b.enjam.in

yesterday i painted the cellphone. bad idea. still looks beat up, and even after cleaning out all the pocket lint & dog hair the keyboard is still giving inconsistent input. somehow i made it even worse, now the “d” key prints “e” unless pushed up from the bottom. plus, two coats of gloss black plus two coats of gloss clear left it sort of frosted dark grey and the paint’s already wearing off the edges. camera’s in the car, i’ll add a photo to this post eventually.

been working a bunch on creating a sort of personal portal-site, a wordpress blog to aggregate content from all of my other blogs/social media outlets/etc. i write a LOT, but right now it’s all really disparate- thought it would be nice to have it all in one place, and to be able to send content in or out of a single mainsite. this is the first time i’ll have a personal website that’s more than just a business card/resume link since 2002-ish.

today i made two impulse purchases at Harbor Freight- a “6-inch portable carpenter’s vise,” which is what i always thought was just called a “vise,” and a pair of mechanic’s gloves- which are a total absurd luxury buy, but i’ve busted through the fingers in yet another pair of the standard leather dealies, and figured shelling out an extra $4 was worth it if it means not feeling self conscious at work on Monday morning about looking like i was in some sort of desert boxing match. against a cactus.

tomorrow I’m hoping to go to The Bead Shop after work and then finish the antenna, which already looks fun & works great.

cut down the junkyard antenna tonight, think i might cut it a little more. technically i should be choosing a fraction of the wavelength of the radio station i most want to receive; but in most cars the portion of the antenna running from the stereo to the antenna mount isn’t shielded (at least, not well), so stressing the math is pretty pointless. also New Orleans is shaped like a bowl, so radio reception is pretty good throughout… and if i decide to take a seriously long road trip without CD’s or MP3′s for some reason, I can always swap in the OEM antenna. even with less than six inches, i am getting pretty much flawless reception.

that said, I’d love to build a j-pole car antenna someday just for the entertainment value (though in a past life an idea like that might have led to a pretty slick pump up the volume car tech tribute).

no photos yet, as I’ve decided rather than transferring over the antenna ball I’m going to see if I can’t find something more interesting at the bead shop. then i need to paint it. picked up gloss black & clearcoat krylon. think i may also do my phone at the same time.

then i drove Big Orange to M’s house to pick up my new refrigerator. it’s much newer, quieter, and shelf-having-er than the old one, but white. doesn’t really bother me, but stands out having gotten used to the faux woodgrain. i’m pretty happy, though, because it has a drip tray and instructions for when to defrost, so if/when i inadvertently destroy it, it will be through some completely different thoughtless action. i used soda bottle caps to ship the right side, keeping it level on my sloped floor.

the truck ran great, the new fan situation made it a completely stress-free ride, and it started up every time (though the flexplate did make some noise). for some reason my right turn light won’t turn off, though. just the dash lamp, not the blinker itself. i suspect the primitive circuit board behind the dash has had it, one more reason electrics are my next major project. and i can coat the dash in rhino liner while it’s out.

Saturday went to junkyard w/ ungarsfragile & friend M. Was hoping to find a transmission inspection plate (success, on 3rd dentside checked), Ford antenna (to make into a shorty), and Taurus engine-bay fusebox for the engine bay rewiring. Found the first two, lot was full of Tauruses and their fuseboxes but someone(s) had removed all of the fuses & relays. I can’t really understand this- fuses are stupid cheap and relays are a pain to bench test and usually manufacturer-specific. Why would anyone want that many? Asked the guy about it, but he was just resigned, “people steal ‘em).

I wanted to go looking for an alternative fusebox that might have worked, but my body just wouldn’t let me- it was in the 90′s and I got overheated, faster than ever before. The guys didn’t seem to mind leaving but it was a frustrating experience for me- an hour outside (even in New Orleans, in August) shouldn’t make a healthy person feel that ill. Guys didn’t seem to mind, but this bothers me a LOT. Two years ago I was able to handle desert hikes pretty easily. Five years ago I was living here in a tent. Time to get back into healthy habits, and spend more time outdoors!

After the junkyard, we tested ungarsfragile‘s new badass FIAMM horn out of some monster 80′s land yacht, though in retrospect I think it might ground to the chassis & each contact might trigger a separate horn.

Then I went to M’s and we spent 3 hours trying to swap out a power steering hose. One of the hollow bolts/hydraulic nut/whatever they’re called things was seized, and we managed to round off the top trying to get it out. My tools were unavailing, WD-40 didn’t help, neither did separate trips to parts shops for a line wrench and then for PB blaster. finally we left it to soak overnight, and had a pleasant dinner. in the AM, M had a church buddy come over & he managed to get it out by hammering on a smaller socket.

Today I broke my refrigerator. Went grocery shopping, bought some stuff for the freezer, came home and realized it was caked in 3 inches of ice. Felt lazy & in need of catharsis, so I tried to break it all out using a hammer and a prybar. Accidentally nicked the coolant line and it started spraying refrigerant everywhere. On the upside, it’s had a pretty good run- febrile and I found it in an alley when I first moved in… year isn’t bad for the cost of a bottle of bleach.

Dear Internet,

Today I re-wired the Atlima cooling fans inside the truck. Each of the two fans has four wires- one circuit for low speed, a second for high. Each set is supposed to run to a separate relay, for some kind of intelligent cooling management.

The F150 is many things, but intelligent it ain’t. Today’s work is a temporary fix, but the remaining issues are aesthetic, not functional. I wired all the circuits together and ran the mess to a continuous duty solenoid. The solenoid is rated at 80 amps, I’ve got a 60 amp fusible link on the thing and nothing’s blown yet. I’d had Low speed wired up by itself for a while, but it was a really tenuous situation- one fan was grounded to the aluminum grille shell, while both were pulling power from a huge piece of 4ga audio cable. All the connections were wire nuts and electrical tape.

Things still aren’t permanent (by a long shot), but everything’s cleaned up and crimped… I even put a wee wire wheel on the Dremel, took it to a spare hole in the fender and brought it down to bare metal, then applied “Super Lube,” and threaded a bolt through to use as a ground.

…of course, given that I’m completely broke & hadn’t planned ahead, some half-assing did happen. I ran out of heavy gauge wire and ended up replacing the audio cable with three separate, thinner pieces- 1 12ga & 2 16; which if I’ve done my math right equals 10 + a fraction gauge, which should have a max amp load approximating that same 60a, it’s around a 1.5 foot run, so that should be fine as a stopgap.

Ultimately the plan is to pull the relay/fusebox from a 90′s era Taurus and mount that where the tire jack used to be, add a marine-grade fusebox in the cab, then run all new wires for both chassis & engine bay.

Test drive was pretty gratifying- given that I have the timing and carb working perfectly, I just couldn’t get the temperature up high enough to actually test the fan on the road in 85-ish degree weather. Finally I had to stop in a parking lot and let it sit in gear. Fan did its job, not cooling as fast as I would have liked, but certainly fast enough. Next step will be wiring up the thermostatic control so I don’t have to turn it on with a switch in the cab. That should be interesting, as I think I’ve lost the directions and there are a lot of colored wires.

I also crawled underneath & looked at the flexplate, but it took half an hour to get to two bolts, both of which seemed plenty tight. Seems like this is a two-person job, and I think ultimately will be a much bigger project involving dropping the transmission.