The great narrowboat adventure properly started from Stanstead Abbots in June when we collected our second boat Jarrett. This boat has a 1930s vintage Gardner engine and we quickly learned that a vintage engine introduces you to a whole new world. Our Colecraft boat has a nice new Beta Marine engine that (touchwood) has had no problems. The Gardner had been lacking in TLC so Adrian had to quickly learn how to strip down a governor, clean and rebuild the fuel systems. Fortunately a 4 cylinder 4LK is a big engine so it was like a Fisher Price my first engine. After lots of advice (many thanks Richard and Tony) the over-running has now been fixed although we will treat the engine to a full service sometime soon.
The other new world that the new boat has opened up to us, is the select club of vintage engine owners. At first I was somewhat annoyed to find perfect strangers peering into the boat, but I now realise everyone wants to look at what kind of engine you have and we have now started staring through engine hatches ourselves. In addition, going through locks, already a slow process, has now slowed down even more while men get to stare at engines.
Still it is all great fun and so far the vintage engine is proving great.
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