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Sunday, May 18, 2014

Van repair



The problem with going to a very good mechanic is that he's a busy man. Everyone knows he's a good mechanic. My van sat at his shop for a week before he had a chance to look at it. As I suspected, it was a bad fuel pump. The little electric pump has 188,000 miles on it, so it's no surprise it finally wore out.

He asked me to come down to the shop to answer some questions about my veggie conversion. I'm lucky to have a mechanic that's willing to work with me on my weird experimental veggie fuel system. His concern was that that there seemed to be veggie in the lines and that the filter might be plugged. While there was a trace of veggie in the diesel, it wasn't enough to cause problems. I'm guessing that the dying fuel pump was unable to clear all the veggie out of the diesel side.

His computer revealed that the #1 cylinder wasn't firing properly. That could have been bad -bad injector expensive as all heck bad. Fortunately, it soon cleared. My mechanic said it probably had air trapped in it.

Normally the guy doesn't work on weekends, but it's the only way to catch up. In fact, he's been so busy that his wife has been unable to keep up with the paperwork. My bill won't be ready until Tuesday afternoon.

At least the timing was pretty good. My lovely wife and I have been in town watching my granddaughter all week. Since her parents are on a trip, we've had the use of their car.

-Sixbears

9 comments:

  1. It's always nice to have a little good luck mixed with the bad.

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  2. Six, do you have a post from the archives where you detail you veggie conversion and how it works? I'd like to know more about your system. Maybe I just misunderstould but I believe you burn straight veggie oil that has been filtered only. No other processing to the oil is done?

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    1. It's in the archives. You can start here and poke around: http://sixbearsinthewoods.blogspot.com/2012/05/veggie-conversion-rough-draft.html

      I burn straight WVO. Just the big chunks are filtered out. The finer stuff is filtered as I drive. I'm kinda lazy so I've simplified things as much as possible.

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    2. Thanks Six. I really like how simple it is.
      Do you filter the oil before you put in into the tank? Or is it clean enough from your sources to put directly into the tank and use?

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    3. one source is clean enough to pour right in. The big spin on filter takes care of the small bits. The other ones I pour through a sink strainer set in a funnel. Bone headed simple.

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  3. Back in the 1960's I had a mechanic like that, one that really cared. Didn't know they still existed. You better keep tight hold on your guy.

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    1. I'm afraid he's going to make so much money that he's going to take a well earned early retirement. He'll have earned it.

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  4. A good mechanic is worth his weight in gold! Nice to find some still around!

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