Side Project

After dragging lengthy lines of air hose from the garage, under the door (particularly unpleasant when the inside and outside temps are at extremes) and throughout the house, I came up with a better plan.

I'd simply drill a hole through the wall from the garage to the basement. Brilliant!

Eh. Not so brilliant. A hole through the wall doesn't really help with temperature differences between outside and in, nor does it protect from critters.

I had to have a better way.

Which of course required some machining.

And voila!

I'll be the first to admit it's not perfect, but it's a start.

It's a start to a whole series of air lines plumbed throughout the house and garage!

Just imagine the euphoria to opening a closet door and finding an accessible air chuck in the back corner! It will be amazing!

Home repairs nuts everywhere will bow in envy!

Or not.

- b

Truck Alternator

Back when my father was here in May I started having issues with my truck. The battery didn't seem to want to hold a charge.

I don't drive my 21 year old truck with 277,000 miles much anymore, so the battery has a tendency to go dead from time to time. Usually I charge it and everything is good for the short while I need the truck.

In May I charged it, then drove it some and ended up having to get a jump in some parking lot somewhere.

When I was done needing it for the chores my father and I were working on then, I charged the battery and let the truck sit a while (2 months). When it came time to need it again, I'd see if the battery held the charge. If the battery held the charge while not being driven for two months, that would tell me the battery was good but the alternator was bad. If the battery didn't hold the charge, then it was time for a new battery.

This week I fired it up and the battery held the charge. That told me it was the alternator, which wouldn't surprise me. I've put 2 alternators on the truck (both roadside installs) in its lifetime. This would be its 4th alternator.

To be sure I first had the battery tested. It tested fine. To test the alternator, I had to remove it and take it back to the parts store.

Being that my experiences with alternators had always been roadside repairs, I was kind of dreading removing it to just test it.

I actually started the removal in a very inefficient way (I'm out of practice when it comes to car maintenance).

(I wish blogger was smart enough not to rotate my pictures incorrectly)

It didn't take long for me to get smarter and upgrade my tool.

Then get smarter still...

and had that thing yanked out in five minutes.

So I took it to the parts store to test it and it tested ok.

Huh?

Now what?

Just put it all back together and hope it works ok I guess.
Maybe the battery was just never fully charged those times I needed a jump and I hadn't driven far enough for the alternator to charge.

I guess we'll find out.

- b

Backwash

When the pressure at the pump gets too high, it's time to backwash the filter.

It's sort of a headache that I kind of dread, though not sure why.

It basically consists of installing a long hose to the pump equipment and "back pumping" water through the filter and out the hose - essentially rinsing the filter into the yard.

There's no real labor involved just time and aggravation. Aggravation from the old hose clamp I use to connect the hose to the waste pipe, aggravation of the hose twisting, etc. Normal stuff I suppose I shouldn't get all worked up over.

Though oddly enough, I didn't find it too aggravating when I discovered a mouse (or something) had chewed a hole in my hose and it was gushing (waste) water at my feet.

Sure, I had to disconnect the hose, cut it and fight with the hose clamp again, but what can you do?

It takes about 10 minutes to backwash the gunk. The next step is replacing the D.E., which takes a lot longer. It's a fine white powder you have to dump into the skimmer. I have to dump 8 coffee can loads in, but not all at once. Each can is painstakingly emptied very slowly to be sure the D.E. dissolves and flows freely through the pipes to the filter. If you do it fast, it gums up and sticks in the pipes - a real pain in the ass.

Like I said, not a whole lot of work, but something tedious I dread.

Of course letting Gretchen swim in the pool doesn't help. Within a day of back washing and Gretchen swimming, the pressure is already up half to where it was when I back washed.

This means, I'll have to pull the filter apart and actually rinse the filter grids by hand -something you should only have to do once a summer, but with the (spoiled) dog it's quite frequent.

More on that, when it happens.

- b