THE effect of having both domestic alternators and travel packs running from the crank-shaft pulley is well documented and is a well known issue which both River Canal Rescue and boaters have been feeding back to Beta, writes Stephanie Horton, Managing Director, River Canal Rescue.
What most boaters may not be aware of is that all engines are prone to the same issues when multiple alternators are connected, as noted by a member with a BMC engine who reported his problems on your site.
The effect of having both domestic alternators and travel packs running from the crank shaft pulley is well documented and is a well- known issue which both River Canal Rescue and boaters have been feeding back to Beta and other engine suppliers. When the pulley fails, or the nut becomes loose/ fails it is rarely a case of simply ‘tightening up the bolt/pulley' and can take from three hours to several days to resolve the issue, particularly if the engine has to be removed as mentioned by another boater on the site.
Call-outs
Because of our experience with these issues, when on a call-out, we rarely intervene. We will always attend and diagnose what's causing the problem, but temporary solutions have proven to fail relatively quickly. A common perception is that simply 'tightening the bolt' will resolve the problem, but it won't.
The size of the nut and the tool required to tighten the bolt is non-standard. It's very large at 43mm, and even those who do have this tool and start work on the engine, soon realise it is a bigger job than anticipated. There are a number of parts that can be affected; on some the nut or the crank shaft (full engine strip) is damaged. Even the most basic permanent repairs can take three hours—but usually these jobs escalate and swallow whole chunks of the day (or evening).
Available for emergencies
Our engineers are on call from 8am to 8pm and available for emergencies after this time. Calls after 8pm usually result in our engineer working in the dark, bringing with it health & safety issues, so call-outs after this time are restricted to emergencies unless the vessel is in an easily accessible location. It is important that our call-out engineers are kept free to attend breakdowns as tying them up on time-intensive jobs compromises the service we provide to all of our customers.
It therefore makes sense to pass the work onto our Canal Contracting Team who can source a specialist contractor with access to a wider range of equipment and unlimited time; as opposed to a mobile breakdown engineer who is reliant on the tools in his van with a finite amount of time. When this situation occurs, we cover two hours labour towards the repair.
Member support
We always welcome feedback and do our best to support members. However situations can arise that fall outside RCR's cover parameters and where this happens, we try to resolve it by sourcing contractors and managing customers' expectations re: the potential work involved.
If we can use our experience to put in place a permanent rather than temporary solution, we will. But if we believe, for example, tightening a nut/bolt is likely to cause future issues and result in more in-depth repairs, we will not do so.
Beta support
Beta now recognises the impact of this problem and has come up with a solution with a new system of locking nut/washer and a way of securing the pulley. For more details contact Beta. Although this is seen as a Beta issue it is prevalent on all similar installations, and the failure is more related to usage and high demand than a particular engine design.
Possibly the only reason that the Beta engine has been highlighted is simply because of the number of engines currently installed and the fact that there are a greater number of boaters who have higher domestic needs and hence employ the larger alternators or opt for travel pack installations. However to assist us in addressing these issues Beta are issuing our engineers with the correct sized sockets and a procedure and guidance which they hope will help educate boaters on usage and help us to resolve these type of call-outs whilst on site.
Get boaters moving
We're sorry to hear of the problems Mr Doswell encountered; it is always our intention to get boaters moving again with the minimum of disruption and cost. There were indeed communication issues in that we were unable to contact him due to having the wrong number.
Following the fire last year we are working with reduced systems which do not provide a number recognition facility. This will be rectified, but in the meantime, we rely on the number provided when membership is taken out and it is confirmed at the time of the call-out. We were not made aware of issues surrounding a lack of concern.
Sourced a contractor
We passed the work onto our Canal Contracting team who sourced a contractor and the Beta parts. However, as Mr Doswell rightly points out, there was a short delay due to a stock take—something RCR has no control over. I'm pleased Mr Doswell managed to find someone ‘on the cut' to do the work; we endeavour to resolve situations as quickly as we can and so apologise if he feels RCR let him down, and would encourage him to contact us directly about this.
This is not indicative of our service—as mentioned by boaters on narrowboatworld. In 2014, RCR achieved ‘very good' or ‘excellent' ratings near-on 90% or more for every month in 2014 (100% in three). We will scrutinise our procedures to ensure this continues in 2015.