Grease Monkey Day

Tuesday, yesterday, was a full day for me. I dressed in my best "grease monkey" clothes, mentally prepared for the job at hand, and went to work under the bus-house. By the end of the day I had changed the oil in the Cummins diesel, swapped in a new oil filter, lubed the chassis, changed oil in the Onan generator, and tested everything to check for runs, drips, or errs. I had also pulled an oil sample and sent it out for analysis... to see how our now more than 4 year old Cummins is getting along internally.

During the job I installed a Fumoto Valve instead of the normal drain plug on the Cummins diesel. It's a little ball valve designed for this application and makes the job of changing the oil go a little easier once it's installed. Since it's a valve that can be easily opened and closed, it's possible to directly fill gallon jugs with waste oil... for easy disposal. It's also possible to easily tap a sample for an oil analysis any time you'd like.

All the up and down and crawling around really whipped my butt by the end of the day. A shower, a glass of wine... and I was ready for bed.

1 comment:

Paul and Marti Dahl said...

An honest day's work and the money saved looks better in your pocket.

I installed the Fumoto valve on my Cat diesel, bought the one with the nipple on the end to slide a hose on to make it easier to drain into a jug.

The only downside of the Fumoto valve is the oil drains slowly. Make sure to loosen the oil fill cap to help the oil drain.

Ain't technology grand?

A Minimalist

A Minimalist A blog post I've recently been involved with helping to clear out the living spaces of someone who died. These are a few of...

Slightly Better than Most