Saturday 5th August 2006 Northolt to Bulls Bridge 4 miles, 0 locks Yesterday I had a look at the gear box to adjust the reversing brake band, of course me without a set of imperial spanners, and not enough room for the shifter, I had to leave it till later. Today, after working a short shift, I visited Halfords (near the Hanger Lane Gyratory) on the way back to the boat. That was my first mistake, but I should have known better after calling them earlier and getting the comment, "I don't know if we have that make, please hold".
So leaving spannerless, I thought I would try the bigger one in Northolt. There is a small car spares place on the high street, but I wasn't expecting it to be open. It was, and a couple of minutes later I left the shop with an imperial set for less than a fiver. Trundled down to service moorings only to find it full with moored boats - not using the facilities of course! I moored under the bridge using a piling hook, and the centre rope, and lugged the loo down to the emptying point. I think I must have pulled my back at this point as it hurt a little afterwards. I finally reached Bulls Bridge at about 20:00, and after spotting Sanity near the end of the moorings, pulled alongside. I did a quick shop, and then had a chat and a drink with Bruce and Sheila for the rest of the evening. Sunday 6th August 2006 Bulls Bridge to Paddington 13 miles, 0 locks I wanted a little lie in, so we arranged a 10am off, and I'm glad I did. It was really hot in the night, and with the noise from the Tesco refrigerated lorries, it kept me awake till late. I wanted to clean the boat as it was looking particularly mucky next to the immaculate Insanity. I also got rid of more spiders that had built up over my holidays on Kismet. We left Bulls Bridge at 10:05 and had a good run down to the Alperton Sainsbury's where the Napier's wanted to purchase some stuff that Tesco's didn't have/do. It was also a good time to have lunch, and so we didn't leave till 13:00, after two other boats had passed heading into town. We arrived at Paddington just before 15:00, and while Sanity filled with water, I tried to find an empty mooring in the now very popular basin. All the usual moorings were full, but I managed to get on the outside of the first business barge moorings, near the corner. Of course the ever useful BW has not placed any mooring rings on here, so you have to get your rope around gaps in the floating pontoon. I suggested that Bruce should put his rope on mine to avoid annoyance. I thought I would tackle the gearbox here, and Bruce showed an interest, so together we tried to sort it out. After taking off the lid, and using the imperial spanners I bought earlier, I managed to loosen the locking nuts. Now we could not work out how to turn the wheel which runs on the reversing brake lever. It wasn't until we reread the instructions again did we realise we had to remove the lever shaft. Once tapped out with a hammer, the screw which turned the wheel moved freely, and with a full 360 degree turn we tried to get the shaft back into the forward, and reverse arms again. This proved difficult, until we realised that in forward gear the lever is allow to rest normally. I presume this is so if there is a problem the gear lever it is left in forward gear. With a little fiddle we got it back in, but the reverse seemed a little stiff, so we took the shaft back out, I took off 180 degrees, and tried again. It seemed OK, but tomorrow will tell. Nuggler entered the basin later in the day. I saw him pass Northolt on Friday. Apparently they had gone down to Limehouse for a birthday party, but once he was back to Paddington the rest of the party had left him, and so later that evening we all got together on Sanity for some good old toilet chat. -- Michael Askin http://shoestring.zapto.org/ Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
