What did you do today

[dbhosttexas]

Last night I tried out our Kitchenaid ice cream maker attachment. Oddly enough the ingredients would have been half the cost if I had bought them at the local convenience store vs. our neighborhood Kroger. I remember why I never shop there now. Bad selection, grumpy staff and stupid high prices. Next time I am heading over to Aldi instead...

Slept in. Had a good night sleep for the first time in 3 weeks which was awesome. Spent some time working some ideas for an upcoming youtube series on camp / emergency prep fuels that was actually requested by a subscriber. I've been riding with my bud to his place to work on the trailer as he is back and forth between his small town, and Kemah, and was just taking advantage of being able to leave the car in the driveway. Went to start the car and battery dead. Battery was replaced last October I think it was. Looks like I have a parasitic draw to trace down on this old car... Dragged the battery out and tossed it on the charger as my shop is air conditioned and I really don't want to cook the battery...

Reinstalled battery in car. Starts and runs fine now. REALLY need to diagnose that parasitic draw. I suspect there is a ground problem near the fuse block in the trunk. That has been a problem in the past with this car...

Dragged out, and put my portable power pack battery on the charger since it was out and it has been 2 months since I charged it. Put the Everstart jump starter box on wall power to charge up. Checked out the tropics, seriously considering going to the fuel station where I can get ethanol free gas and filling up my 5 gallon cans to insure I have gas for the generator.

Made a large pot of Caldo De Pollo for my wife and I to enjoy for the next couple of days. Ours has a slight creole twist to it so folks used to traditional Mexican Caldo will look at it funny, but it's good...

Spent time breaking down family packs of chicken legs and breast into meal sized portions, and sealing them up in vacuum seal bags, think Foodsaver type machine. Stuffed them back in the deep freeze.

Installed the Steak Saver I ordered onto the shower. Set the borrowed one aside to return to my friend I borrowed it from so he can have it back before his next BBQ...

Received the ordered reflective paracord. I messed up and ordered black instead of blue. I intended to order blue. Filed the return to Amazon, Ordered the blue...

I need to get the cat off of the craft table so I can repaint / touch up my studio clock. I have a shadow box art wall clock that suffered at the hands of paint splatter and some finish nicks. I actually like the rough look, the wife however HATES it...

I need to get the car going again, head to the laundromat to wash the doggie beds. He has 2 of them, and they are way too big for our front load machine at home so laundromat it is...

Having more discussion with my wife. I believe I mentioned it here plenty of times, but my ideal for camping is a dedicated off road camper on a flatbed on my existing truck, but my wife has been resistant to the idea, until she brought it up on her own last night.

Discussion was thus...

She wants a full size SUV, something with the cush of an Escalade, but without the likelihood of carjacking. I am thinking a Taho LTZ with 4x4. She asked about hauling stuff for home repair, we discussed loading and payload on the truck, and towing...

She mentioned. "It sounds like we'd be better off with a little trailer to haul stuff and just camper the truck..."

As you wish... Now where is the evilgrin emote?

If I can keep her onboard with going flatbed based camper, I can finish up refurbing these pop ups and put them on the market to sell, and hopefully make enough profit to fund a good portion of the camper build... Life is odd, quirky, and apparently does NOT follow a script of how I think it should go...

[dbhosttexas]

Watching the tropics with a LOT more concern. There is a system forming in the Atlantic that seems aimed toward the Gulf of Mexico, and the steering currents are really weak at least right now, meaning chances for it to meander to Houston Metro is actually somewhat high. NOT good for me, better for folks New Orleans east though...

Oh well, it is that time of year again so I guess roll with it. May have to futz with the camping gear sooner than I expected.

[Tom&Shelly]

Just got back from a week long camping trip to Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, with visits to Gettysburg and Harrisburg, and a visit with friends in Philadelphia, including a trip across the river to the battleship New Jersey. (We'll color in NJ even though we didn't camp there.) Will post pictures in a few days. (Pine Grove Furnace may be our favorite camping so far this Summer!)

