What did you do today?

[zannej]

Sounds like a busy day, Mark. I don't think I would be confident enough to remove a load-bearing wall. My brother wanted to take out the wall to his bedroom to extend his room when we move the laundry room. I had to break it to him that it's a load-bearing wall and isn't going anywhere.

Csason, that is awesome that your mom is 100. I hope she appreciated the help.

I went to pick up prescriptions but pharmacy closed early. Grabbed some frozen dinners for mom. She likes Hungry Man turkey stuff. I parked my truck next to another Ridgeline. My friend saw my truck and parked near it and searched for me in the store. He needed to get out of the house away from his girlfriend. She's off her meds and driving him up a wall. We walked around like we used to back when he worked in asset protection. I showed him Walmart now sells flooring (although it's pretty crappy).

He's feeling better physically but is very stressed out. His gf's family brought marijuana and gave it to his gf who will probably fail her drug test to get a new job. While we were talking in the parking lot (he was helping me load stuff into the truck) his grandfather spotted us, rolled up and laid on the horn. Friend jumped because it startled him, then screamed at his grandfather not to do that. It stresses him out whenever someone honks a horn now and his grandfather does it all the damn time.

We talked more over Discord later. I'm trying to see if he can help me find a good float solution for the cistern. I'm not sure if some of the options I've seen will work because the pump has two hots and a ground and can pull up to 230v. One of the solutions I thought of probably won't work because it only goes up to 220v and I don't think the wire is heavy enough gauge. Plus it would require adding some sort of plug to the pump. So, I will probably have to go with some sort of direct contact water sensor and a contactor/relay or a cable float and a contactor/relay.

I helped my brother hook up his lumbar cushion underneath the slip cover (which was more work than it sounds).

I ordered a new laptop for Mom. It's better than my newest laptop and was a lot cheaper. Big labor day sale so the upgrade to 16Gb 3200Hz RAM was only $30, free mouse, free mouse pad, $50 gift card, free upgrade to 1tb ssd (from 500gb), free shipping, and I found a 5% off coupon. She should get an additional 5% rebate for ordering the slow delivery. It only weighs 5.5lbs. Her current Alienware laptop weighs 20lbs and is a royal pain to move around. She can sell or give the old one back to my friend.

 

[highup]

Did you get the truck done?

It's running fine. ....well it still has idle issues. I cleaned the idle air control valve and it seemed to idle better, the went back to erratic idles. Usually, highet than normal.
I need a new one. I'm learning things, that's for sure .
The intake leak is gone, but there was also a head gasket leak at that same point on the back of the head
I flushed the coolant numerous times, because I am going to put in a head gasket sealer. It's $67 bucks and needs a glycol free environment to work. You have to run the engine at idle for 50 minutes straight without the thermostat installed. It's some kind of heat activated polymer.
I installed mechanical water temp gauge, then the engine would not start . The electric thermostat sensor talks to the computer. Without it, the engine won't start.
The sensor is plugged in and just laying in the manifold......... and somehow, it's reading close to normal.
I have the water temp, oil pressure and volt guages installed an it looks pretty good. I don't have their lights hooked up yet. I have temporarily connected the volt meter to the battery where it reads true. I tried another hot source and it reads .3 lower. The volt guage is powered temporarily via a switch. Obviously I can't leave it connected to the juice 24/7
I have things to work out, but it's usable.
So, head sealer, IAC valve and finish up the guage details and I ought to be good for a while.
A lot of time and money recently for a POS truck.
It's time for a fuel filter replacement and I've never peeked at the rear brakes. Sure they will bite me before the year is over.

 

[Floorist]

You need your van back

 

[highup]

You need your van back

I spent three bucks on a Powerball this week. I'll let you know tomorrow night.
...oh, let's cut to the chase. I didn't win again.

 

[zannej]

I hope you can get things sorted with your truck highup. The price of newer vehicles (even used) these days is way too high. I do like to cross-reference cargurus, autotrader, and cars dot com to look for vehicle sales. FB marketplace has too many private sellers who will sell absolute junkers and lie about it. Of course, dealerships will do the same.

