When it rains it pours!

When it rains it pours. After my stuck on the side of the road hassle with the shutoff solenoid I was all set to take the '98 to Syracuse last Wednesday. Got about 20 miles from home, took a freeway offramp and got a huge cloud of steam from under the hood. Turns out the upper radiator hose had spat out the coolant temp sensor when the metal clip holding it broke.

Fortunately there was a little garage nearby and the guy made me a temporary replacement clip out of wire. Unfortunately I'd lost the seal for the sensor so I couldn't get it sealed in. I tied another piece of wire around the sensor to hold it in tight and wrapped a towel around the whole thing which got me back home with only 2 gallons of water leaked out but it wasn't any fun.

IDParts provided a new sensor, clip and seal for cheap enough that I didn't think it was worth figuring out what I needed for a seal. On Friday I stopped at Harbor Freight and bought a selection of o-rings. I'll keep a couple in the car from now on. The clip in question was metal, the replacement is plastic so it won't rust but it might fatigue and break none the less. I went to a junkyard and found another metal clip. I'll keep an eye on the plastic clip and replace if I think its warranted.

The replacement part in place:

Whats this?

So whats a car guy doing with that, that, thing?

The new truck search continues and our plan originally was to try a Toyota FJ. Turns out the dealership is closed on Sundays in the summer time so we headed back to the Nissan dealer. We tried an Xterra which I was surprised that I really liked. Considering the Xterra is a Frontier in different trim I expected not to fit right in it. Turns out either I was in a better mood or the Xterra has different seats. We both liked the Xterra a lot which means I've got some thinking to do.

The star of the day was the leaf though. The Jetta broke again on me on Wednesday so I'm a little unhappy with it. If I could get my employer to install a charging station the Leaf could just handle my commute. So seeing that the dealership had one out front we opted to give it a shot.

I'm pleased to say its an impressive little car. Okay actually its not that little, its bigger than a Versa which is Nissan's cheap car. Its got leg room similar to my Jetta and has a nice little storage area behind the back seat. The car makes a happy little computer chime, the "shifter" is more like a computer joystick and it really doesn't shift anything since there aren't "gears" to shift through anyway. The car gets right up and moves when you put your foot on the go pedal and makes almost no sound at all. The most fun we have was watching the battery recharge as we went down hills.

Would I buy one? Maybe. At $30,000 they're pricey but considering a full recharge on the battery is going to run around $3 the price gets offset. There is some state money and even some from the power company too. Unfortunately my 59 mile one way commute doesn't really fit the Leaf's 100 mile capacity without a recharge at the work end. Angie's 20 mile round trip commute would make way more sense. Unlike everything else this is probably a car I'd lease, think about how far electric cars have come in the last 3 years (like started existing completely pretty much) then think about how far they might go in the next 3 years. This is one where trading up makes sense...

Jetta breakdown #2

Back in December the Jetta left me stranded when the oil feed from the engine to the turbo let go. Yesterday it left me again, this time the power feed to the fuel feed solenoid failed. I got towed home and hooked my laptop to the car, the computer showed the fault right away. Today after work I put a jumper on the solenoid and the car started right up. I made a mental note to put the jumper wire in the car in case this happens again.
After some searching I found:

A weatherproof butt connector fixed the problem and we're off to the races.

While I was there I found another wire which I thought was for the reverse lights. Its not but I'm glad I fixed it anyway. I also spent some time trying to figure out why the remote trunk release doesn't return. It'll pop the trunk but once popped it stays popped.until the mechanism is manually reset. The mechanism looks like it ought to manually reset itself and playing with it on the bench it will reset occasionally but not every time. I think maybe a spring would do the job, need to look at some at the hardware store.

Looking at trucks again

It feels like just yesterday we were buying the Ranger. Alas its been nearly 6 years and while the engine and transmission are still good the Ranger's body is just giving up. Its got a bunch of holes in the bed and the rockers are rusting away. Worst the middle crossmember is just evaporating.

