My number one rule to diesel maintenance is frequent oil changes. I never let the engine run over 150 hours without doing a change. I fitted a remote oli filter to the engine to make the oil changes easier as the filter used to be inacessible, now it is in a very easy spot to access and a change takes me little over 10 minutes.

 Ian Fagg:
My number one rule to diesel maintenance is frequent oil changes. I never let the engine run over 150 hours without doing a change. I fitted a remote oli filter to the engine to make the oil changes easier as the filter used to be inacessible, now it is in a very easy spot to access and a change takes me little over 10 minutes.

The remote oil filter is a very clever idea! I also installed one on a boat I used to run. Another problem is the plastic oil containers weep. If you̢۪re like me, you probably keep 10 quarts stored somewhere and eventually a thin film of oil forms under the containers that you just can̢۪t get up. Then I got the idea for an oil storage container and I had a marine stanless container made that holds 12 quarts of oil. We fastened the container above and to port of the engine and fitted it with a fillpipe flush-mounted on the deck with a nice stainless fitting. A line with a stopcock runs directly to the engine; when I need to add oil, I simply open the stopcock and the oil flows by gravity feed. This is a simple solution and eliminates oil weeping into the bilge and more importantly I don̢۪t have a bunch of quart containers flopping around.