I'm starting to make some progress on figuring out how to set up a cable float in my cistern. Turns out I might not even need to put any sort of rod/pipe down to hold the float if I use a weight rated for potable water. The seller of one of the floats told me it would work with my specific pump but I would need to wire it through a contactor. A house wiring site said I should first run the wires through an MCB (mini circuit breaker) with the ground going directly to the pump. My friend said it looks like my pump has two hots and a ground (although I'm not sure how to tell- I'll have to ask him later). The hot & neutral from the power should come out of the MCB and go to the contactor. I will need to see more specifics on exactly how to wire it, but it looks like the hot wire comes out of the MCB on the left and then connects to the top right of the contactor and then same color wire goes from one spot on the top of the contactor to another (I think exact location depends on the particular contactor0. and the neutral wire comes out of the right side of the MCB and goes more to the left right on the contactor. Weirdly enough, a photo from Ali-express filled in details I couldn't visualize from drawings.

These are the 3 diagrams:
Youtube video diagram (not sure if it was for US)


Home wiring website diagram


Ali Express diagram

I believe the brown wire on the aliexpress one is the equivalent of the red wire on the float I found on Amazon. Now if I can just get the wires straight in the pump because the colors are all different. House electric one had something about using a multimeter to check stuff.

House wiring site had this instruction:

Float Switch Working :​

We will connect miniature circuit breaker (mcb) which automatically switches off electrical circuit during an abnormal condition of the network means in overload condition as well as a faulty condition with live and neutral wire at input. Connect the output of the mcb with the contactor input. Magnetic Contactor is for lossy magnetic flow generated with current in winding of such devices as transformer, throttles, magnetic cartridges filters and circuit. Output of contactor is connected with the motor. Connect the wire of the float switch with the neutral wire. Connect the L1 of the contactor with the A1. Connect the blue wire of the float switch with the A2 of the contactor.

So, now I need to figure out what contactor and MCB to get (I could probably get away without an MCB but it apparently protects the system from overload-- which might stop the fried wires situation I kept getting before we changed to larger awg. I'm thinking of getting waterproof wire connectors (metal sleeve you crimp down on the wires once they are inserted and then put a plastic sleeve over top and shrink wrap (or I might just wrap it in electrical tape because I don't intend to submerge it). As for the contactor and MCB they don't really need to pull more than 13amps but needs to be high voltage (at least 230amps). I need to find the right kind and then figure out where and how to mount them. The roof is leaky, but I might be able to put them inside weather-proof gang boxes somehow.

 

[zannej]

So, a pump expert said I don't need the MCB. Said I can just go directly to the contactor. I am still trying to narrow down the one I want to get. I think I want a rail mount one that can be mounted inside of a weatherproof box. Someone suggested an alarm that would go off if the water levels got too high and pump didn't work, but I'm not sure how that would work and I wouldn't hear it unless the alarm sounded in the house near my room.

Still trying to decide if a 13A pump is sufficient. Someone said if it pulls about 6A at 230V it could do 1hp. I believe the 12.2A is for 115V. But I don't know how the thing is set. Decisions decisions.

My toilet spit up a bit when I flushed it. Could have been because my brother flushed a wet wipe, but just in case I remembered we're overdue to have the septic tank drained. Supposed to be every 7 years but it's been 9. The guy who drains tanks was always unprofessional so I didn't like talking to him. Finally called this morning and found out he died a year ago but his business is still going. It will be ~$650 to have the tank drained. It was $240 last time-- but it was a 500 gallon tank and the new one is 1000gallons.

Just got a spam call. LOL. I answer "<surname>'s Mortuary". And a fake-ish sounding voice said "Hello, this is Tom *somethingIdon'tremember* How are you today?" Me: "This is <surname>'s Mortuary. How may I help you? and he hung up.

 

[highup]

There's a bunch of wire dangling underneath that's for the speakers. At some point I'll get a radio back in there but I have to make a console for it first. It's going to look messy for a while but then again the whole truck is a mess.
Tho it doesn't look like a factory job, it came out well and I'm happy with it. There's still a piece of trim that I need to put on the bottom to match the lower curve of the dash. Previously the part was the ashtray but I need to find a way to mount just the face of it on and not the actual ashtray unit and brackets.

