Surrounded By Squid

We headed out this morning with a close by first stop, a Speedco oil change place.  I’ve been using them when I’m on the road and they do a pretty good job, quickly and about a hundred bucks cheaper than a dealer.

                  

The Journey got some TLC and we’re good for another year or 11,000 miles, whichever comes first.  Wanna’ guess which will come first?

I watch the techs doing the work, but I won’t let them change my fuel filter.  Fuel filters are important on diesels because even the tiniest dirt, we’re talking 2 microns, can cause damage to fuel pumps and injectors.  Most shops prefill the fuel filter with unfiltered diesel, which defeats the whole purpose of a filter.  And they don’t keep the cans they use to fill the filter in a clean place.

                  

I have the Journey set up with a hand fuel pump I installed on my engine’s fuel line.  I put the new filter on dry and with the hand pump, pull fuel through the filter so I know it’s clean.  I’m just picky that way.  And cheap.  A new injector costs around $1K (I have six) and a fuel pump goes for over $6K on my engine.  All of them can be damaged by the tiniest bit of contamination.  A penny saved…

We had an extremely long driving day, in fact I think I might have set a new PDD record.  75 miles.  Maybe that’s a negative PDD record?

We pulled in to the Mayport Navy Base Campground called Pelican’s Roost.  What a great place, how come we’ve never stayed here before?

               

We found ourselves surrounded by “Squid”, that is the nickname that Coasties fondly call Navy Sailors, after all they call us “Hooligans” and “Shallow Water Sailors”.  But all is not lost, we watched a Coast Guard 210ft Medium Endurance Cutter, the Valiant standing out to sea.  Yep, I miss the Coast Guard almost every day.

              

I got a chance to talk to a Freightliner Tech rep in the phone about our missing gauges.  He put me on to a possible problem with some wiring in the dash to the gauges.  Evidently the gauges are all wired in a daisy chain, sort of like the old Christmas lights, where if one bulb went bad, the whole string didn’t light.

He gave me instructions on how to check to find either a wiring harness defect or a bad gauge.  Now I have to do a dashboardectomy.  Winnebago put the Journey’s dash together with about a zillion screws, unlike my old Adventurer that had a flip up dash.  Another “What were they thinking”?  issue.  Looks to be an interesting day’s work ahead.

               

Of course, this isn’t bothering Marti a bit.  We’re only staying here three days, but I might have to pry her out of here!  :cD

               

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