More from the catalogue of performing boat maintenance in exotic locations; our engine hours showed that it was once again time for an oil change and to replace the filters. This was a job last performed in Tassie so we were a bit rusty. Why for example did The Bloke forget to wear his overalls? Possibly he was signalling that he wanted my involvement laundering diesel smelling cloths. As it turned out my help was required to provided a girlie perspective to problem solving when things were not quite running to plan.
Extracting and replacing the oil in the motor and gear box was simple enough. Certainly providing sufficient confidence that the rest would be a doddle. Ha!
Removing the little rubber gasket at the head of the fuel filter was the first challenge. A variety of screwdrivers and colourful language were no match for the right tool. While probably not your textbook device, a little cocktail fork helped prize the little sucker out of it's groove. A girlie trick.
Hooray for the cocktail fork.
Spare gaskets
These two parts do look identical, however the one on the right is ever-so-slightly taller. The bolt that holds it into place, it turns out, has a very fine tolerance level. We overcame this by using the old filter with a NEW gasket hoping that it would become squeezed a little in the process. It did! When the newly squeezed gasket was placed on the new filter, the bolt 'grabbed'. SUCCESS!
It probably seems like 'no big deal' but here it is 'in situ'. It's a bit like doing surgery through a letter box and we hope we can recall these tricks, plus the overalls, for next time.
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