Tuesday 30th April
This morning we had to leave Thrupp having been here for a week. We reversed (or rather Ken reversed) back to the lift bridge and through to Thrupp Wide where he turned round and we got water etc before setting off for Lower Heyford.
We were having a good trip until we had gone about 3 miles and got to Pigeon Lock. Suddenly the generator belt started slipping so I quickly switched it over to inverter and turned the generator off. At the same time we developed a rather serious sounding rattle! When we got the boat in the lock Ken went down the weedhatch to see if there was anything round the prop but this proved to be clear. He also took the engine board up and discovered that the generator belt was indeed very loose.
We decided that we could do nothing about either problem until we stopped so we soldiered on to Cleeves Bridge at Lower Heyford. This was another 4 miles and 2 locks and all the while we were trying to identify the source of the mystery rattle!
After we got moored up at Cleeves Bridge Ken had another look at the generator and discovered that a bolt had sheared off. We were hoping the other part of it wasn’t the cause of the rattle, having got lodged somehow in the engine! Much putting the engine in and out of gear, turning it on and off and standing in various positions both inside and outside the boat left us no wiser as to the cause of the rattle however.
We decided that the rattle couldn’t be too serious as the engine seemed to be running ok, was charging the batteries and there were no burning smells coming from the engine room. We thought it may be that the exhaust was loose or something.
We took the part of the generator which needed the sheared off bolt drilling out of to Heyford Wharf where they said (for £25) they could do it for us and provide a new bolt by tomorrow. As we had always planned to stay here tonight it was not a problem. We then went off to the pub, obviously!