 

[Floorist]

Another example of how screwed up the government is. We got a notification that my son, who is handicapped, had an appt at 2 pm today for a review. Called them back, they said it was face to face, not on the phone. We go to the soc sec building, and the only one there is the security guard, he says no face to face. So then I bust ass to get back home and they don't call either. Left her a message and she never returned the call.

 

[C.J.]

There's a bunch of wire dangling underneath that's for the speakers. At some point I'll get a radio back in there but I have to make a console for it first. It's going to look messy for a while but then again the whole truck is a mess.
Tho it doesn't look like a factory job, it came out well and I'm happy with it. There's still a piece of trim that I need to put on the bottom to match the lower curve of the dash. Previously the part was the ashtray but I need to find a way to mount just the face of it on and not the actual ashtray unit and brackets.

What’s up with the crooked water gauge? Or is that on purpose so the needle sticks straight up?

 

[highup]

What’s up with the crooked water gauge? Or is that on purpose so the needle sticks straight up?

I decided that instead of looking over and staring at the gauge to put the needles straight up so when you glance briefly at it if it's pointed straight up it's where it's supposed to be. Don't race car drivers do stuff like that.
My truck is now a NASCAR truck. 160 raw horsepower. grrrrr!

 

[highup]

I work out of town today on beach loop road. My what a difference a few hours makes.

 

[C.J.]

I decided that instead of looking over and staring at the gauge to put the needles straight up so when you glance briefly at it if it's pointed straight up it's where it's supposed to be. Don't race car drivers do stuff like that.
My truck is now a NASCAR truck. 160 raw horsepower. grrrrr!

That’s what I was thinkin especially when it’s dark and you just look over at the needles to see if they’re pointing the right direction.

Half of my dash lights are burnt out but the needles still light up so I’m in the same boat. I can see if they’re pointing in the right general direction. This was about 70k ago but you get the idea.

 

[Mark Brown]

Hell, I would be happy if half of my dash did light up.
On the Mercedes, they took all my gauges away and made it all digital, but not the good kind of digital, I have to sort through menu's to see what is what and the Van is kind enough to tell me what I need to know. Or at least that is how it is supposed to work.

My honda, well that is a whole 'nother story. There isn't anything I need to know other than put oil in, more OIL.

 

[Floorist]

When my MIL passed 3 years ago she left us her 2007 Nissan Versa, 206,000 miles now and no problems.

 

[C.J.]

I’m glad my van is simple. Less stuff to break. I’ll do an oil change on the wife’s car then spend 10 minutes trying to remember how to reset the damn oil life thing. Same thing with changing the clock on her car radio. I’m so glad AZ doesn’t do daylight savings time cus that’s just dumb. I already have enough stuff in my pea brain to keep track of.

 

[Jon]

I hate it when I take my wagon in to get serviced
They must un program everything which shows on the dash, a compass shows up showing which way I am heading which has changed from the digital speed reading, I dont like the speed o as in a clock type as the needle swings around too much, the lane assist has gone etc
There are two buttons on the steering wheel you have to spend a long time scrolling through lots of different options to get the readings back to how I like it
Too much effect to find the average fuel consumption etc etc. I get frightened to push the buttons as I can never find what the setup was. Give me the old Falcon, a radio, clock, air conditioning and that was about it One thing I like about the Falcon was with the mirrors you could see the back of the car unlike the new one the mirrors only get to the rear door handles due to the shape and not the back of the wagon
I am to scared to try the auto parking along with lots of other things this wagon has got

 

[highup]

That’s what I was thinkin especially when it’s dark and you just look over at the needles to see if they’re pointing the right direction.

