I managed to get 79 litres in to the top. On checking back I last filled up in February 2016 when the engine counter was on 347 conveniently (for my maths) the engine counter was at bang on 447. A sad 79 litres in 16 months and the engine run for just 100 hours. However I did live aboard for 7 months over the winter of 2016/17 as the house was left empty to sell. How cheap is that living !
As I wrote in February 2016 It is a sad reflection of the lack of cruising we did last year and we have done the same to date this year. But retirement will present options and the boat has always been our 60 foot escape capsule from the treadmill. Talking of treadmills.....
.......one for James a good work colleague who has found my blog just after I announced my retirement, he told me a story of a monkey and a nut. I am reading a great book at the moment - I am Pilgrim and the same story is in there....
In order to catch spider monkeys, hunters in South America simply walk through the jungle and drop heavy containers on the ground. These containers have very a narrow top and a wider bottom. Inside the containers the hunters drop a special kind of nut which is particularly attractive to the monkeys. Sometime later, the spider monkeys come down from the tops of the trees, smell the nut, but the tops of the containers are so narrow they have a tight squeeze to get their hands inside. Once they grab the nut at the bottom, their fist is too large to remove if through the opening. And the container is too heavy for them to carry.
So instead of letting go of the nut, the monkeys just sit there until the hunters come back, pick them up, and throw them in a bag.
The spider monkeys are not prepared to let go of a small nut in order to gain their freedom.
See where this is going.... it does not take too much of a leap of imagination to transpose the nut for much of modern life.... we grab hold and are afraid to let go, but when we do we get freedom.
Anyhow that's why I am retiring - just letting go of the nut !!!
So back to the boat and to servicing, a quick search of my blog tells me I
fettled the engine - including oil
change in May 2015 - with the engine
counter on 271 hours. So 26 months and 176 hours of use I think Percy's donk is
due another oil change, I wrote a bit of that a while back and now have the oil ready for a pre-cruise service
Percy's engine does not have a modern filter for oil, it
relies on the oil not holding the minute particles that a modern oil does which
are then filtered out via the oil filter under pressure. The Morrisons oil
dumps the sludge in the bottom of the crankcase so at some point I need to open
her up and check if I need to clean this area out. There is a decent sized door
to gain access but it will require removing the water pump ..... a summer job retirement job so a nice little winter project, frosty outside me working in the warm boat in my very handy engine room !
Anyhow there are some uses for the blog, recording the above
has been a useful reminder of what will need doing (oil change) and what does
not need doing (diesel fill up)
2 comments:
Are you not supposed to change the oil either annually or at a prescribed number of hours?
You are right and based on my hours it should be annually. I am quite prescribed with my motorbikes as their engines are a lot more high performance. The old donk in my boat is far from high performance but as in my post it does need doing and it pencilled in for this weekend.
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