Waste oil burner. This time with videos.

Last weekend I fired up the oil burner again. This time I prepared a reasonable amount of fuel for pre-heating. I even tried to light it without accelerants. Unfortunately everything was wet and the kerosene was so close to hand. So I did cheat a little.

Here I am, with the pile of wood just starting things happening.

Maybe a little quick. But I didn't quite kill it.

Starting to burn down nicely.

Starting to get a bit excited with a little oil and air added.

I managed to turn the oil down too far without realizing it as the fire got a little too smokey. It was taking off but it didn't feel quite right so I fiddle with the oil and lo and behold. It starts to take off.

Lets see if I can make stuff hot with it.

A little hard to see here, but the bar certainly did get forging hot.

Lets see if we can make something a little more substantial properly hot.

The end of the camshaft needed a little support to keep it in the hottest zone.

While it probably would've looked much better at night it did get hot enough to move some metal around a little. I think the white coating is fine ash from the wood getting blown around by the blast from the burner and coating everything.

Just before I shut it down.

And here we are cooling down. When I came back an hour or 2 later there was still a fair bit of heat radiating out from the bricks. They were definately hotter than you would want to touch.

Here is a quick shot of me pre-heating the fire pit before anything got too exciting.

Here we are with the burner running and adjusting the air/oil mix a little.

I'm hoping to get some more shots of interesting stuff getting done this weekend so keep an eye out for those next week.

Cheers,
Rex

Triple Check before the shops close

These ended up stinging a little more than I'd expected.

My 2006 Holden Rodeo has been shifting poorly for a little while. Initially I thought it may just be wear, but I wouldn't expect a gearbox to be gone with only 180,000km on the clock. So I decided to change the oil in there and see if that helped.

Short version? It did.

Long version?
I checked in the owners manual what oil I should put in and I was pretty confident that I was looking at the right gearbox as some of them in the book have different specifications. By the time I'd drained the oil I was starting to get a nagging doubt so I checked the builders plate and compared that to the number in the book.

Guess what? I'd gotten the wrong oil. The gearbox I thought it was used the same oil as the engine which is due to be changed soon anyway. But the gearbox it actually is needs SAE 75W-90 GL3. Definitely not engine oil. This was about 1625 on a Sunday afternoon so I took the other car around to all of the parts stores in town and by the time I got to each of then they were shut. One shutting just a few minutes before I get there even.
So what to do? Where else can I get a bit of a specialty oil? Servos that cater to trucks and have a bit more range than just fuel and chips. I managed to find the 3L I needed at the servo just out of town for about $80 total. So pretty expensive for something that I thought I already had.

The astute among you will note that the spec. calls for GL3 and the picture shows GL5 oil. When I found the oil I had to pull out my phone and do a quick search to try and find if they are compatible. I ended up finding the answer on a scooter forum which indicated that GL5 oil will be fine for a GL3 spec.

After sorting all that out I made it back home to re-fill the gearbox. I ended up putting in between half a 3/4 of a liter more oil in than came out so that may have had something to do with the bad shifting. Any by guesswork and feel I finished as the sun had pretty much gone down.

Then I went for a drive. While not being silky smooth by any means. The gearbox now shifts reliably into 2nd and feels like you'd expect the gearbox on a ute to feel.

I think I've talked too long by now so I'll finish here. But remember, triple check specs before the shops close.

Cheers,
Rex