Earle’s Notes

Gas in Bemidji Saturday was at 1.919 while GR was at 2.199; today gas in Bemidji is at 1.869 while GR is at 2.069.

Whatever.

‘Bout 1/2″ snow last night, quite chilly. Just enough to make everyone slide around the street.

Got the (correct) Alternator swapped out on Vger. O’Reilly’s kept trying to sell me the NipponDenso alternator when mine requires the Chrysler Alternator. Slight differences in the mounts. Afterwards we realized that it has been noisy for a very long time. It sounds so much quieter now. I hope to see some increase in fuel mileage as an incidental byproduct.

Finally got the living room put back together after completing the inside part of the Window Project.

Got Evan’s Tempo here (Saturday’s project). The cable that runs from the shift lever to the auto trans is broken. Dealer-only item, about $250. Here’s another instance where I will need to decide what we want to do. I’ve already got close to $2K in it and it needs the shift cable, driver’s seat belt mechanism isn’t working properly (about $800), and I don’t yet know what else might be wrong. Oh, and it needs new front tires ($120) and maybe an alignment ($50). Is it worth it?

I’m getting ready to migrate our old DHCP server to a new (recycled) (temporary) box. Our current DHCP server is also the AD controller for a domain no longer used, and it is also our primary SQL server. I need to demote the server and join it to our current domain. I figure the SQL auth might be my biggest problem, and if I can get the DHCP moved to another box that will be one less item to worry about. Time to start writing the plan for the migration.

I hear that a lot of folks on Face Book are getting scammed by people hi-jacking the account of a friend then asking for money to help out “hey, I need $100 for ??”. Don’t fall for it!

Did you see the news item about the Oregon woman that was scammed $400K in a Nigerian scam? I still can’t believe that someone is stupid enough to do that. http://www.katu.com/news/34292654.html.

November 17th, 2008 | Category: Auto Tech, Computer Tech, Family, Weather |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Gas in Bemidji dropped to 1.959 yesterday, gas in GR dropped to 2.199.  I see on www.minnesotagasprices.com that some Twin Cities stations are at 1.859.  Whoa.

While it’s a good thing at the moment, I’m not certain that it is a good idea long term, but I guess we will find out.

November 13th, 2008 | Category: Gas |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Yep. the alternator bearings on Vger are dying. Pulled it out last night, can barely turn it by hand. $127 exchange.

According to the Rock Auto website the 92 Voyager and 88 Voyager alternators are the same part number. Accorning to the O’Reilly’s website they are different part numbers. Will find out tonight. Drove the Gladiator today. Temp was 10°F this morning, Gladiator interior (and windows!) were just starting to defrost by the time I got to work. That big box takes a lot longer to thaw than the small box.

Brrr.

Rain, Sleet, Snow arriving here in the next couple of hours, better get moving.

Later: No, they are NOT the same.

November 11th, 2008 | Category: Auto Tech |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Found an excellent resource at http://www.computer-aid.com.au/.   Good blog with lots of technical expertise, and well written also.

November 11th, 2008 | Category: Computer Tech |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Pretty sure the alternator on Vger is dying.  $150 for a new one.  I think it is just the bearings that are going, it’s VERY noisy when it starts, less so after a few moments of running.  Bearings are about $10 ea for front and rear bearings.  Wonder if I have the tools for it?  I need to dig through my pile of parts and see what I can turn up.  I’m not certain, but I think that all my other alternators like this died electrically.

Might have to tear into it and drive the Gladiator for a few days while I sort it out. brrrr.

November 10th, 2008 | Category: Auto Tech |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Well, Deer Season came in with a BANG!! Sitting out on my stand, about one minute after my watch said “time”, from all around I heard bang! bang! bang-bang-bang-bang! bang!

I haven’t seen anything yet. Matt, hunting with his friends a couple of miles away, tagged a nice doe and a button buck first thing this morning. He took the button buck with one perfect shot through the lungs; it dropped and never moved. Should be some good eating there.

Matt's First Deer

Thursdays rain was part of a large system centered down near Sioux City. The center stayed there most of Thursday, wrapping Gulf moisture and warm air up and around onto us. Overnight Thursday it moved East across MN and Friday we continued to get some rain and drizzle as the temps began to fall. Saturday (Deer Season Opener) started out with some mixed snow and drizzle, but the ground was warm enough that the snow disappeared right away.

Today, Sunday, the ground has cooled enough that the snow is staying. We are only getting a few flakes at a time, and the puddles aren’t frozen solid yet, but it’s about 20 degrees F out right now and that North wind is coold.

Gas is at 2.259 this morning.

I tried to buy a pair of 195/75/R14 Winterforce tires at L&M on sale, but they were sold out Thursday night. Said they would transfer a couple from another store and I could get them Friday afternoon. Stopped by Friday afternoon and then later that evening, still haven’t arrived.

Decided to pull the pair of Winterforce tires off Stripez. They don’t have many miles on them since Stripez blew the head gasket soon after it got the new tires. They are on Vger now. While I had the front drivers tire off Vger I checked the trans oil, it was down nearly 2 quarts. Trying to remember when I checked it last and topped it off, hopefully I blogged it (no, I didn’t.  September?). Still have a funny noise under the hood anytime the engine is running, suspect that I’m about to lose the alternator or waterpump soon; or perhaps the timing belt idler? Hope not. Too cold to mess with it right now, it needs to keep running until we can get Stripez back together.

Need to pickup the head for Stripez from the machine shop, $220.

Need to pickup the starter for the Allis-Chalmers from the rebuild shop, $195.

