The wife's mom and dad were in town this past week so didnt get a ton done.
But one thing I did get accomplished was to get the glow plugs working on our Isuzu NPR boxtruck. The glow plug system did work when we purchased it and might have been part of why the company off loaded it for such a good deal.
My wife's dad is a diesel mechanic by trade. They actually owned a pretty successful truck company back on the east coast. But my wife's dad started as a mechanic before taking over the business.
Anyways as the wife and mother-in-law baked Christmas cookies, my father-in-law and I worked to diagnosis the glow plugs. Or I should say my father-in-law did. I can stumble my way through repairs and diagnosis but watching someone who did that work everyday was impressive. Where I would have been digging for wiring diagrams and info online, he just dove right in, looked at things and after about 20 minutes with a test light had the system all figured out (his company does very little work on Isuzu's, especially older ones like ours is). We did blow two 60amp fuses that ended up being difficult to find in town (we bought the only two we could find in town). But after about two hours he had discovered that someone had previously installed new glow plugs and when they put the connecting bar (or whatever its called...piece of metal between all the plugs), they installed it incorrectly and it was shorting to the block. Once we reinstalled the metal piece the correct way and rebent it how it was supposed to be, the glow plugs worked!
With the glow plugs working, the truck starts up decently well in the cold now (like 15 degrees out). Before it would take multiple attempts and cranking for a minute plus to get it to fire. Now just cycle the glow plugs 2-3 times and it would fire up.
But thats where there potential bad news. Once it fired up, my father-in-law mentioned it sounded like one cylinder isnt the same as the other three. Once the truck has warmed up a bit it sounds fine, as does when it running and not just idling. My father-in-law recommended doing a compression test just to see, so I ordered a test kit. Its one of those things I probably wont go to far down the rabbit hole, but who knows!
Once the wife's parents had left, I tackled some smaller projects I had been meaning to do.
First up was just to service the box truck. Oil filter, fuel filter, transmission filter, and grease everything. All pretty simple things. Its amazing to think we had put ~5k miles on it.
I also cut open each filter to take a look inside. Each one looked great. The filter changes came a lot sooner the "recommended" interval by milage by they all have that "or every 12 months". Based one what I saw and as little as we use the truck, Ill probably modify that change interval to something in between milage and time.
After the truck the next project was to fix our guest bathroom tub/shower drain. Im pretty sure it original to the house. While a shower was being taken we noticed the drain from the tub was leaking out where the gasket is. Not a big leak but a small one. So off to Ace hardware where they luckily had a kit for tubs. No pictures but it went pretty smooth other than figuring out how to screw the top piece into the piece under the tub lol. But I got it done and all put together.
Which then led to the next project. Which is this section of drain pipe.
It is the drain pipes for the guest bathroom and the main bathroom. Im not 100% sure what each line is. But it appears to me (based on sink spacing) that the two outside lines are for the sinks. And I have no idea what the middle line is for.
The main issue we have been seeing is that the sinks will drain fine for 30-60 seconds and then will start to back up. letting them sit for a few minutes and this repeats. However if you use the sink till it starts to back up, turn the water off, let it drain (which is a bit slower), wait a few seconds, then use the sink again it will backup right away.
I figured there was a clog in the section of pipe so I cut it out. Only to find that is was unobstructed. I then slid my boroscope up each pipe as far as I could (which was at least to the main bathroom, two floors up) and everything seems fine.
The only odd thing I did notice was that the two lines going up to the third floor (main bathroom), continue past the sink connection and then appear to 90 degree bend towards each other and are connected by a pipe. Sort of forming a big upside down "U"
So I accomplish nothing on this other than more head scratching lol. My only though is maybe it isnt vented correctly so it is getting a bit of resistance from that? Ill try to get up in the attic tomorrow and see if theres a vent over the bathroom as I know there is a vent, but it a good distance from the bathroom sinks.
www.metalsales.us.com
Should get here in an hour or so! (I'm below Punxsutawney, Pa) 