It was a bloody cold night and a lovely day. We haven't used the central heating, due to the fact it seems to get the water hotter then the engine, which causes more stress on the weeping tank we have at the moment. So Del crept out of bed and lit the fire with ice on the portholes. We would have kept it in if we'd thought about it! Is it cold on boats? yes at the moment....
Due to the fact we couldn't get the tank sorted at a boatyard as it was Sunday, Del decided to have another go at it. We are getting low on water now, as every time we have to drain the tank we use 55 litres of water. As you can imaging Del's soldering technique was getting better and Del was going to try something a bit different. After cleaning it up, he then tapped in the top and bottom edges of the split making a bigger hole but it left something for the solder to drop into. He needed to fill it with flux and then get the tank really hot and then fill the hole with solder using a wire brush to check it for pin holes. Hey presto it seemed to work.
As it was a nice day we then walked up to Wickes and we went to Pizza hut for lunch. Del got some bonding putty in Wickes, which mixes with a hardener. It goes on like blue tack and you cover the area which has the problem. It doesn't look neat, but goes rock hard after a hour and sticks to the tank well.
So we filled the tank again and we had no leaks. So we run the engine and we had hot water again, still no leaks (fingers crossed).
We had the rest of the day watching telly with Strictly, I'm a Celeb and the Grand Prix.
On Monday we woke up to no leaks. Al left at 9.30am and got the train from Rugby down to Kent. Not an easy trip as a lot of the trains were cancelled due to a vehicle hitting a rail bridge at Coventry. She went to see her mum and dad and pick up some bits for Del, more about that later.
Del started on the tank and walked up to Wickes again and got some cavity foam insulation to cover the hole in the coating on the tank . This was then covered with tape to hold it all in and stop it foaming all over the place. He also changed the gearbox oil while the covers were off.
We need to give it 48 hours to dry before we use the central heating. We still feel very nervous about it all as we still wonder why it split in the first place. Time will tell!! Al got back to Derwent6 at 10.00pm after more delays on the way back at Northampton....
5 comments:
Well done!
One question. Why didn't you catch the 55 litres each time and stick it back in the tank? :-{
Hi to you both from across the pond.You are fortunate your cali looks to be vertical. Mine was horizontal under the bed and flooded the back end. See you sometime.
http://boatlife.blogspot.com/2009/03/wet-wet-wet.html
Thanks Geoff, didn't think about it at the time (as we've got quite a big water tank) but with hindsight might have been a good idea. Although tricky to put back in the calorifier, and only like to put fresh water in the water tank. Hope Mags is doing well, give her our love :-)
Hi Les & Jaq hope you're both having a lovely time :-) Les, your ears must have been burning as we remembered, and were only talking last week about when your tank went!
Watching this with more interest than probably anyone else as we have a leak on our Cali - ours is seal related. Alistair has now used the magic putty as the seal and (touch wood) it seems to be holding. This is OUR last ditch attempt. Ours is under the bed but fortunately it was a trickle not a flood.
Post a Comment