Petter Pampering

Before Christmas we decided it was time to give Altons Petter PD2 engine a bit more care than just its usual oil change. So we arranged to call up and see Charles Mills at Vintage Marine Diesels at Poynton. Charles soon set about stripping off the engine covers & shrouding and ducting.

The Cowling Stripped Off

The removal of the fan and pulleys went OK but back at the workshop, pressing out the bearings was a bit more difficult and in the end 2 pulleys broke, so Charles had to get busy machining up a couple of new ones.

Fan & Pulleys Removed

Cleaned up Fan with New Pulley

After a clean & degrease Charles set too with the re-assembly, including new filters.

New Filters & Pulley

Charles Re-assembling

With a sump full of fresh Morris oil the Petter soon fired up sounding well with good oil pressure.

Healthy Oil Pressure

Working over 2000 hrs a year we hope the Petter will continue to give us good service (touch wood) now that it's had some TLC. We certainly know lots of boaters love to here that beat of that exhaust note ;-)

New Year 2012

Happy New Year! Well it's been a good & busy start to the 2012 so I'll try & catch up with our news on the blog over the next few days. Our first coal run was over the New Year period & we celebrated by tying up at Disley and were joined by my brother Mike and George & Irene Boyle for a very pleasant evening at the White Lion with a fine selection of real ales. We got back to the boat at 3am so we treated ourselves to a lie in until our first customer of the day Annie on Brave New World  came alongside about 9am and roused us from our slumber!

Ann Marie & Irene at The White Lion

Ann Marie & Mike at the White Lion

Annie on Brave New World Heading off after topping up her Supplies

We had a busy day on Sunday the 1st grabbing breakfast & lunch on the go whilst Mike stopped in bed till mid afternoon nursing a hangover! A few other boaters seemed to be struggling with hangovers and weren't their normal chatty selves, but there seemed to have been a few good parties and "boaters get togethers".