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Tuesday, April 21, 2015

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.

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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.

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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?

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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.

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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.

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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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Thanks for visiting  and feel free to leave a comment.

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11 comments:

  1. Since you know what you're doing (?), is seems like it will be as easy fix.

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  2. Very nice digs as a reward for your short driving day. Are you going to start making a new record for how short a distance you can go in one day??

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  3. How long did it take to drive those 75 miles? That's about the distance we did today too. We didn't end up at the nice RV park you're at. However, the Elks worked just fine for us.

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  4. Hmm. It appears you just missed 2 other bloggers I follow. That seems to be a VERY popular military stop! Good luck. Hope you can figure it out before you get on the boat :)

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  5. I think you are on to something here. Hope you don't lose any screws yours or the journeys. I'll take Marti's job thanks.

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  6. How lucky to be military and to be able to stay in such a great place!

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  7. 75 miles sounds like a perfect driving day!

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  8. Mayport is a great place to stay ... we've been twice and enjoyed it both times. The beach is a very nice stretch to walk.

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  9. I step on a CG ship every chance I get. Wanted to join after high school but my mom pointed out that I "don't take orders well" and steered my into college.

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  10. I am so jealous that you can stay at those military famcamps. Especially Key West

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  11. Mayport is a great place to spend time, one of our favorite famcamps. At least you will have a marine view while taking the dash apart:) I have no problem doing that, my problem is getting everything back together.

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