So for the past couple months we've been searching around. So far we've tried:

2006 Toyota Tundra - loved it but people want stupid money for them

2011 Toyota Tacoma

2006 Toyota Tacoma - I don't get why people love Tacomas. I didn't like either particularly and both had 6spd manual transmissions that I hated. They're like driving a 5 ton truck from the '50s, imprecise, long throw, heavy clutch.

2011 Nissan Frontier - Nissan's seating position kills me, the seats never go back far enough, and this crew cab truck shouldn't be having that problem.

2014 Nissan Frontier - This one was an access cab vs the crew cab above, Angie hated it, said it felt claustrophobic.

2011 Nissan Titan - POWER! The 5.6l v8 in this makes it easily the fastest, most powerful pickup we tried. Seating position is better than the Frontier but because the engine is tucked into the cab the truck gets a really long weird dash area.

2010 Chevy Silverado - Where the Japanese can bend space to make a car feel bigger on the inside than the outside would indicate Chevy has managed the opposite. This truck felt very big and ponderous to drive. I didn't mind it too bad but Angie hated it.

2010 Ford F150 Lariat - The Lariat is the top of the line, full of upgrades and features. Nice truck, the first crew cab where I could really stretch out in the back seat. Way more truck than we need and way more money than I want to pay.

2014 Ford F150 STX - The only access cab full size truck we've driven. We both liked it a lot and if the dealership had come down $3000 more we'd have bought it. As it is I've come to my senses, buying a new truck doesn't make any financial sense for us, we don't drive it that much. If we were looking to pay that much it'd make more sense to buy a jalopy of a pickup and a new car for me.

2004 Dodge Dakota - I did this one on my own today as a bit of a lark, I happened to see it and stopped in. Unfortunately it was a smokers car and while I know I could get the smell out I know Angie would give me hell over it. Worse it wandered badly down the road, the AC didn't work, the radio didn't work, the driver's seat was all squished out and had cigarette burns. I'd consider buying it but they wanted nearly $8,000, then I'm going to have to put maybe $1500 into it. Maybe I'll go back and point out all its faults and get them down some. I'd probably do it at $5,000.

Anyway the search continues. The drive today reminded me how much I like Dakotas although I hate how they changed the body style in 2005. Dodge seemed surprised sales of the Dakota slumped, I'm not.

Lanterns, lanterns, lanterns

So while I haven't been a very good blogger lately I have been THINKING about writing... :)

Two weekends ago I welded up the 190D exhaust again, that makes attempt #3. While its a pain I'm getting kind of good at pulling the pipe down, welding up and reinstalling relatively quickly. This time it had about a 3" crack which I covered with a piece of cutoff exhaust pipe I had hanging around the garage. In the past I'd made my repairs from strips of sheet metal but this method is much faster. I took the car to work last Thursday and all was fine, Friday when I tried to take it to work it was worse than before, rats. Saturday I ordered a new pipe and new rear brake pads. Angie has been complaining about the pads squeaking which could be from using Car Quest brand pads. I ordered Pagid which are OE Mercedes and supposedly won't squeak. They're easy enough to change and cheap enough that I'll give it a shot.

Yesterday I got a new lantern in the mail. I haven't ordered anything on eBay in a long time and I'm not sure what prompted me this time but I found what turned out to be a very nice 228C from May 1946 for a really good price:

In the end, with shipping it was less expensive than my 228B and in comparable shape. Now I really need to get to work on my 228D which I've had for maybe 2 years with no movement.

Of course before I get to that I've been DYING to play with an inverted Kamplite I bought at the convention. I paid $40 which I understand is a really good price. This one has a dent just above the globe but it doesn't effect operation at all. I'd tried to light it at the convention but the FA tube appeared to be clogged. These have a very odd FA tube because the fuel pickup sticks into the fount upside down, basically everything is backwards on these.

