Monthly Archives: March 2016

March 3, 2016   Uncategorized

Well, That Didn’t Go Too Well . . .

Or Six Times Is Apparently One Too Many

We finally got back to walking again this morning, but I may have to start getting up earlier because it’s getting warmer earlier, so we’ll have to see how it goes.

Afterwards we sat outside with our coffee and breakfast and enjoyed the outdoors. Much nicer and quieter than back at Lake Conroe. Then a little later our friend Randy Lazarine came by walking his dog Sherlock, and stop off to talk for a while.

Later in the afternoon I did a couple of more loads of laundry before heading outside to crawl under the driver side of the rig to take a look at my oil leak from the other side and check where the oil breather (slobber) tube is located.

Apparently this is a known problem, and Cummins even makes a ‘collection’ kit that connects to the end of the tube,

cummins-breather-kit_thumb[2]

to keep the oil from spraying out all over. Of course a lot of guys, probably me included, just hang a small bottle over the end of the tube. But I’ll know more when I get back under there. But that’s going to be delayed another another day or so.

I finished up one load of laundry and then started on another, the sixth one since I put the washer back in service, and I very quickly found that the sixth time is not the charm, at least in this case. Suddenly water was coming out from under the washer cabinet onto the kitchen tile.

After throwing some towels on the floor I ran outside to turn the water off at the faucet, and based on the amount of water I saw pouring out of the water bay, I figured that one of the supply hoses had broken or come loose. But when I got back inside I turned the pump on and looked into the side access panel where I could see the hoses and saw nothing leaking in that area.

So tomorrow the washer comes back out and I’ll see what I find.

For dinner tonight Jan fixed a great meal of Chicken and Dressing Casserole and her Green Bean Casserole, Cranberry Walnut Salad, and Grilled Bread. Really, really good, and plenty left over for a second meal.

YUMM !

Thought for the Day:


Nostalgia just isn’t what it used to be.

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March 3, 2016   Uncategorized

A New Record . . .

After a quiet morning, and then lunch, I went outside to finish up re-installing the dryer duct deflector.

This is the way I left it last night.

Dryer Vent Deflector 1_thumb[1]

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First thing was to clamp the deflector base to the vent hose.

Dryer Vent Deflector 2_thumb[1]

Then I carefully pushed the base in, trying not to crimp or buckle the hose. Then it’s just a matter of putting the screws back in to fasten it all together.

Dryer Vent Deflector 3_thumb[1]

We’ve now run about 4 loads through with no problems, so this one finally gets checked out as ‘Finished’.

Next up was to take an initial look at my oil leak problem. I was expecting to need to pressure wash the engine compartment before I could look for the leak, but I was very surprised to find no sign of leaking oil when I opened the access doors, just the light brown dust I usually find. And the side rear access doors showed nothing out of the ordinary either.

I did check the oil dipstick and found I was just a little above the ‘add oil’ mark, so that points to engine oil, and not transmission fluid of hydraulic fluid as a source of the leak.

Since the passenger side of the truck, the side nearest the rig’s exhaust pipe, looks like this, I next ran my finger around the inside of the exhaust pipe, expecting to find oil. But instead, all I found was dry, black soot.

Oil on Truck_thumb[1]

So now it was time to shimmy under the rig, at least my version of ‘shimmy’, and see what I could find. And what I did find was oil on the bottom of the oil pan. It was wet around the drain plug area, but I saw no evidence of any leakage around the oil pan gasket, at least on the passenger side.

I did wipe down the area with a rag and will check again tomorrow to see if I have any new accumulation. I also will crawl under from the driver’s side and see if I can find the breather (slobber) tube which is supposed to be on that side.

Depending on what I find, my next step is to top off the oil and the run the engine for awhile to see if that shows me anything.

About 4pm, Jim and Peri Dean showed up to rendezvous for supper. They wanted to meet Karma before we drove up to La Grange to have dinner at Sealand Seafood.

And once again Karma is no longer an outside cat. She’s an inside girl now and goes into panic mode outside, trying to get down and run under the rig.

The meal was as great as usual, and the conversation was apparently even better, since we set a new record of a 4 hour dinner. It’s hare to imagine that we had that much to talk about.

But apparently we did.

Thought for the Day:

Government: Creating problems where none exists, in order to implement policies that won’t work.

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