What’s Old Is New Again . . .

I had originally planned to take another try at my oil filter oil leak problem but a bunch of things converged to grind that to a halt.

First off, when I gathered up all my needed tools yesterday, I couldn’t find my torque wrench. I must have stashed it away somewhere safe, but apparently I put it aside so safely that I forgot where. And getting increasing the torque on the bolts is a primary reason for doing this.

And it didn’t help that the 10% chance of rain today morphed into a 100% downpour. Of course, since I’m working under the rig you would think that rain wouldn’t be a problem, and it’s not. It’s getting under the rig without getting soaked crawling through the lake that heavy rains leave surrounding the raised pad that the rig sits on.

But the main reason was that last night I was looking over the Cummins manual detailing the oil cooler/filter assembly and noticed that of all the things I’ve replaced, the oil filter, the oil filter adapter head, and the gaskets, the one part I haven’t replaced are the four bolts that hold in adapter head in place.

So maybe they’ve stretched or warped in the intervening 20 years, so as a last ditch effort tomorrow I’m going to order 4 new bolts from Cummins.

And based on several recommendations, I’m going to use two gaskets this time, hoping to take up any possible warpage in the oil cooler side of the adapter base. But I’m still deciding between several recommendations on what kind of sealer to use on the gaskets.

But for now I’m on hold until the new bolts come in.

Under the heading of what’s old is new again, CBS is looking at revving two old shows, and possibly a third. And, unlike several other recent retreads, these at least. are ones we liked, and would like to see again.

Both Person of Interest for Season 6 and Big Bang Theory for Season 13 are on the slate for coming back. And all with the original cast. Well. at least the ones still alive on Person of Interest.

The third one, still up in the air, is Two and A Half Men, also for Season 13, but without Ashton Kutcher. Or Charlie Sheen, apparently.

And FWIW, there is a new show being talked about that neither Jan nor I can gin up much excitement about. In the vein of Young Sheldon, but in this case Young Howard. As in Howard Wolowitz.

Not sure about this one.

I’m sure most of you watched the very successful SpaceX launch yesterday. I now Jan and I were hanging on every second until they made it to orbit. And we watched the docking today.

Really great to see the U.S. back in space again on our own rockets. Go, Elon.

I sure a lot of you remember the scene from 2001 A Space Odyssey for the Pan Am Shuttle docking with the Space Station,

image

all done to the Blue Danube Waltz.

Well, it didn’t take long this afternoon until someone posted a YouTube video of the SpaceX docking, also done to the Blue Danube Waltz. Very well done.

I don’t know if any of you used the link I posted a couple days ago for the GoFundMe account for the black firefighter who lost his life savings when his bar was burned down in Minneapolis, but as of a little before 9pm, the account is up over $916,000 and still climbing.

Personally I’d like to see it hit $1 million.


Thought For The Day:

SpaceX Docking