Good Morning!!!! 74F @ 6:45AM. Mainly sunny. High 96F. Winds SSW at 5 to 10 mph.
Hawkeye, I've always pulled the wheels off my trailers, leaving them supported on jacks, when I took them to the tire dealer. It's a little more work for me, but it's a whole lot less stressful, especially with the 24' box trailer.
Glad to hear you finally got some rain, Ted. The southwest has been in drought for too long now. We could use rain, too, but not if the price is thunder and lightning. Southern Oregon is fighting a series of lightning fires that started about a month ago, and having a heck of a time getting the upper hand. Last thing we need here are more fires!
I had that dream again yesterday, Eric, that one where I was flying through space in a bright blue van. Got up early and tired after too short a night, and seemed to be walking in a fog. Took two false starts out the driveway to get everything I'd need loaded into the truck, and finally made it back to the mechanic's a half hour later than I'd have liked. His helper was installing cruise control parts in the engine bay, and I got busy pulling out the troublesome instrument cluster. Cleared some space to work on an incredibly cluttered and dirty desktop, and went through the instructions I used when I replaced the "blue tape" factory wiring with an aftermarket kit of real wires and small circuit boards. That all checked out fine, so I set off in search through the mechanic's junk for a replacement cluster he'd hinted he had. The helper had reorganized everything and pointed me in the right direction, but after I went through a dozen of them I didn't find even one that was complete. I did find a tach that still had the two troublesome gauges attached, and planned to move my wires onto it for testing. But before that I put my cluster back on and found that everything but the turn signals had miraculously healed itself. About that time the helper wandered over and pointed out a loose connector under the steering column, and when I pushed the ends back together the signals started working again. I suspect that whoever had removed the cluster hadn't connected it properly when they put it back, or had pulled something loose. I used some packing tape to hold the tach signal cable in place, and started the engine to verify that yes, everything now seemed to be working. About that time the mechanic finally showed up and handed me a cluster that wasn't even the correct one for this van, then came back empty handed on his next attempt. :confused2: The man has a huge trove of parts squirreled away, but most of it is just plain junk.
We spent another few hours reviewing the wires going to the engine control computer, finding two that were not even connected to anything and another that wasn't even installed. I made the repairs and the next time the van started it ran much more smoothly. I took off up a nearby mountain road, figuring the extra work would be a good test for the cooling system which ran hot the day before. After topping off the coolant level, yesterday it ran much better, only seeing 107C at the top of the long climb, and coming back down after only a minute or two of idling. Those two big muffin fans I'd swapped for the anemic little blower were doing a great job. The mechanic had hooked a diagnostic unit up to the OBDC plug, and I was tasked with driving long enough for the computer to gather data and clear some internal tests. I went about thirty miles but two of the settings had failed to clear, so I went out on a more level road and droned along at 55 MPH for a half hour in another attempt. That still didn't work, but in the process I rediscovered the wing windows and got one swung around and pointed back at me. The old time air conditioning brought back some fond childhood memories. One item on the computer finally cleared, but by the time I got back the Check Engine Light was back on. The mechanic found two or three error codes and we talked about possible causes and fixes. By then it was past 8PM and time to pack back up and head home. But that took another hour with the mechanic's blathering about what to do. If he spent as much time doing things as he does trying to talk about stuff, he'd get a LOT more done. Got home about 9:30, watched the news while I had a bite to eat, and then went off to chase some real dreams.
Hope everyone has a great weekend!
..now the wifey is awake in a panic..:confused2:... I know where all this is going :laughing:
