The engine re-instatement continues.......and the plot thickens...............

On Monday, I had the day off. Mum and Dad were still about, so popped over to Pippin for coffee.

We had thought to visit Wimpole Hall (National Trust house and gardens), but the level of precipitation was way too high to entertain such ideas for long.

Instead, Mum elected to sit in the dry and warm aboard Pippin, with tea, the newspapers and both cats, (the errant Thomas having made an appearance through the cat-flap just as Mum was bemoaning his continued absence -he'd been off on a three day mooch-), while Dad and I sidled off to St Ives to have a gander round the well-stocked chandlery at Jones's Boatyard.

While there, I had a chat with their resident engineer re: engine fitting malarkey.

I recounted the story so far:- (brainless money-grabbing Banderlog ripping a working engine out of a boat, and ripping off the boat's owner, my friend, by leaving it and the replacement on the bank.....).

He was very helpful indeed, and approved of Mark and my efforts to get our friend out of the engineless Merde Creek up which he had been stranded by these felonious ne'er-do-wells.

In short, he allowed me to pick his brains.....

He suggested a system called Aquadrive, which, while acknowledged as expensive, is highly rated: anyone got any comments?

(It helps that it is supplied by the thrice-blessed firm of A.R.Peachment of Norwich, who helped Pippin out of a similar gearbox absence which was caused by crooks in Coventry.......)

But then things got a whole lot more interesting....

My new engineer chum suddenly remembered a bloke coming into the chandlery about 3-4 months ago seeking advice and help on fitting a BMC 1.8 to a boat in Cambridge.....

Now, the engine in question is a popular choice, and there are a good few narrowboats thus equipped on the Cam, but a co-incidence?

I think not.

Especially when the bloke concerned 'clearly had no idea what he was doing', and the date from which he failed to return to Jones's to pick up some bits the engineer had got for him tallies almost exactly with the date of the Banderlog's disappearance from the bankside with my chum's cash.....

It's a small world, though I wouldn't really like to paint it.......

The engineer couldn't put his hand on the bits he'd got: they'd been kicking around for months..... But he was happy to have a good look for them.

This is all good news.

I'm going to take pictures of the engine and engine room, and Mark and I are heading back to Jones's in a week or so's time for a conference with the engineer. We need to sort out, among other things, whether or not the boat is raw water cooled, and if it is, is the replacement engine?

Beer will doubtless be involved, though I have volunteered to drive..... :-(

Nevertheless, it's all getting rather interesting!

To Be Continued!!