Well that was a waste of time !

I've have the bits in my car to start putting the Victron monitor into the engine room on Percy for a while. On Friday I was free after a few family challenges and bad weather to get over to Shedbdon. On the way I took  a route variation to Market Drayton to drop off the valve guides I have purchased to the shop that was checking Percy's head (all good apart from some wear in the guides apparently)

When I brought Percy Tony ran me through the lubrication of the donk - but I don't recall him advising on lubrication of the valve stems. No doubt a contributory factor to the wear. On reading one of the maintenance manuals it says fill the valve recesses with a little oil to keep the stems lubricated  - I have been doing such is now part of the pre-start lubrication regime on the donk. 

Anyhow on getting to Percy I took my battery drill out to drill two holes into the steel engine bulkhead so o could tap them for a couple of pan head copper bolts that would be used to hold the box the Victron battery monitor display unit. All went well until the drill started to slow so pushing my luck I added a little bit more pressure and twang the 3.4mm drill broke !! Not the first time and I now have one partly drilled hole. Not the biggest problem  - especially as I realised I'd left the shunt at home also.

I checked the bilge, made a cup of tea (its great the water point being next to my boat so I don't have to turn on and then drain down the water system just for a cup of tea or a wee !

I'll go back next week and complete the job having ordered more drill bits and charged my electric drill up  (both batteries).

Hopefully the head will soon be ready for re assembly and then I can properly sort out the batteries.