This morning I walked over to the marine store to pick up a few things. One of those things was a gallon of oil. Instinctively I grabbed the large one gallon bottle, but equally instinctively I made note of the price of the small one liter bottle next to it and began running the numbers in my head. $26.99 or $6.41 x 4?
Pretty much our entire lives Ali has been asking me the question, “Which one of these is a better deal?” Looking over at her I’ll find her holding two different rolls of paper towels with different prices and different roll counts.
Hint here: The answer to this question has nothing to do with what seems the logical answer or which one is marketed better.
In this case buying four small bottles was the better deal. An employee was standing nearby and I told him that it was cheaper to buy the four bottles and he said, “No, the big bottle is better.” No I told him, not true. He then assured me that with tax the big bottle would be cheaper. I knew that explaining the math behind that wasn’t going to work, so I allowed him to pull out his calculator and do the math himself. Once he had concluded that indeed the small bottles were a better deal I asked him if I could get a discount on the big bottle instead, as I really didn’t want to buy four small bottles. He laughed, “Oh, no.”
At the checkout counter was another guy who had helped me at the parts desk. I told him about the oil and he said, “Oh no, much cheaper to buy the big bottle.” Because that’s what we all assume. I assured him that I was saving about twenty pesos buying the small ones and he laughed. He then told the cashier girl, who laughed and shrugged her shoulders. Then through the front door walked the lady who was obviously the manager. He told her and she belly laughed. Like, “Haha, think how many people pay our ridiculously high price on a gallon of oil!” She continued laughing all the way back to her office.
Lesson here? Learn to do basic math, it’ll save you money. Also, don’t buy anything from the marine store in San Carlos unless you absolutely must—they are a rip-off and they enjoy it.
Anyway. It took my man Omar a few hours to get rolling this morning. One of the rocker bolts used for adjusting the valve clearance was broken. They are hollow bolts and somebody had busted the top right off of it. The bolt wasn’t moving, but it also wasn’t able to be adjusted. So Omar had brought it in to a machine shop to have it taken out—very, very carefully. It took the shop two and a half hours of delicate work to get it out without ruining the threads of the rocker itself. Fortunately I already had a spare for this because I’d seen this broken bolt long ago, though I’d never gone about replacing it myself.
So he eventually showed up around noon with the rocker and a pile of new hoses we’d had made up to replace a few of the sketchiest looking of the old ones. He also brought back the oil cooler, tranny cooler, and heat exchanger. All three checked out under testing, though I was warned that none of them are going to live forever.
I told him I was going home in three hours and he kicked into overdrive. Together we rocked that engine back into shape. I learned a lot watching him do his work. I learned that using a bit of glue on the rocker cover gasket makes life a thousand times easier. Ditto for applying a tiny layer of high-temp silicon around other gaskets, especially those that are lying vertical. He also showed me how to adjust the valve clearances. A job I performed a thousand times on the VW bus, but have never attempted on the boat.
The boat three hours before departure. Unfortunately I didn’t get a pic afterward. Suffice it to say that the floor is spotless.
By the time I had to leave for the bus the engine was back in one piece. Now he just had to jack it up and pull off that broken plate that held a rear engine mount. Racing against the clock he got the plate off without incident, left the engine propped up, and tore across town with me in his truck. As we pulled up to the bus station we watched two buses pull out and head south. One of those was mine, leaving right on time. What the hell? Buses don’t run right on time. Everyone knows that.
This is that bracket/plate. This piece was completely broken off, while the bottom bolt on the other side had simply sheared off, leaving just the two top bolts holding it on to the engine—and those two showed signs of wiggling around as well. I’ll be happy to have a professional align this motor this time around.
Three hours later I boarded this bus, and now sit eagerly awaiting morning.
Bumfuzzle as I was leaving. That’s the primer. All shiny smooth goodness.
So this is the steering mechanism thing-a-ma-bobber that’s been leaking hydraulic steering fluid all over our cockpit. I expected to pull it apart and find a proper metal spring style oil seal, but instead found nothing but this ridiculously tiny o-ring. Is that seriously all that’s keeping the oil in? It fits snug in a slot in that black piece at the bottom, but for some reason this just doesn’t seem like it can be all there is to this. That metal ring behind the o-ring presses up against a circlip(?). Also, that metal ring seems to have a bit of play in it where I would have expected that to fit really flush to the shaft. Anyway, this is a Teleflex, and if anybody else has experience with one of these please give me a shout and let me know if that o-ring is seriously all I need to replace. Note: I would have replaced it and tried it already, but couldn’t find a match before I had to take off. Also, the only leak is right through the shaft, not around that outside edge.
18 Comments on “Goodbye Bumfuzzle, For Now”
Pat – you may have a worn shaft. Fine emery cloth and a lot of elbow grease will take a lot of scratches out. But if it is out of tolerance and gotten either worn or out of true – that oring won’t stop it leaking…
We are heading back to Yume next Monday to start looking for similar issues in a 1984 boat! But no more shoveling horse manure like for the last ten years!
