Ugh! I knew this wasn’t going to be an easy project. At least the first half of the varnishing is done. We’ll do the second half of Charisma when we’re back in mid-March. It was a great idea of Ann’s to do half now since varnishing is tedious as hell.

But, on the fuel filter project – the short, flexible fuel lines between the Racor and the hard copper lines leaked once I had everything back together. A long story, but 26 year old brass crimps on rubber hose didn’t hold up to the wrenching around necessary to take them apart and put them back together again. I knew it would be like this, yet hoped it wouldn’t! Arrgghh… That’s what boat projects are like (sigh).

So… I’m having a shop that builds hydraulic lines look and see if they can tighten the crimps. I’m asking them to pressure test any fix so I don’t end up reattaching and filling the lines (again!) with diesel only to find they still leak. If they don’t test, I’m asking them to build new lines. “They’ll be at least $100 each!” And what is my alternative!!??

Oh well, that’s not even one boat dollar!