Dirty Diesel

Here's a quick sum up of the way my diesel to waste veggie oil converted van operates. It starts on diesel. When the engine and the waste veggie oil both warm up, a flick of a switch draws fuel from the waste veggie tank. Before shutting the engine down for the night it has to run a few minutes on diesel to flush the veggie out of the engine.

Thanks to screens and honking big filters the veggie tank can process some pretty nasty fuel. Unfortunately, the diesel side is put together differently. The sending unit inside the diesel tank has some built in coarse filters. Unfortunately, when they get plugged options are limited.

To physically access those filters requires the removal of the 35 gallon diesel tank. It's the sort of job that one does not attempt lightly. Two years ago I had the sending unit replaced by my local mechanic. It was a nasty job and cost more than a few dollars.

Today I tried something different. Using a big compressor I blew air backwards through the fuel line to clear the filters. That works for a while, but since the crud is still in the tank those filters soon plug once more.

I've a small 3.5 gpm diesel fuel transfer pump. I was able to pump just about all of the fuel out of the tank. Then I added about 3 gallons of clean fuel. Once that was in I rocked the van to stir up any gunk that had settled to the bottom of the tank. After the tank was pumped dry once more I added about 4 gallons of clean diesel to the tank. That should get me back to town where I can refuel.

So what happened to the 25 gallons of dirty diesel? 15 gallons went into my heating oil tank. Diesel fuel and #2 heating oil is very similar. Oil tank filters are cheap and easy to change. 5 gallons went into my veggie tank. The veggie filter can easily handle the dirt particles. Another 5 gallons is sitting in a fuel jug. That diesel will also be used to cut waste veggie until it's all used up.

The van started fine and air purged itself of the system. I've yet to give it a good road test. Hopefully I've removed enough dirt from the tank. If not I can always repeat the whole process once more.

Where did the dirty diesel come from? I've no idea. When I'm around home I'm pretty careful where my diesel comes from. On the road there's no telling what you're going to get. It only takes one tank of bad fuel to cause endless problems. No doubt that bad fuel is the reason I've had to change the diesel filter mounted on the engine more often too.

-Sixbears

Moving on

Monday I finally got around to disassembling one of my projects that no longer made any sense. Some years ago I built a solar batch hot water heater. It was maded from a salvaged propane water heater, salvaged windows and scrap plywood.

Our tankless water heater failed and at the time money was especially tight. The local building supply company had a small 3.5 gallon water heater for sale at a ridiculously low price. It was just barely big enough to make hot water to wash dishes or take a quick shower. The solar hot water tank, on good days, provided enough hot water to fill the bathtub for a hot soak.

Over the year the 3.5 gallon heater failed and was replaced with a 40 gallon tank. The big tank was also hooked up to heater coils off the woodstove. The solar water heater, over time, became heavily shaded by trees. Some of those trees were actually on the neighbor's land. My quickly growing nut trees provided even more shade.

Monday my lovely wife asked if I was ever going to do anything with the solar water heater or if it was time to scrap it. As much as I hate to let things go it was time to take it apart. Some of the glass could be salvaged, as the tank itself plus the insulation. The wood had both rot and an ant infestation. The remains are now burning in the fireplace.

Solar hot water only makes sense here for about 3 or 4 months out of the year. At least, the low cost 1970s, style low tech heaters only make sense for that long. Current high end systems with sophisticated controls, large storage tanks and a freeze proof working fluid can work year round. My daughter has such a system and it makes sense for her.

Right now I might just suck up a couple months of higher cost hot water. It's only until the short summer is over and we start burning wood again.

That doesn't mean we aren't thinking of solar options. I do have a large coil of ¾ inch plastic pipe that I could toss on a sunny roof then feed into the hot water heater. Perhaps if I can get away without spending to much money or time on it, that might just happen.

-Sixbears

More Barter Deals

I'm a pretty bad businessman as my skills are rarely for sale. On the other hand, I'm often willing to make barter deals. There's no paper trail and no money exchanges hands. Sometimes I'll do a little project for someone just to have a few favors in the bank, so to speak.

The other day my lovely wife bartered my skills. Great deal for her. She gets the benefits and I get the job. Good thing this one is interesting. Someone needs to install 3 electric tankless water heaters. That looks like fun as it combines both plumbing and electrical skills. It would not surprise me if my carpenter skills come into play too.

One neat thing about this job is that it comes with an assistant. That person is willing to do all the crawling around in tight spaces hauling pipe and wire. That's great as I don't even fit into some of those spaces. All I have to do is plan the job and do the final connections. Should be fun.

Of course, If I was licensed I'd probably be doing that sort of thing for real money. It's much more fun to do things as a talented amateur. I once tackled a project that professionals wouldn't touch, and did a mighty fine job too. Since I didn't have a license the owner claimed that the 240 outlet had always been there when the inspector came. When I tied it into the box I copied the style of the previous electrician. At the end of the day I made sure every scrap of wire and trimmed insulation had been cleaned up. The inspection went off without a hitch.

