My engine maintenance saga didn’t finish last weekend.
A few days ago I had made some important progress on the incredibly difficult mission of extracting the used lube oil from Pesto’s Generator. Victory was short lived though, for when I switched the engine on, it gushed the new oil all over the engine room.
Today I proceeded to clean up the mess, emptied the Generator’s sump again, and put new oil in. When I switched it on, again it gushed oil all over. At that point it had become a personal matter, and I decided I would tame that stubborn red beast (the Generator) no matter what.
Examining the different parts of the lube system, I found that the oil was leaking from behind the oil filter, as soon as it built pressure inside the engine. Taking the filter out, quickly I realized the source of the problem … guess what? A misplaced o-ring (the same problem that made Pesto’s main engine stop working some weeks ago in Catalina Harbor).
The offending filter and its o-ring went to the trash bin, a new one came in place, I filled the Generator with new oil again, and switched it on. And this time, finally, it worked as it is supposed to !
So now I can really claim this item out of the to-do list.
It was not just the Genset oil change that came out of the list. Earlier this week we achieved an important milestone, by having the valves of our holding tank replaced. They started working bad a couple months ago, and we made-do that way. But our toilet wasn’t working properly. I bought new valves just after Christmas, but the prospect of doing my debut on plumbing work right on our sewer system wasn’t appealing at all. So, last week I finally gave in and called a mechanic to come do the job for me – which he did efficiently.
One of the good things of having a to-do list is the pleasure we get each time an item gets crossed on it.
But there’s still a lot more to be done – off to work again!
Cruising life as it is … 🙂