Still at Ditto Landing Marina – Huntsville, Alabama

Today tuned into a bit of a bust. Last night Tom did his usual fluid checks following our cruise and he noticed the area in front of the generator was very wet and was tinted red. He determined that there was no immediate risk but this discovery was going to set his priority for today. He encouraged the rest of the crew to go as planned to the Rocket and Space Center and they instead decided to stay, provide support and do other tasks including laundry.


Tom jumped into the bilge again and once again dismantled the generator sound shield (it is really a pain in the *%&) and started to diagnose the problem. He suspected and was right that the new clamps on the new exhaust hose needed to be retightened. The leak was at junction of the exhaust manifold. It turned out to be an easy fix. The next problem was to find the reason for the red tint to the water. The reason was also pretty obvious. It was a fuel leak. Off-road diesel does not have a road tax in the price and is dyed red to distinguish it from taxed fuel. We did have a small leak somewhere.

The leak was found at a connection in a line from the electric fuel pump to the primary fuel filter. Wiping down the connection several times with the generator running and the line under pressure we could see fuel weeping from the top of the fitting. So the logical thing to do was to get a wrench and tighten the fitting. What followed was one of those “oh S%&*” moments because there was a tactile snap when Tom tried to tighten the fitting. Fuel was spurting everywhere and since Tom was in the hole, Mary got the scream to shut-r-down. A post mortem of the fuel line and connections determined that the line which was a hard copper tube about 6 inches long had a flare on both ends. The flare broke off the end that Tom was trying to tighten. Now what?

Tom & Mac took the line and fittings to the Marina office and asked for a referral to where they could get a replacement. A call was made to a local mechanic, Chris and he stopped by after an hour or so to put an eyeball on the problem. He left to find the parts and returned with a solution that seems to work just fine. Tom reassembled the sound shield, cleaned up his mess and we are back in business once again. We will leave the dock early again to run to our next destination.