Date: Mon, 2 Apr 2007 07:53:49 -0700
Reply-To: Michael Elliott <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Sender: Vanagon Mailing List <vanagon@gerry.vanagon.com>
From: Michael Elliott <camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM>
Subject: Re: Fed up with Auto-fill valve
In-Reply-To: <cdd.e313186.3341ea78@aol.com>
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My local Charlie Mansion-ish propane attendant has the dickens of the
time filling Mellow Yellow's tank. Yesterday he blew propane all over
the darn place. Great clouds of it. It's a little hard to say exactly
what his problem was, all I can report is what I saw.
"Thar I was," (begins old-timer with yet another long-winded, pointless
tale. Locals suddenly recall urgent appointments elsewhere, drain their
beers, mutter apologies and depart quickly) "as is my habit, I put down
Mellow Yellow's door mat beside the tank so the attendant would have
something soft to kneel on. I knew that Charlie had had trouble with the
autostop valve before, so I armed myself with a copy of the filling
instructions to help guide the process. Charlie would have nothing of
it. `I know how to fill these,' he said, with little flecks of madness
dancing in his eyes. He He tried to thread the filler nozzle on, but it
was was at an angle and the threads wouldn't catch. I told him he was at
an angle and he tried again, this time successfully. Then he reached in
to open the little bleeder valve. `It's stuck,' he said. `Too old, must
be rusted shut.' I didn't want to get into how aluminum and brass do not
rust. `I filled it two months ago,' I said. What I didn't say was that
it was YOU that filled it, and if you overtightened it it's your own
darn fault. So I fetched out a pair of pliers and loosened the valve. He
opened it, and turned on the hose valve then turned on the pump, and LPG
began to spray all over the place. He shut off the pump and the hose
valve. I peered under to see where the leak was -- hard to say, but it
really appeared to be from the filler nozzle. `Bad o-ring,' he said. We
waited until the hissing and jetting died away, and he removed the
filler nozzle. I looked at the frost. It really looked like the leak was
from where the nozzle threaded into the receptacle. We started over.
This time there was no jetting and 2 gallons of LPG went into the tank.
But after he removed the nozzle, the valve continued to hiss. I poked
around a bit and discovered that he'd not closed the bleeder valve
completely, and some LPG was hissing out of the overflow opening. Once
the bleeder was closed, all seemed to be well. I paid him for the
propane, and as I drove away, swore that I would get a simpler valve.
(bartender and waitress look sadly around the bar, the patrons either
having gone to another watering hole, or stunned into insensibility by
the incredible length and dullness of the story. Old-timer asks for
another Burgie and says to the fellow passed out next to him, "Say, did
I ever tell you about the time the lamp on my temperature gauge started
blinking when I was halfway up Palomar mountain?"
"Thar I was . . . "
--
Mike "Rocket J Squirrel" Elliott
71 Type 2: the Wonderbus
84 Westfalia: Mellow Yellow ("The Electrical Banana")
74 Utility Trailer. Ladybug Trailer, Inc., San Juan Capistrano
KG6RCR
JordanVw@aol.com typed:
> In a message dated 4/1/07 6:37:48 PM Eastern Daylight Time,
> camping.elliott@GMAIL.COM writes:
>
>
>> . Guy's
>> a pain but he has this creepy resemblance to Charles Manson, so I try
>> not to rile him.
>
>
> yea Charles Manson and propane tanks is not a good combo.
>
> are they fussing about how hard it is to get to, or actually filling it?
>
> chris
>
>
> **************************************
> See what's free at http://www.aol.com.
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