The pickup has a very small hole in the side covered by a metal screen which you can just barely make out in the picture. When I removed the screen I could shoot brake cleaner through the tube and it would just barely get out the side hole. I soaked the tube in citric acid for 10 minutes, then polished with steel wool and pricked the hole with a 200A pricker rod and now brake cleaner shoots out that hole in a stream.

After reassembly I was a little worried when I didn't get that familiar gurgle but the lantern lit with no hesitation:

Its loud, and when shutting down it pops hard. Like other King Sealy lanterns (Kamplite, Thermos and other AGM derivatives) it doesn't have a burner screen. This one has a few holes in the burner head to act kind of like a screen but its not the same. To prevent the popping from blowing out the mantle I turned the cleaning rod which worked great. Strangely my Thermos lantern doesn't pop on shutdown at all despite not having burner screens.

Anyway next on the list is the Day Lite lantern which is a Petromax clone I also bought at the convention. It ran for awhile but now just flames up. I think it had an iffy gas jet as I can swap in the one from the Wenzel and its better. I'd originally intended to just fix this lantern but then the Wenzel's foot valve failed so I ended up ordering some $50 worth of parts. I'd like to use the Day Lite as a test bed to help me really understand Petromax and then maybe do a rebuild video with the Wenzel.

In other news I recently shot another episode of Lantern Lab which I'm not really happy with. I rushed and it shows, especially in the lighting. I'm going to play with the footage some but I suspect it'll fail to impress me and I'll need to reshoot.

Where you been?

Charlotte, MI. People there will tell you its Char-lotte which differentiates it from Charlotte, NC. Google says tis 770 mi from our house so last Tuesday (a week ago today) we loaded up the old Jetta and headed out. I'm pleased to say ~1500 miles later everything went pretty much perfectly. The car ran well, used about 40 gallons of diesel fuel. We spent a night each way in Niagara Falls, the first night was at the Radisson we spent our honeymoon in which was a treat.

The purpose of the trip was the 2014 Coleman Collectors Club Convention which was a hoot as always. We camped on site, my 413E made the trip as is usual:

Also as usual we camped with Ryan an Tara. A fun thing about camping with them is that we have the same tent, or rather we have the same tent model, they have a 2 person and we have a 4. Thats hilarious because both Ryan and Tara are 6 feet tall. I'm around 6 feet but Angie is significantly less...

Anyway some highlights of the convention include this beautiful hollow wire chandelier:

and a cool branding iron:

I have promised to work on a Colman rising sun brand. I'm thinking about having it printed in plastic on a 3d printer to make a mold to cast in bronze or brass.

There was more including a ride in two different Model A Fords, a horse and buggy ride and ice cream made with an old hit and miss engine. That ice cream was some of the best I've had in my whole life. The guy was making 5 gallons at a time and said he made 7 batches. 35 gallons over 2 days seems like a lot to me but it was that good, nobody had just one dose.

Of course there were a couple big light ups:

Of course I'm right in the middle of everything...

Light ups are interesting, they're a bit like herding cats. The organizers always want to lay out the lanterns in some pattern which requires everybody to pay attention. It seems like people want to just drop their lantern in the first spot they find and get out of the way...

Time passes and stuff happens

Months slip away like water.
So let me bring you up to date. I'm off on another work trip to California, it seems like I live here part time. Last week we were made our yearly spring trip to camp. This year's big project was to move the outhouse. The old outhouse hole was full. I don't remember what year I dug that hole, I'm guessing 2005. 9 years isn't bad for a hole I dug by hand while the outhouse was tipped forward. We probably should have made some sort of a box when we dug that hole to keep the dirt around the hole from collapsing in, you live and learn. This year we rented an excavator to do the digging. We built a box 4 feet tall by 4 feet wide by 32 inches deep out of OSB scraps and 2x4s, then dug a hole to fit the box. Finally I built a frame of 4x4s to slide the outhouse onto. The sliding went pretty poorly when the outhouse hung up on a concrete block as I slid it. I should have stopped at that point and jacked up that corner with the wagon jack to get the block out but instead I ended up wrestling it around with the excavator. Later on I had to spend a bunch of time jacking the outhouse up to get the 4x4s back into the right place. The other mistake I made was not spiking the 4x4s together, mostly because it didn't occur to me to buy spikes...