Tom

[pchast]

finished a publicity and organizational meeting for a "celebration of woodworking"
In Kingston, NY.

14thsingle .pdf

(91.76 KiB) Downloaded 42 times

[lfhoward]

Just got back from a week long camping trip to Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, with visits to Gettysburg and Harrisburg, and a visit with friends in Philadelphia, including a trip across the river to the battleship New Jersey. (We'll color in NJ even though we didn't camp there.) Will post pictures in a few days. (Pine Grove Furnace may be our favorite camping so far this Summer!)

Tom

I am in eastern PA but have never stayed at Pine Grove Furnace. I’m always looking for great new camping spots! What did you like about it?

[Tom&Shelly]

Just got back from a week long camping trip to Pine Grove Furnace State Park in Pennsylvania, with visits to Gettysburg and Harrisburg, and a visit with friends in Philadelphia, including a trip across the river to the battleship New Jersey. (We'll color in NJ even though we didn't camp there.) Will post pictures in a few days. (Pine Grove Furnace may be our favorite camping so far this Summer!)

Tom

I am in eastern PA but have never stayed at Pine Grove Furnace. I’m always looking for great new camping spots! What did you like about it?

Very forested, including trees between the campsites. (In the next day or two I'll get some pictures downloaded and posted.) We were going to stay there three nights, but decided to extend by two more and used the time to hike a few trails. It is in a state forest, with many more trails that we may go back to explore.

I literally picked it off the map because it looked like the closest state park to Gettysburg--about 45 minutes from there, as well as 45 minutes to an hour from Harrisburg. From the park we took the turnpike to Audubon PA (near Valley Forge) and that only took about two and a half hours.

One minor complaint--the showers work by push button, had to hold the button in to get water. Made washing our backs an interesting exercise!

Tom

[noseoil]

Installed a new battery yesterday afternoon in the trailer. The old one went about 6 years (Trojan AGM group 27) & I'm hoping to get another 6 years out of the new one. Settled on a Wally's World H8 AGM, which seems to be about the best value for $ & size. The H8 has a longer footprint than the group 27 (nearly 14" long, compared to the 12.05" Trojan), so I had to pad the bottom of the box with an extra 1 1/4" of height so it would fit. Fortunately, there's enough room for it & it's in place with the wires hooked up & it's fastened down to the floor again.

Never thought 65# could feel so heavy! The "new" battery was about $200 with new cable ends (no lugs on the H8 battery for screw-down wires, core charge & tax). A Trojan is about $275 now before tax...

[dbhosttexas]

Paid work, busy day for office work today. Received the reflective paracord in Electric Blue. Okay the MFG calls it Lake Blue. I call it electric blue. I have never seen a lake this vibrant of a blue...

Spent some time in Sketchup playing with the models for the camper build. If RJ Howell is watching this, can you share a link to your models for your build? That would save me a TON of time, although I would make some changes obviously...

[dbhosttexas]

Still having trouble with the car. Just metered the battery, 12.01v. I am not getting any charging system lights, but the battery drain happened rapidly while driving. Put it back on the battery charger and will test the charging system this afternoon.

Tracing out a pattern for a travel case for the Camplux 5L, and associated components instead of a variety of stuff sacks.

In order to make this work I need to get to a fabric shop and source up some padded type fabrics like what Coleman used for their soft lantern cases. Assuming I can source it up, and figure out how best to sew it up. I am figuring 2 compartments, 1 for the heater, 1 for the hoses and fittings. My sewing machine is kind of junk but I will try to make it work.

IF I have to, I will source up cheap movers blankets as the padded fabric and double it up with fabric glue to get the thickness I want.

Verified the Camplux 5L gas input is standard BBQ flare size, verified that the Joolca Gasknect quick connect set fits this, ordered the Gasknect.

