Day: January 16, 2006

The never-ending basement plumbing project drags on

lpaulriddle

I finally got back to working on my endless plumbing project today.

A couple weeks back, I pressure tested the new branch I ran for the outside sillcock. To do this, I soldered a female adapter onto a 12″ length of pipe, screwed a quick-connect air coupling into it, and attached the other end to my branch with a compression fitting. Then I hooked it up to the compressor, cranked it up to around 30psi, and let it sit. There was a v-e-r-y slow loss of pressure, maybe 1psi or so over several hours. This was a little troubling, but it didn’t necessarily mean there was a leak (it could be the stop valve packing, the compression fitting, or even the regulator gauge). It did make me fairly confident I didn’t have any “gushers” or “blowout” type leaks.

This morning I got the idea to use a couple compression fittings and hook the branch up to my existing plumbing. That way I can be absolutely sure that the branch holds water, and when I’m ready to make the final repair, I won’t have to worry about the branch leaking. So, that’s what I did today. Cut a short piece of copper to fit between the existing plumbing and the new branch, shut off the water, drained the plumbing, and hooked the whole mess together. When I turned the water back on, I found my pressure loss pretty quickly: it was a slow drip at the stop valve, where the valve “guts” screw into the valve body. I had taken the valve apart to sweat it, and it just needed to be tightened a bit. I also had to tighten one of the compression joints. Other than that, everything looks good, and I can finally use the sillcock I put in 6 months ago (just in time for the dead of winter. But hey — it’s frost-free)!

With that, the only thing left is to make the original repair, which was the driving force behind this entire project. Maybe I’ll get around to that by next January or so.

Stupid hard-starting generator

lpaulriddle

We have this generator, that we bought a few years back to use during power outages. It spends 99.9% of its time sitting in the garage gathering dust (much like the snowblower). Every few months, I start the thing up and run it for 20 minutes or so, just to make sure it will work if we ever really do need it. That was one of today’s chores.

Now, the generator has always been a little hard to start when it’s been sitting for 2 or 3 months. But it’s pretty reliable: it takes 9 or 10 yanks on the cord, then it starts up. Then you have to run it partially choked for several minutes so it doesn’t miss. Then, finally, it will warm up and run at the factory-set fuel mixture. Not exactly a finely tuned machine, but at least it works.

Today, I figured, well, it’s January, it’s cold, so the generator will probably be even more reluctant to start. So, I got the bright idea to spray some starting fluid into the carb. I did, and it fired right up on the first pull. Then, after 10 seconds or so, it died. And refused to start up again for love or money.

A couple dozen cord pulls, several more shots of starting fluid, and countless swear words later, I checked the oil. Hmm, seems a tad low. Topped it off with some 10w30. Started on the first pull, and stayed running. I guess there was just enough oil in there to start it initially, but once it started sloshing around in there, it tripped the low oil cutoff. Moral of the story: I need to check the oil every time I start the thing up. Followup: I later checked my records, and found that this was the first time I had tried to start it after changing the oil a couple months ago. I guess I didn’t add enough.

My theory about the hard starting problem.. I think over time, the fuel is slowly seeping out of the fuel pump/carb and causing it to lose prime. After 9 or 10 pulls, it reprimes itself and everything works again. I think Honda would do well to add a manual primer bulb to the engine. In any case, I think I’ll try the starting fluid again next time around, and see if I have better luck.