Mr Perkins

 3/6-Vero Beach

   Well today we gave some love to Mr Perkins. I got a ride this morning with Guy (pronounced gee) to get some fuel. Rather than pay marina prices we shopped around and found some diesel for only $3.89 a gallon. Marina price is $4 something a gallon plus 7% Florida tax. We’ve been doing our best to support the Florida economy but this time we decided to go cheaper. I filled up all our Jerry cans and hauled them back to the boat. 

    Then I set about changing the secondary fuel filter. This one is a 30 micron filter that is also a water separator. The old filter was pretty dirty as it had been in there for 150 hours. Then seeing how dirty that filter was I decided to change the primary filter also. This one has been a pain in the past as I have to bleed the fuel lines. The last couple of times it’s been a struggle to get the motor started afterwards. This time though it fired right up. 

    Then as long as I had the engine compartment open and I was covered in diesel and oil I thought I would check the valve clearances. This is a relatively easy job and it turned out that none of the valves needed adjusting. 

     Hopefully this will get us pretty far north before I have to worry about these filters again. I do try to make sure I get clean fuel and I filter all the fuel before it goes into the tank. 

     Just as I got back from showering we had a thunderstorm hit. A couple of the lightning strikes were relatively nearby. It poured for about an hour before heading out to sea. It didn’t really cool anything off and the humidity stayed the same. Oh well that’s Florida for you. 

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