor and the oil pressure blast's it out into a rag held over the hole. You have to turn the engine off quickly to avoid loosing all the oil. Once re-assembled, the engineer found that one of the block pins was missing. The pin stops the gear shift arm going too far which would allow the bearing and spring to pop out. The engineer has offered to return and replace the missing pin. When we inspected the old' O' ring it was found to be intact but had hardened with the heat so was ineffective.

As it was after 3pm by the time I had everything back in place so we decided to stay put tonight and move on tomorrow. We only have to let Albatross Marine know where we are so he can come and fit the pin.

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