Oil Change

One of the big jobs in our annual maintenance list is to change the engine oil and filter on our bus.

This is the largest oil change I have ever done. It took 42 quarts of oil. To put it in perspective, most cars take about five quarts of oil.

I got lucky this year with "coupon stacking."  Tractor Supply Company was having a sale on Delvac 1300 15W40, a dinosaur-based oil and ExxonMobil was giving a rebate.  I stacked the two to make what is $165.00 worth of oil cost me only $38.50. This will probably be the lowest price I will ever pay for an oil change on the bus.

At the normal price I feel like I am putting at least one ExxonMobil employee's children through college. ;)  Hi Tom...

Draining out that much oil was going to be a challenge, but luckily for me, a previous owner installed a Femco oil drain valve on the oil pan. Here is the manufacturer's video to show you how it works.

If the video link does not work search YouTube for Femco Oil Drain Valve

The only downside I see to the Femco valve is it lowers the ground clearance of the drain valve by about one inch. On our bus this is not a problem as its location  is such that I doubt it would ever come in contact with anything while driving.  Here it is with the dust cover installed.

Our bus has an air ride system that I can air up to raise the bus about five inches (I have never measured it) so it is like putting the entire bus up on a set of ramps.  This allows me enough clearance to wiggle underneath the bus and change the oil.

Now where to put the used oil... This past year we winterized the bus (hopefully for the last time) and I saved the empty antifreeze jugs.  I was able to drain the oil one gallon at a time thanks to the Femco drain valve. NICE.

Here is the new oil and filter ready to go into the bus.  the extra gallon in the photo below will be going into the generator when I get to change its life blood.

Inspections, Contractors, Appraisers and What Ifs

The buyer's inspection was this past Sunday. They took a couple of hours going through the house while we were gone. It was the perfect time to make another dump run, drop off some kite stuff, take a walk in the park, and eat a take-out dessert from Paradise Diner. May have to order a meal from them before we leave, good food and hey, they gave us a buy two, get one free deal on the desserts. What's not to like about that? Ok, calories, maybe. I did notice that we were the only two sitting down and eating at the park, while all around us folks were walking the trails, skateboarding, and even playing team basketball.

We found out the hard way that we have a radon problem. So, we're working with contractors to get that corrected. The guy our realtor recommended stopped by, but didn't think he could meet our deadline. He had two guys quit on him because of coronavirus concerns. One might work only if the house was unoccupied. Queue another round of what if questions here. Our realtor found another guy and he plans to be here next week to fix that. Yeah!

We've got some other stuff to take care of as well, mainly caulking issues and one door that needs to be replaced. Sigh...Harold will tell you that I was upset about all this. As he said, they called my baby ugly.

Then, the stay-at-home order was extended, way extended, in Virginia. So, now we're scrambling to come up with options for parking our new home. I told Harold that we're going to take our settlement statement with us to show that we no longer own the home in the event that we get pulled over.

We've got a couple of weeks though. Who really knows how this is going to pan out. As our niece said, we will be cheerfully flexible. I told her that she's definitely not a Type A person. : )

I'll leave you with a picture of our shrubs that are too close to the house and need trimming. I think the deer are taking care of the trimming for us.