Need to put a pair of Winterforce tires on the front of the red Horizon, $100

Got a bit of a shock Thursday afternoon. My current Auto Insurance policy was due to be renewed Friday, and I asked my insurance agent to check around for a better price, was paying $900 every 6 month’s for 5 vehicles and 4 drivers.

Well, Evan’s car is titled in his name, he is not a student, and he lives in Bemidji. Jon has his own family, is not a student, and lives in Bemidji while driving Betty’s LeMans. Turns out that, although we have been paying for the insurance coverage, if they had an accident they wouldn’t have been covered. So Betty gave the title to the LeMans to Jon and they are not on our new policy, which dropped the price a bit.

Here is what we learned. If the driver is a full time student and/or lives at home, they can be covered under our policy. If the title to the vehicle is in mine or Betty’s name, it can be covered under our policy. Otherwise, NOT.

So, when Matt gets his truck running, we leave the title in my name, and he is living at home, then he and the truck will be covered under our policy. When Matt titles the truck in his name he will then need to get his own insurance. When Matt leaves home, he will need to title the truck in his name and get his own insurance.

OK. Didn’t know that. And we’ve been paying for Jon and Evan’s insurance that wasn’t going to cover them. Thank God they didn’t have any accidents.

November 9th, 2008 | Category: Auto Tech, Family, Gas, Weather |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

It’s raining/drizzling/tstorming outside, take your pick. Very dark also.

Gotta break down and buy tires for Vger today. 2 blowouts in two weeks and I’m out of all my spare tires from all the other vans. The spare I’m running on now has a STRONG pull all the time, have to fight to keep it on the road. I’d like to buy WinterForce if I can find a good enough deal on them, we’ll see.

I’m hearing reports of 1+ ft of snow in North Dakota, we are supposed to get hit starting tomorrow night. We’ll see, I haven’t seen a flake yet although measurable snow has been forecast several times in the last 3-4 weeks. But, with deer season starting day after tomorrow I guess we are overdue for some snow.

Suiburban Tailights (and Chevy/GMC/Yukon/C-series/K -series 1988-2008) Was working on a neighbors 1997 Suburban the other day. Brake light burns out every few days. Sometimes it might last a couple of weeks, but usually a couple of days.

I was talking about it at the parts counter, when the counterman showed me that they keep 4 ea R/L socket assemblies in stock at all times. “Some people replace them every year, sometimes twice a year.” Wow. So, I grabbed a pair and installed them on the neighbors Suburban, problem fixed. Then I took apart the unit to see what was wrong. I STILL can’t believe that GM engineering is SO STUPID to come up with this idea and use it for so long and NO-ONE has forced them to fix it???? This should be a warrantable engineering/manufacturing defect, and GM deserves to go out of business for perpetrating this kind of CRAP on their customers.

Here is a photo of the unit I removed from the Suburban. I have cut off the plastic retainers so that I can lift the board covering the connections.

Here I have removed the board. You can see that it is just a very simple circuit board, and the socket assembly has contacts on it.

Here is where one of the brake lamp contacts meets the circuit board. See the corrosion? You can also see it in the above photo if you look closely. The matching contact also has a spot of corrosion on it.

It would appear that what’s been happening is that moisture gets into the socket assembly and eventually corrosion starts eating at the contacts. When the light goes out and you replace the bulb, I guess that the movement is enough to give some continuity for a brief span of time until the corrosion catches up.

But what can be done? Well, in the first place, GM could have done several things when this was originally designed. They could have used soldered connections instead of the circuit board. Or, they could have sealed the interior of the socket assembly to keep the moisture out.

What can be done now? I’m going to solder wires to the connectors and swap and rotate the L/R circuit boards so that the conductive side faces toward the bulbs and the non-conductive side faces toward the wiring circuit. Then, when i put it together I will use a silicone glue in a dry atmosphere to seal the moisture away from the connections.

I will then put the modified socket assemblies away and when the neighbors lights quit working in a few months we can try my modified ones. We’ll see what happens.

Something I wouldn’t mind trying if I had the opportunity would be to take a pair of new assemblies and, in a dry location, place a thin bead around the circuit board, just enough to seal out moisture. My guess is that they should work fine for several years with just that slight mod done.

November 6th, 2008 | Tags: chevy truck, gm truck, gmc truck, suburban, tail light, taillights | Category: Auto Tech, Weather |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

Fruitloop

November 4th, 2008 | Category: Uncategorized |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment

I’m writing this a week later; I forgot to blog it at the time.

Halloween night the window mechanism on Vger broke.  In the ChryCorp minivans of this age the crank drives a gear approx 8″ diameter that moves a flexible rack gear bolted to the bottom of the window and running on a track inside the door.  The plastic rack gear broke about 6″ below the window.

Well, I’ve tried replacing these mechanisms before and it is a regular PITA, so I wanted to avoid that if possible.  I figured OK, I have two other vans, so I’ll just swap this door with the driers door from the Turbo Caravan.  In the meantime, I stuck a piece of wood in the door to hold the window up.

So, Matt’s going to help me swap the doors.  I had forgotten, but we parted out an 88 Caravan a year ago, and the drivers door was in pretty good shape.  So, Matt dug it out of the barn and installed it.  Vger now has a white drivers door and a working window.

The door we took off is in excellent shape, I don’t think it has any rust on it, so we put it aside as a spare.  When we get around to it we’ll replace the window mechanism.

November 4th, 2008 | Category: Auto Tech, Gas |  Print This Post |  Email This Post | Leave a comment