Miami
my father and I constantly end up discussing the cost of oil, changing oil, etc… etc… Not because I want to… because he has to talk about it to me.H e has not learned to deal with the fact that I pay Jiffy Lube 25 bucks to change my oil. He insists that I will save TONS of money doing it myself with guess what.. the GALLON of oil. I try to point out that A) usually, that gallon is no cheaper than buying the 4 quarts, and B ) the average cost of a quart of oil is 3.50 to 5 dollars. Then, the filter is at least 5 bucks. I sometimes SAVE money by paying jiffy lube to change my oil for 21.99 when they have a special, or I print off a coupon. I at least break even. But he is of the ‘ buy a gallon’ mindset…. I have pulled out a calculator, shown him the costs, and it just doesn’t compute with him. GALLON = CHEAPER…. bigger… better value…. anyway, I am writing this at the end of a 12 hr shift, at 6 am, and I have only slept 45 minutes before starting that shift… so I suspect that I might be rambling, and should stop. Sending my love to the Bumfuzzles. Quarts or Gallons, you guys are alright.
Call (or email info@teleflex.bc.ca ) Teleflex,
Ask for Marc.
They have outstanding tech support. I’ve seen square-cut o-rings replaced with round ones in these situations that work long enough to sell a boat. But also I’ve seen round o-rings compressed between parts as original so I can’t say for sure in your case.
George
Thanks George, I’ll give them a shout.
The grocery store will rip you off like that too, using their “family size” sales tactics.
You can learn so much by watching a good mechanic work. My dad was a mechanic, my husband too and now my son. Not formally educated of course but by getting in there and getting some grease under their nails.
I haven’t been able to get our Teleflex steering rams to stop leaking because the shafts are scored.They won’t sell just the shafts, they want to sell the whole rams. I plan to have a cover machined for each with a normal seal like you’ve described or a square seal but for now my solution so that we could leave the boat at Paradise Village and not worry about the oil in the bilge was to stack up 2 O rings against each other. It’s a crappy solution but it’s working well for now. I have the Teleflex manuals on the boat but nothing here. IIRC they were just normal round cross-section O rings on our steering pump shafts but it’s been almost a year since I’ve looked at them.
That, my friend, is not the best news. 🙂 I can see the 2 O-ring “solution” being a distinct possibility here.
There is a program on tv early Saturday morning. One of the sponsors rebuild steering systems, teleflex included. Here their web site boatsteeringrebuilders.com
There is a business for everything. Took a look at the site, but can’t imagine this job is serious enough to warrant international shipping of this thing. Thanks for the link.
Pat,
Maybe I’m missing something but what I think we are looking at in the picture is the two mating surfaces that look at each other when they are put back together. If that is the case the silver thing inside the black thing with the word “FAG” stamped on it is an oil seal. That is probably what is leaking as it doesn’t look too round and smooth on the inside. The o-ring is probably just there as an oil slinger to keep oil from running down the shaft to the seal. I tried to look up a cross reference for what looks like 51782209 but couldn’t find any reference to FAG oil seals much less that number, maybe a bearing house will have better luck. Good luck
Tom
No, the FAG are the bearings. They sit at an angle and ride over those pistons in the other part.
All right, thanks everyone, I’ll give Teleflex a call and see what they have to say. Then most likely I’ll return to the boat and jerry rig some solution that has nothing in common with the advice they give.
Yeah, this is no-brainer math for sure . . . $26.99 for the one gallon container vs. $25.64 for four one liter containers at $6.41/each. Not only do you net a 5% price discount for buying the four liters, you actually receive an additional .2145 liter of oil because one US gallon equals 3.78541178 liters.
Of course, my assumption that the larger container was one US gallon and not an imperial gallon could be incorrect. If it WAS an imperial gallon, then no, the four liters are not a better deal. One imperial gallon equals 4.54609 liters, so four one liter containers would leave you short (by a little more than 13%) of equaling the contents of the one imperial gallon container.
It wasn’t clear to me from reading your account, Pat, whether the people in the store were laughing AT you because they thought you were just another ignorant gringo cruiser, or WITH you because they realized that you had caught them in their little larceny where no other customer had ever even brought it up.
A liter of oil isn’t actually a liter. It’s 964ml or some such thing. And a gallon of oil isn’t a gallon either. I don’t remember the exact numbers now, but the four liters equalled about 16ml more. I tell you, if I don’t spell out every stinking detail of a story I get the third degree every time.
I don’t think they were laughing for either of those reasons. They were laughing because not a single one of them had ever noticed this before, and because they then found it amusing that they’d been screwing people over.
Heh . . . hadn’t really considered that third possibility, Pat, but it’s probably closer to the truth.
pretty much everywhere i’ve shopped in Mexico, bulk is going to cost you more. it makes sense to me – if you have the money to only go shopping occasionally and not daily AND you’re buying in bulk, you must be a McMoneypants and therefore can afford to pay more. 🙂 Mexican logic.
Sometimes bulk is more $$$ but don’t forget to apply the concept of surface area to volume ratio. No matter how long you let that oil bottle sit upside down in the filler you never get it all… So imagine all the residual oil that never makes it out of those four 1-quart bottles as opposed to the residual oil in the gallon jug. I suspect that is close to 20 pesos worth that is forever stuck in those quart bottles. Hahahaha!!
Hey Pat. There is a similar seal on Toyota landcruiser steering shafts. I had to replace mine, it had a spring in it as you mentioned. I remember someone mentioning on a forum about using jb weld to fill the worn shaft gap and then using emery cloth to smooth it out. Not sure how trust worthy it is, but just thought I would throw it out there.