Half of my dash lights are burnt out but the needles still light up so I’m in the same boat. I can see if they’re pointing in the right general direction. This was about 70k ago but you get the idea. View attachment 12861

I'm thinking of making a dedicated switch that needs to be turned on to activate the lights in the guages, the volt guage, my electric fans and everything in my 'some day I'm gonna make a console' unit.
It would be easier to run a single hot wire to run this new stuff than dig around trying to find the "appropriate" or correct place to wire this stuff from the wiring harness.
For the gauge lighting, I could incorporate a dimmer switch that looks nice in the console.
....the someday I'm gonna make a console, console.
If I do this, I'd like an audio alarm like the one that yells at me when I forget to turn off the headlights .
I'd use that to shut down everything on the guage cluster and console.
The console would need a head unit with a radio and a couple USB ports for charging a cell phone and bluetooth speaker.
Im still in the dreaming mode.
...maybe an amp and side speakers?
....drink holder, cell phone pockets....
.....ice maker, paper towel dispenser. Still pondering.

 

[Jon]

I'm thinking of making a dedicated switch that needs to be turned on to activate the lights in the guages, the volt guage, my electric fans and everything in my 'some day I'm gonna make a console' unit.
It would be easier to run a single hot wire to run this new stuff than dig around trying to find the "appropriate" or correct place to wire this stuff from the wiring harness.
For the gauge lighting, I could incorporate a dimmer switch that looks nice in the console.
....the someday I'm gonna make a console, console.
If I do this, I'd like an audio alarm like the one that yells at me when I forget to turn off the headlights .
I'd use that to shut down everything on the guage cluster and console.
The console would need a head unit with a radio and a couple USB ports for charging a cell phone and bluetooth speaker.
Im still in the dreaming mode.
...maybe an amp and side speakers?
....drink holder, cell phone pockets....
.....ice maker, paper towel dispenser. Still pondering.

What about the heated seats?

 

[zannej]

Highup, the wires aside, the dash looks good!

Rusty, I hate when the government officials make appointments and don't keep them. My friend's gf had to go to another town about an hour away to do a face-to-face meeting to renew her food stamps. They set her appointment at 12:30. They were at lunch from 12 to 1. So we got there and the office was locked with a sign about the hours. Why the hell did they set an appointment when they were closed? We had to sit there and wait (and I got her there early just in case there were problems).

Jon, heated seats are great for back pain.

I'm going to need to wait until next month to get the truck maintenance done because the septic tank draining price is setting us back. But I'm getting dental work next month too. Ugh. $700 worth of dental work. And the truck probably needs at least $500. The transmission fluid alone is $200. I know how to get the oil changed, how to inflate the tires, how to fill the wiper fluid, and how to change the cabin air filter on that thing. I lack the arm strength to remove the nuts to change the tire because they get tightened with a power tool at the shop. I've broken a few tire irons trying to remove them in the past.

My friend confirmed my pump is set to 230v. Still trying to choose the correct controller. 3 out of 4 people said I need Normally Open and one said Normally Closed. I think I will go with open since that was the consensus and would make sense. Pump won't be turned on until the connection gets closed from a signal telling it to turn on when the pump is low.

 

[Jon]

Highup, the wires aside, the dash looks good!

Rusty, I hate when the government officials make appointments and don't keep them. My friend's gf had to go to another town about an hour away to do a face-to-face meeting to renew her food stamps. They set her appointment at 12:30. They were at lunch from 12 to 1. So we got there and the office was locked with a sign about the hours. Why the hell did they set an appointment when they were closed? We had to sit there and wait (and I got her there early just in case there were problems).

Jon, heated seats are great for back pain.

I'm going to need to wait until next month to get the truck maintenance done because the septic tank draining price is setting us back. But I'm getting dental work next month too. Ugh. $700 worth of dental work. And the truck probably needs at least $500. The transmission fluid alone is $200. I know how to get the oil changed, how to inflate the tires, how to fill the wiper fluid, and how to change the cabin air filter on that thing. I lack the arm strength to remove the nuts to change the tire because they get tightened with a power tool at the shop. I've broken a few tire irons trying to remove them in the past.

My friend confirmed my pump is set to 230v. Still trying to choose the correct controller. 3 out of 4 people said I need Normally Open and one said Normally Closed. I think I will go with open since that was the consensus and would make sense. Pump won't be turned on until the connection gets closed from a signal telling it to turn on when the pump is low.

zannej we dont need heated seats here None of that white stuff. The seats actually cool down as well
I just wonder where the man sits under the bonnet to work everything out