Refit: Winter 2008-2009
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Winter 2008-2009 Refit | Saturday, November 8, 2008
I reassembled the LPG
regulator bracket assembly, now that the rusted pieces were
nicely painted and cleaned up, and prepared to reinstall it
on the front of the doghouse. First, though, I removed
the remainders of old sealant, then cleaned off the rust
streaks from the rusty bracket. This made me feel
immediately better.
Then, I installed the bracket with sealant and screws, as
before. |
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Next, I cleaned up the now-cured excess sealant from around
the new galley sink; I'd been weighting it down for a week
while I waited for it to cure. The excess cleaned up
quickly, and the new sink job was complete. |
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It was time for some basic engine maintenance. I
changed the oil and filter, replacing the filter with
Yanmar's new filter that satisfies the
original part
number; the new filter was quite a bit smaller than the
old, which worked to my advantage since the clearance
between the filter and the nearby alternator is very tight,
making it nearly impossible to get a filter wrench on the
filter. The new, smaller filter increased the
clearance by 1/4" - 1/2" beneath the alternator, so
replacement next time ought to be easier. |
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Next, I changed the two primary fuel filters. I have
two filters because I received a new filter along with my
new Yanmar back in 2001, and at that time I decided to
simply install the new one in series with the identical one
that I'd installed to service the old engine. Excess
filtration is not a bad thing, though if I hadn't received
the second one with the engine I wouldn't have seen a need
to install two in this manner. In addition, there's an
engine-mounted secondary filter, whit takes a small
micron element from Yanmar.
I run a 30 micron element (red
color: Racor R15P) in the first primary filter, and a
2 micron element (brown color: Racor R15S) in the second
primary filter. I had one set of spares remaining, and
I installed them both and noted the need to order some
replacements. |
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Here's proof that filtration works. Below are
containers holding the fuel that I drained from the two
primary fuel filters. On the right is the fuel from
the first primary filter, the 30 micron unit through which
the tank's fuel flows first. On the left is the fuel
from the second primary filter, the 2 micron unit, which
comes downstream of the 30 micron filter.
Clearly the fuel in my tank is
getting a little nasty, so it's time to clean that out.
Nevertheless, the filters are doing their job extremely
well. I must admit that I had not changed the fuel
filters since July 2007; the 2008 season was so minimal that
I just never got a chance to do this basic chore (plus it
was easy to see that the fuel in the second filter's bowl
was clean and clear). |
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Total time today: 2.25 hours
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