Ups and Downs

Jason spent much of last week playing with the Eberspacher some more, taking apart the fuel lines after reading about the importance of tidy butt joints!  Nothing to do with builders bums, it seems like if the pipes aren't neatly spliced next to each other, a small amount of air could be introduced into the supply and therefore the burner, which could cause it to run choppily, or not at all, as its either slightly choked or completely strangulated through lack of diesel. 
The fuel line after the diesel pump only has an internal diameter of around 2mm, so the flow of fuel is reasonably small, which means even a teeny little amount of air has a surprisingly large impact on the percentage of fuel making it to the burner, and therefore on the efficiency of the whole unit.

With multiple pipes joined in various places, getting everything off, edges re cut neatly and then jubileed up nice and tight took the best part of a day.  But at the end of the day we were once again placed in the happy/scared place of hearing Moglets heater running smoothly.  Do we jump for joy, ecstatic at the notion that finally things have been fixed?  Or do we shuffle about nervously, waiting and waiting for that moment when for no apparent reason she cuts out again?  If I'm honest, there was lots of the latter going on and not much of the former...

But two days later, after about ten stops and starts after leaving her to go cold overnight, she still fires up on command and stays burning nice and smooth until she's turned off.  Hurrah!!

We heard back from Graham - seems like the 'military spec' unit is something he'd be able to get his hands on, but may take a little while.  So Jasons decided to go down the additional spares route.  The reality is the unit we already have has been almost totally refurbished over the last month or so anyway, so replacing it seems a little daft.  It's a bit of a simplification, but if you think of the Eberspacher as having 10 moving/replaceable parts, we've already replaced parts 1-7, so Jason ordered numbers 8, 9 and 10 on Thursday last week.  Graham wasn't certain what he had on the shelves and what might have to come from Germany so we're still a little hazy on delivery timeframes, but once the missing bits arrive we should be good to go.

In the meantime we've been treated to a bit of a snowfall here at mum and dads and have been helping mum get their house ready for a viewing later on this week.  We had a chat and kind of decided that, nice and comfortable and familiar as it would be to curl up in front of the fire at mum and dads for Christmas, there really isn't any reason to hang about once the parts arrive.  We'll be booking that ferry (again!) and be off!

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Just been out to Moglet - the heater is showing error codes again :-(  Arse.  Do you think she was listening to our late night chat and decided she liked the sound of a log fire in France for Christmas??