Well, I Got It Off, Anyway . . .

It was supposed to be sunny and warmer today, but we never really got the sunny part which really cut back on the warmer. So it was almost 2pm before it felt comfortable enough to get outside and under the rig.

The first problem I ran into was getting the oil filter off. I think the repair place in Luling got a little over zealous in putting the filter back on after they replaced the oil cooler gasket.

You’re supposed to tighten the filter down by hand and use the band strap wench to turn it another 3/4 turn. But it was tighter than that. Cummins could make it a lot easier to get these filters on and off if the bottom was fluted like a lot of car filters.

Once I had the filter off, I removed the 4 bolts holding the oil filter adapter on the oil cooler. And like before I had to use the old oil filter to break the adapter loose. After emptying it of oil, I screwed it back on and then whale away on it with a rubber mallet until it broke loose.

Luckily it came loose clean from the oil cooler end, I assume because there was oil on that part so the Permatex Ultra Black Seal didn’t stick. But it certainly did on the adapter end. In fact the gasket was pretty much glued to the adapter.

Oil Adapter Stuck Gasket

The reddish part is the gasket and the black is the sealer.

I picked at it with my finger for a while but didn’t make a lot of headway. Since the adapter is aluminum I didn’t want to use a steel scraper, but I tried a couple of plastic scrapers I had, but one wasn’t stiff enough and the other one wasn’t sharp enough. I thought I used to have a set like this,

Plastic Chisel Set

but apparently I looked in all the wrong places because I couldn’t find them. So I’ll pick up another set at Harbor Freight in the next couple of days. Luckily they’re cheap.

As of right now it’ll probably Thursday before I’ll have chance to get back on this.


Thought For The Day:

Fairy tales do not tell children the dragons exist. Children already know that dragons exist.  Fairy tales tell children the dragons can be killed. –  G.K. Chesterton

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