Run Diesel Run

We love the internal combustion engine, a marvel of human creation.  Listen to her humming along.  Never take her for granted, listen to her, know her sounds, and always maintain her parts.  Having a knowledgeable hands on husband is always a good thing.

See the long crack in the original gold paint on the hose.  Where the leak was coming from.

Returning to the boat at 3:30 am after a night of table dancing, we removed the hatches and got a good whiff of diesel.  Oh the poor dogs.  Not in the frame of mind and hand coordination or proper clothes to work on the diesel engine now. 

We climbed into the V-berth and opened a hatch over me for the fumes to escape.  I covered my head with the blanket and crashed.  A few hours of rest we awoke.  JT's throat and head was sore, but I was fine.  We made some breakfast and coffee, took the dogs out for breakfast, and left them in the cockpit with their pillows while JT checked the engine.

Using the much-used head lamp, we could clearly see and smell the diesel.  An absorbent pad collected the diesel, and was soaked red.  One of the original hoses had a small crack and leak when the engine was running, but we could not get any supplies at our present location in La Porte.  We headed south back to our home port to examine the problem better.  On a no-wind morning we had to motor the one hour back home.  We watched our fuel levels and engine temp.  We made it safely into port where we absorbed the diesel with new pads.  JT confirmed which hose to fix.  We returned the next weekend to replace the fuel hose on our Universal diesel engine.

I had read on Catalina forum site to use a 3/8 inch hose but the one at the marine shop looked to big and the young clerk was no help besides cutting the hose.  The clerk had some stupid phone in his ear talking to someone else while he should have been helping the physical person in front of him.  The clerk interrupted JT to tell the person on the earpiece that JT was talking over them.  What?  Whitley and I could not believe our ears and eyes.  Clearly he was not there to serve us.  I stepped in to provide some loud moral support, and loudly discuss the sizes of hoses.

He got two different sizes neither of which were right.  JT returned and cut the hose himself which was the right internal size but too thick and had a kink in it.  After some discussion with another sailboat owner, JT headed to the O'Reilly auto store where he got the right size hose with no kink.  It worked perfectly, and he did not have to bleed the hose to get any air pockets out.

So a one hour job took six hours because of the marine shop's kinky hose and a pathetic young clerk.  Remember to check the bilge to see if any diesel had leaked into it.  Use the absorbtion mats to collect any red diesel on top of the bilge water since it floats.

Our perfect little engine hummed along as we watched belts turn and imagined the pistons firing, and the fuel being injected to create our own power house.  Warming our water, lighting our boat, and moving us forward or reverse, we love our engine.  And no leaks.

View from above our engine

1. Local Clear Lake, HSH yacht broker offers Diesel engine maintenance course 
2. Find answers to questions about the diesel engine and maintenance  
3. Surveyor point of view of must-do's for all diesel maintenance   
4. How to do Boat Projects involving the engine.