Welford, 0 miles, 0 locks
Rain again today, only it decided to do it in the morning when it was least convenient. Dave the engine man arrived at 10, looking very professional in his rigger boots, blue overalls, blue baseball cap, blue eyes and grey stubble. After clearing some stuff out of the engine room, including the anchor, there was enough room for him to work and I wandered off to make tea and get out of his way. When I returned he'd pretty much figured out that it had to be the auxiliary water pump again and the most likely explanation was that its impeller wasn't working. After talking through all the other possibilities, the way to prove it was to disconnect a pipe from one end of the pump, start the engine and see what came out: nothing. With this encouraging result, Dave removed the pump and dismantled it, and sure enough the impeller had deteriorated to the point where the central shaft was disconnected from the rubber blades and they weren't turning. He figured that he knew where to get a replacement and off he went to get it.
Back indoors I fired up Animal Crossing to find that Nookway's convenience store had become Nookington's, complete with a second floor and the Shampoodle hair salon out the back (with your lovely stylist, Harriet). After flogging Tom 8,000 bells worth of coconuts, I took Dave's advice and had another nap until he got back.
When Dave returned, he'd had a bit of trouble finding the right impeller but had eventually tracked one down. Now came the interesting job of refitting it. After a bit of examination, it was clear that it didn't go in the obvious way and that it was necessary to slide in the shaft, on which the impeller turns, so that the key--a little widget that holds the impeller in place--could be inserted; the shaft would then be slid back out, locking the key in place inside the hub of the impeller which (a) prevents the shaft from sliding out any more, and (b) locks the impeller into position on the shaft so that it rotates when the shaft does. With a bit of gentle coercion from the handle of a hammer we slid the shaft in, fitted the key, then pulled the shaft back out with small mole grips. Everything locked into place and the new impeller was fitted.
After reassembling the pump it was time to fit it back to the engine. This was tricky because the belt on the end of the pulley that drives the pump has a tendency to make the pump want to not sit straight or on its two retaining bolts. Really all you need is three hands, but Dave wasn't blessed with that and so resorted to simply getting the top of the pump in place with a hand-tightened nut, which freed up his hands for manipulating the pump and doing up the bottom nut. After a little bit of adjustment, everything was in place, the pipes were reattached and it was time to put water into the header tank and start the engine.
Although both of us were convinced that everything would work, it's not the same as actually seeing it happen. The engine started okay and I nervously watched the temperature gauge while Dave poked his finger into the header tank and felt various pipes. Eventually he declared that everything that should be hot was; that everything that should be cooler was and that the skin tank was starting to warm up. Meanwhile the temperature gauge had barely moved.
There was a little bit of leakage from the pump, but tightening the nut that the shaft came out of seemed to solve that. We left the engine running for five minutes while Dave tidied stuff away and at the end of it the temperature had reached 50°--much better than the 100°+ that was the case before Dave started working.
With the water seeming to be a success and the engine nicely warmed, Dave suggested that now would be a good time to change the oil and I agreed. This is normally pumped out of the engine using a built-in pump thing, however that didn't seem to be working, so in the end Dave sucked the oil out of the dipstick nozzle using a device that looked like a cross between an old Hoover Constellation vacuum cleaner and a bicycle inflator. Next was to replace the oil filter, which put up a spirited resistance but submitted in the end. Taking the filter chamber apart was interesting, as some of the interior parts were clearly 'home made', but since they worked okay, Dave was happy with them. After fitting the new filter and filling the engine with oil, we ran it for a few minutes. The temperature stayed at 50, the engine sounded the way I'd expect it to and Dave pronounced that it was "Sweet as a nut".
It had been pointed out to me earlier in the year that two small pipes on the engine needed upgrading from plastic to metal to conform with modern safety standards. These needed to be made specifically to fit the engine, but this is apparently neither a difficult or time-consuming process, so it was irritating that I'd been unable to get a 'slot' to get this work done in London. Given that Dave seemed to know what he was about, I asked him about it, and after taking some measurements and asking of my travel plans, he agreed to meet me in Market Harborough on Saturday morning and do the work there. This suited me, as not only would it get this niggling job out of the way, but it meant that if there were any problems with the water or oil, Dave could have a look at them. All I needed was good weather and a clear run tomorrow.
With the bill paid, Dave left and I felt much happier--especially when my phone unexpectedly rang (I'd previously had no signal but there was a tiny patch near the front of the boat where there was one 'blob'). Dinner was bean burritos--Taco Bell style. That is, a soft tortilla rolled around a glob of refried beans, tomato, onion and grated cheese. Yum!
After finishing Henry David Thoreau's "Walden" last night, I've made a start on Scott Rosenberg's "Dreaming In Code", which describes the trials and tribulations of writing Chandler--a Personal Information Manager dreamed up by Mitch Kapor of Lotus 1-2-3 fame. It's a while since I read anything like this (the last one was Tracey Kidder's The Soul Of A New Machine, which was very good) and so far I'm enjoying it.
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