Most of what I do is at least sorta legal. People only know about me through word of mouth and I don't take every little project that comes my way. Often it's just helping people in a tight spot. Barter works for me too as when I need something done it's not too hard to line up help.

-Sixbears

Decisions Decisions

My lovely wife and I have been home for over a month and a half, but it still feels like we just got here. We haven't even met up with all of our friends. There are only so many hours in the day.

There's an awful lot of projects to catch up on and we keep finding more. Recently we discovered our guest bedroom has small spots of light green mold on the ceiling. Normally mold isn't much of an issue, but we closed the house down in September when it was still hot and humid. The room was closed off from the rest of the house so that might have created the necessary conditions for mold. That room has to be cleaned, sealer applied, and repainted.

Of course, we are not all work and no play. The sailboat should be ready for adventures soon. My lovely wife has been thinking of sailing into Canada when things get a bit warmer. That should be interesting. Never sailed my own boat into foreign waters before.

The van appears to have some issues with the diesel fuel line plugging up forcing me to blow the lines clear with a small air compressor. It's annoying. Maybe once the old fuel is used up the problem will go away. Now that the weather is getting a bit warmer it's been possible to run the van on veggie again. That a totally separate fuel system. Once it gets to temperature the van runs best burning waste vegetable oil. Yes, it smells like French fries.

I must admit sailboats still catch my eye, but it really makes no sense to take on another project boat right now. In fact, what I should be doing is concentrating on a few little projects that have the potential to bring in some money.

While the pursuit of money doesn't interest me much it has come to my attention that I'm going to need to pay off some bills. Doesn't seem fair. Why should I be held responsible for my creditor's bad financial decisions? They are the professionals. They should have known better than to give me credit.

Kidding . . . I'm just kidding. Everyone will get what's owed them.

-Sixbears

Projects and bug out ideas

I've a lot of little projects that need doing. Most of them require warmer weather. We had snow on Monday and there's still pockets that haven't melted yet. It's been below freezing at night so even on sunny days it takes forever to warm up.

My lovely wife has started a lot of plants inside. With any luck they'll survive the transfer to the garden when it warms up.

The battery on the boat is totally dead. It's so dead it won't take a charge. At the end of last summer it seemed to be fading, so it's no real surprise it quit entirely. Better to discover it now than when the boat is on the lake.

I decided to take a trip into town to talk to my insurance company. A lot of people don't know that if they take their car into Canada they need a Canadian proof of insurance card. My insurance company hands them out free of charge but people have to ask for them.

It's funny how many people say they are going to run to Canada after the presidential election. Almost nobody will. Even if someone wants to leave the US and move to Canada, it's very hard for the average Joe to do so. Having a lot of money makes it easier, but plenty of countries accept rich people.

Most people can't even legally cross the border for a visit as most Americans lack valid passports. How many preppers have bug out vehicles but can't take them across the border? The best time to bug out is before everything falls apart. That means there'll probably be active border control, at least during the early stages. (when you really should be getting out)

Canada is a great place to visit, but there are reasons my ancestors left there. Factory work in New England beat the heck out of starving to death on a Quebec potato farm.

I must admit to being tempted to take a sailboat and disappear over the horizon until things sort themselves out.

-Sixbears

All thumbs day

Some days things don't go as smoothly as they should. Monday afternoon the weather was good and I thought I'd install some of those boat bits I bought on Sunday.

It's not that hard to install a new boat trailer jack. It's basically just four bolts. The old one took a little effort to remove due to corrosion, but that's normal. For some reason I was all thumbs bolting on the new one. Even tried to put a part on upside and only noticed it at the last minute. Just as I was about to finish my toolbox fell over and scattered all my sockets into the dirt.

That's pretty much how the afternoon's projects went. Everything took longer than it should, but the jobs got done anyway.

For me the final straw was when I tried to check the voltage in the boat's battery. There was an internal short in my battery tester and it tried very hard to catch fire. That was it. Time to call it quits for the day.

Tuesday morning it was snowing and about an inch of snow had accumulated on the ground. That's all the encouragement I needed to stay inside and drink coffee. When there's snow on the boat it's too early to launch anyway.

-Sixbears

Now back to the real world

While I'm interested in what happens at National and International levels, my influence is limited. My gaze is far but my arms are short.

Now it's back to my home projects. It was a brisk morning at 19 degrees. Once temperatures rose above freezing I tackled some outside projects. One was the repair of a stone wall that keeps the soil in our little garden. By rights I should probably have torn it all down, dug below the frost line and built up from there. With a shoulder still on the mend, it wasn't going to happen. Repairing the top section was tough enough.

