The trip back to Kings Bromley and some engine problems.

Friday 13th.

Tom, from the dry-dock phoned me on Thursday to say Bracken was all finished so they would be refloating her on Friday afternoon if I wanted to be there to see it happen. Well of course I wanted to be there! He said it would be around 3 pm so I arrived around 2 pm only to find Bracken already floating and moored outside the Swan! 

During the work that was carried out they'd had to drain the diesel from the tank, refill it with water whilst the welding was done, then drain the water out and refill with diesel when the work was completed. I started the engine and ran it up for a while whilst Tom and his lad finished refitting the rear rope fender 'button'

Lovely new blacking shows up the scruffy old paintwork.

You can see where a new strip of steel has been welded round the stern just above the waterline, this is why the diesel tank had to be drained.

As soon as G & J came home from work we shot over to Fradley to move Bracken back to Kings Bromley. Jenny met up with us and came aboard for the short cruise back and to assist with the locks.

We set off around 7.30, most other boats were moored for the night so we anticipated a nice quiet trip.

Unfortunately, just before the first lock out of Fradley the engine gave out a few 'clanks' and promptly died on us. "you'll have to bleed it" says Graham. 

"Hows that? I says.

"You've got some air in the system, crack the joint on one of the injectors, see if anything comes out" says Bro.

 I did that and nothing happened.

"there should be a bleed screw somewhere to get the air out of the system" he says.

Well I have to say I've worked on lots of petrol engines over the years but diesels are to me a total mystery. 

So i got down and dirty in the engine bay, not really knowing what i was looking for, until i spotted a knob. It just seemed to be begging to be turned, so I turned it while Bro cranked the engine over on the starter whereupon diesel and air was vented spluttering all over the place. As this was happening the engine started to fire up so I turned the knob in and the spluttering stopped and the engine ran ok! 

It's the yellow  knob, the other one is where you top up the oil.
(I think)

Once the engine was running ok we continued through the lock on up towards Kings Bromley.

I had to bleed it once more after we'd covered a few hundred yards, but after that it ran fine.

One boat came towards us which meant the next two locks were in our favour so that speeded things up a bit.

Wood End lock, clear run now.

Jenny fretting 'cos she's never done this before!

Getting the hang of it now.

Graham acting all nonshallant, nonshellant, carefree.

Nearly home now, moving the boat on the Friday eve was a good move as we now have the whole of Saturday to do some deck work.

More of that tomorrow.