Finally had a few days and some good weather to pursue diesel problem. First thing is to take everything out of the port locker so you can scrunch yourself to get a good look at the back of the engine.

The first thing I noticed was a very heavy, very black, soot pile behind the raw water injection point. I removed the VernaLift muffler and emptied the contents into a small bucket. It was full of metal scale-like pieces, some as large as 3/4". By using a magnet I got more pieces, over a half cup in all. Clearly this has been coming off the inside of the galvanized nipples and elbows that form the exhaust riser. Tried several things, but what worked best was a thick walled 3/8 vinyl tubing, that I could twist and turn past the upper elbows and nipple toward the exhaust elbow. Unfortunately, I could only get to within 3 or 4 " of the elbow. So clearly there is blockage of some sort there.

Since I'm going to have to remove the riser, and almost certainly replace it, I decided to wait until Spring when I'll have more time and better weather. In the meantime, I'll be spraying the nuts with PB Blaster every time I can. Because of the shape of the elbow getting to the nuts will require a flare nut wrench or such.

An aside strange thing is fuel consumption. For all the years we've owned TAS the diesel has always used .75 to .8 gallons per engine hour. Keep in mind this is a tachometer driven gauge that works like an odometer on a car; not just a clock. Since I've made it a practice to fill the tank at the end of the season to prevent condensation I did it now. Much to my surprise when I did the calculation it used 1.075 gallons per engine hour.

This fuel increase is about 1/3 higher, which I consider quite a jump.

I have no idea why. Any guesses?

Thanks,

Eddie