I'm trying to balance my time and energy. In recent years I've been putting a lot of time into boat projects at the expense of house projects. That's why I started the day with the garden wall. Only once that was done was time to play with the sailboat.

The mast and sail have to be set up on land so measurements can be taken of the rig before a new sail can be ordered. To have room to do that the boat had to be moved back about 8 feet. Should be easy, right? Just hook it up to the van and drive it back.

Normally it takes just a few minutes to hook up the trailer. Anyone who's ever taken a boat out of storage knows the first boating adventure of the season never goes smoothly. In my case it was the boat jack. It was rusted in place. I've had good ones and cheap ones and they all seem to only last a year or two. Even those with grease fittings that allowing for regular lubrication fail. Probably I should just buy cheap ones and keep a spare.

Without the boat jack, it took a tire jack, blocking, a large pry bar and the assistance of my lovely wife to get it hooked up. By then my shoulder was too sore to set up the mast and rigging. In my younger days I would have pressed on. Maybe I would have gotten away with it and maybe I would have really damaged my shoulder. Older and wiser, (and slower to heal) I decided to put that project off until tomorrow.

-Sixbears

Fixing the boat I have

Monday was a good day for dealing with things on the Internet and on the phone. The day started with snow which accumulated to about an inch before turning to rain. Not a good day for playing outside.

The main sail on my Oday 19 is blown out and ripped. It's like the main motor is not firing on all cylinders. It really needs to be replaced. After a lot of searching around I decided to go with Bacon Sails. They e-mailed a detailed Measurement Form.

Apparently it's not enough to know the model and year of your boat. There's a lot of variance between boats, even those that are the same model. Rather than build a sail that sorta fits, they want to build one that really fits my particular boat. Makes sense, I guess.

I wish it was simple, as now I've got a lot of measuring to do. The boat will have to be unwrapped from its winter cocoon and moved to where I can lift the mast without getting tangled up in power lines. Tuesday is supposed to be another rainy day, but the sun is supposed to come out Wednesday.

I hope to get them moving on the sail fairly soon as it takes about four weeks to build it. They want half the money up front and the other half when the sail is completed. That seems to be a common practice in the industry.

While waiting for the sails to come in I might as well do a few other projects, like a mount for the 100 watt solar panel. A new cabin hatch would be great too. The Oday has a removable cabin hatch instead of a sliding one. It's a miracle that it hasn't fallen off the boat and sank to the bottom of the ocean. It would be kinda cool to build something that gives me a few more inches of headroom too. That would certainly make the boat more comfortable.

Maybe I can get all those projects done before the sail comes in. Right now all the ice isn't even off the lake yet, so giving it another month to warm up isn't a bad thing.

-Sixbears

Freakin Frozen!

First off, no regrets. My lovely wife and I are happy to be home. We were gone for most of 6 months and we are glad to be back.

That being said, I am officially not acclimating to the cold. It's freaking cold. Sunday night it was down into the single digits. Monday night it's supposed to be 3 degrees Fahrenheit. That's really not unheard of for early April in the Great North Woods. What has changed is me. I'm no longer used to the cold.

We plan on being home for the rest of the year, only heading south after the holidays. I'm hoping that by living through the fall I'll get somewhat used to the colder temperatures. One thing that does not work is going from sunny Florida back into winter conditions.

My lovely wife was talking to some of her elderly friends from church. In recent years they gave up being snowbirds and now spend winters up north. They are suffering and have not adapted to the cold at all.

One thing for sure, I'm going to have to get some more long pants, warm jackets, fuzzy socks and lots and lots of fleece.

After one more week of cold it is supposed to start warming up again. My suffering shouldn't last too much longer. I'm chomping at the bit to start on some outside projects, but they are going to wait until I can work outside without wearing mittens.

-Sixbears

The tools at hand

It's said that when your only tool is a hammer, all your problems look like nails. Obviously it makes sense to have a lot of different tools in one's quiver. After all, we are a tool using species -not the only one, but the one with the most extensive tool kit.

People tend to use the tools and skill sets they have already have to solve problems. If you have a machine shop and the skills, a lot of your solutions will involve metal. A carpenter will try to solve problems using wood. A fiberglass man will build way too many things of fibers and resin. What's surprising is how many of those solutions actually work.

That's great, but sometimes it makes more sense to use a different material. Recently I was working on a tabernacle arrangement for my small sailing scow. A tabernacle is what holds a folding mast in place. Traditionally they are made out of wood.

My wooden design looks pretty clunky so I thought that by reinforcing it with fiberglass I could use less wood. Then it occurred to me that I've a nifty little welding machine and could actually make it out of steel. The steel would have to be treated to prevent rusting, but it would make a very strong arrangement and not very bulky at all. Right now I'm not sure exactly how I'm going to build it, but it's nice to have options.

I guess that's the point.

-Sixbears