The next day we used the excavator to dig a test hole in a place Dad thought there might be some gravel. Off to the side of one field is a hill that appears to be degraded shale or slate which breaks up pretty good with the excavator. We dug some up and used the wagon to haul it to fill some wet spots in the road. Angie ran the excavator while I made runs with the Cub Cadet. I had the much harder job, the excavator can fill the little wagon no problem to the point where the Cub Cadet can just barely handle the weight. Then the dirt would be stuck in the wagon. Since it was a little wet when I'd dump it'd stick in the bed and I'd have to shovel it out.

To make this work we need either a real dump truck or a bigger dump wagon we haul either with the truck or the Farmall Super M.

Speaking of the Super M it got all new wiring this trip. We'd known the wiring harness was in tough shape for awhile and when the tractor wouldn't start at all we knew it was time. We finally did get it running by wiggling some wires but it wouldn't run well and couldn't pull any kind of engine speed. Fortunately we'd already ordered a wiring harness. The harness included the main wires from the generator to the switch and voltage regulator and from the switch to the coil but didn't include the lights or some other incidentals, we made those other wires ourselves so now every wire on the tractor is new except for one battery cable. That got the machine running and I used it to plow and disc the garden. I tried to shoot some video of my rollover plow but I haven't reviewed it yet to see if its any good.
While the tractor now runs its probably time to do a 12 volt conversion on it. 6 volt batteries are expensive and seem to be prone to failure. A small 12 volt battery would cost half what we pay for a 6 volt, it'd probably last twice as long and in a pinch we would be able to jump start the tractor off the truck. Having 12v electrics on the tractor would also allow for an inexpensive electric ignition conversion. Thats not a big requirement I've never really had any trouble with the points but it would make for a better running engine with increased reliability down the road.
I almost forgot, while we were doing all this work I put in new spark plugs too.
After all that effort the tractor started nice as you please although it did crank slow from the bad battery. When we left I put the battery on the desulfator, we'll see if a few months of that maybe helps salvage the battery. I doubt it and I see that a 12 volt conversion kit runs about $150. I may end up just doing that in the fall.

I'd bought some asparagus to plant at home but the package of roots I'd bought was way more than we could use around our house so I bought the rest to plant at camp. Asparagus is cool for camp since it comes up in the spring and requires relatively little maintenance the rest of the year. I planted a 14 foot trench worth which should provide us with about all the asparagus we can eat. The trenching was hard work and in retrospect I should have used the excavator.

Buster liked the trench though, he came up to inspect and immediately flopped down in it. I'd guess the bottom of the trench was cool and it was a hot day, especially for a black dog.

Finally we planted our yearly camp garden which feeds the wildlife. We've seen a big increase in the deer population around our farm over the last couple years and I'd like to think this garden has something to do with that so I keep doing it. This year we planted mostly turnips but some kale, squash, cucumber and whatever other old seeds we had at our house. Angie also bought some sunflower seeds which she put around the edge of the plot.

We planted by broadcasting seeds which we then disced in with the Cub Cadet. I'd tried plowing with the Cub Cadet but the so was unusually strong, last year we didn't get good coverage with the oats we'd planted so the grass took right over again. The plow I've got is also a little over large for the Cub Cadet and we're probably under weighted so it just had a hard time. The Super M just walks away with the 2 bottom plow I've got and it only takes a few passes to clear this area. Our neighbor Grant came by with an old spring tooth harrow which made short work of cleaning up the furrows. In past years its taken me hours to plow and disc the plot, working with the bigger tractor certainly made things easier.