This means for just about $225.00 I have replicated the NOMAD kit features with modifications I would have wanted on the nomad kit anyway. I.E. longer hoses, massively important to me. It's all quick connect. Now for the fun part. Find a 12' M throwaway to BBQ fitting propane hose so I can connect this thing to the distribution tree and put a little distance betewen the kitchen and bathroom...

Ongoing troubleshooting of the car, alternator looking very suspect, but still very odd behavior.

Sigh. So much to do, so little time and finances... Bleh.

Update prior to going to bed. Tested out the car. Absolutely the alternator is NOT working. Pulled said alternator, looked at serpentine belt, decided it is time. Ran out of daylight and my trouble light went bad a while back. 35 year old Snap on flourescent, I guess it was time to retire it. Need a new one. Need to get an Uber to go to Oreilley to swap said alternator out, and then grab serpentine belt, some fresh hoses, and just maybe a trouble light...

[TimC]

Back to my Boondocking site north of Iron Mtn. A little light rock climbing to get into the site but heaven in a sprinkly rain...

80 and sunshine this afternoon and 75 and pure sun tomorrow God willing.

[dbhosttexas]

Back to my Boondocking site north of Iron Mtn. A little light rock climbing to get into the site but heaven in a sprinkly rain...

80 and sunshine this afternoon and 75 and pure sun tomorrow God willing.

Gorgeous! That teardrop is perfectly at home right there!

[TimC]

My brother's newly finished but never really done teardrop along with me. Its a beauty! Its the result of my efforts on build #2 that he took over and finished. He's hooked as well.

[dbhosttexas]

Had a friend run me to Oreilly and swapped out the dead alternator. Finished my work day. Bolted up the altnerator.

Was unable to source up the serpentine belt locally. I am not super picky about a lot of things, but I have never had a good experience with anything but Gates, Dayco, and OEM such as AC Delco or Motorcraft belts and hoses... So I ordered a Gates on Amazon and it should be here tomorrow.

Trying to find the hoses. Again only house brand locally. Might just stab it back together and head to the Chevy dealer to get OE hoses...

Spent some time working on design for the camper. Going over RJ Howells overlander build.

His design is close to what I want to do. Not spot on, but close...

[dbhosttexas]

Still somewhat early-ish in the day, but so far. Work for my job work, discovered a Rock Auto box in my workshop and whaddya know, I have a serpentine belt and hoses for the car. Installed the alternator,

Pulled the water pump with some effort, As soon as the pulley came off I could tell that is absolutely where my leak was coming from. I had to use an extension and a mallet to pop the seal as it was glued on with gobs of RTV sealant.

Spent WAY too lnog with a razor blade, rag and mineral spirits getting the gasket mating surface clean, smeared on a thin coat of RTV to each side of the paper gasket, installed gasket to pump, then pump and gasket to engine block.

Cleaned up the gobs of gack under the water pump pulley, and reinstalled it. Swapped out the idler as it was squeaking a bit too. Then threw on the serpentine belt.

I was getting too hot and sweaty for my wifes liking so I came back in, checked prorgress of the jobs at work, and then came back here...

Since my wife doesn't want to wait until the car is back up and happy, we ordered grocery delivery, that took way too #$*% much time.

At some point this afternoon / evening I will be swapping the radiator hoses, reinstalling the MAF sensor, and airbox, filling the cooling system, reconnecting the battery and giving it a good go.

Because of the bad knee, I think I am just going to give the engine a touch of some Marvel mystery oil and drive it down to get the oil changed instead of crawling around on the ground, struggling to jack and stand the car up, drain the oil then struggle with the reverse process. I HATE having a damaged knee and unhappy back...
At some point this afternoon / evening.

Update, hit a slow point, so went out and swapped upper and lower radiator hoses. Nothing quite like having to remove the headlights to be able to get to the radiator side of the clamps...

I sure do miss 1960s - 1980s full size V8 front engine / rear wheel drive cars. Although power sucked, 70s full size cars had so much space under the hood I could climb into the engine compartment and work on the car easily...

[tony.latham]

Me? I took the rod for a walk.





Tony