1,907

That's how many days we've owned this boat. I'm not sure how many oil changes we've done in that time, but I can tell you that every single one resulted in blood being shed. Since Kintala has a V-drive setup on the motor, the oil filter is positioned on the port side of the engine, underneath various parts of the fuel system and a spider web of fuel lines, behind the exhaust vented loop, and exactly 1-1/8" from the end of the filter to the wall of the refrigerator. It was agonizing to try to work the filter out of the hole, and it always involved oil spilled into the engine pan.

1,908 is the magic number, because today I finished the install of our remote oil filter. The PH-8A filter is now wonderfully exposed, easy to spin off, and will involve no spilled blood or oil. Magic.

The remote filter we chose was the JEGS kit from Amazon. It was reasonably priced and included everything except the rather specific high temp thread sealer which took three stores to find. It was easy to install and could be done by a reasonably able mechanic in a half day at most. Why in the world we waited this many years to do this, I'll never know, but the Westerbeast thrummed along happily when I let it run to check for leaks. Not near as happy as Worker Man is going to be the next time he changes the oil.

Yes, down under that mess of fuel lines is where the filter used to be.