All posts by Nom de Plume

Life Lessons

 

Okay, this month’s post is not going to be a rant about how the world is falling apart. Nor is it likely to really fit into the “Living Off the Grid” category. This one is about passing on information to the next person in hopes that they do not end up with the mess I have.

The topic is Blower Motor Resistors.

First let me state that I hate working with anything that greasy & oily. Give me a piece of wood and there is not much I can not do with it and I am in hog heaven, but I detest machinery. But because I am cheap, I have a grand desire to learn anything new, & it is very difficult to find someone you trust to work on your vehicle. I tend to do a lot of work myself. My newest endeavor into the world of auto mechanic is a blower fan that stopped working. I figured the blower motor itself was fine, there was sickening sound that you hear of metal on metal when a spinning object is about to die. My first assumption was that it was the control switch in the cab going bad.

IMG_4097 - Copy

I had lost the first three settings of the fan control some time ago. And yes, I should have researched the issue back then, hence why I am telling you all this in hopes that you gain an advantage from my stupidity. I finally lost the highest setting a couple of days ago. Not wanting to be without the mighty blast of northern cool air that usually baths me like the music of an Ice Cream truck coming down the street. I jumped into researching how to replace the control panel.

I quickly found out that the most common, and easiest to replace, problem when a blower motor stops running is a burnt out resistor. Now, if you are like me and have limited auto mechanics experience, but have computer knowledge. A resistor looks like this:

3_Resistors

Well, to my surprise, and a new lesson of the day, they come in other forms. My blower motor resistor looks like this when all shiny and new:

s-l300 - Copy

According the various YouTube videos I watched, these thing have tendency to burn out over time due to heat build up, use, and moisture. I learned I made two mistakes that I can determine from what I have learned from the videos and web forums. If you go back to image 1, you can see that to shut the fan off, the right most control needs to be pointing towards Santy Claus, North, or straight up to the “Off” position. Well, even on times when I was not actually using the heat or the ac, I would never move that control to the off position, I would just turn the fan control to the lowest speed. This was not good. This allowed the fan to operate, thus allow electricity to flow through the resistor and shortening its lifespan. So the lesson here is clearly, shut of the fan when not using it. Do not be a lazy bastard like myself who refuses to acknowledge the existence of that elusive far right control (it’s a lefty thing). My second mistake was not looking into the issue when I lost the first fan setting. This was the resistor telling me it is not feeling well, it could a check up, a little love. But I ignored it, which caused it to work harder, thus get hotter. The end result to all this is a welded mess of metal and plastic.

Removing the resistor from its location was easy enough. For mine, two small screws, resistor and wiring harness come right out. Now, removing the resistor from the wiring harness, not so easy. This was the results of tearing the resistor from its plastic male base;

IMG_4090

After the resistor itself was drawn and quartered, leaving the male base:

IMG_4091

which pulled right off of the female harness without a single cry of objection;

leaving the female wiring harness. This was the failure point;

Being that my beautful baby is working on her 17th year, finding parts tends to lead me to RockAuto.com because local auto stores tend to not have anything but the most replaced items in stock. Waiting a few days for parts to come in is nothing to cry over, but i could have saved myself having to replace the wiring harness end had I checked on why I lost fan speed when it was first indicated.

Hope you all benefit from my life lesson.

Love & Light

 

Live, Love, LAUGH OUT LOUD

Hello America

Nom de Plume here, Ishimo says that he received “some” positive comments from my last post and that I should post some more. Personally I think they be crazy or maybe Ish is just trying to get me to give out free advice I could be getting paid for from said crazies (if they had money). Either way, if i make one person laugh so hard that they pee their pants, it’s all worth it. Because honestly, who doesn’t like to laugh so freely that you split a gut, where you are screaming “Stop it, Stop it” because you are just trying to catch your breath.

Gonna Pee, Stop It

Personally, I see less of that now than 30 years ago. Used to be I could be walking down a busy street and catch someone laughing so uncontrollably that it would infectious, others would smile, then start laughing (having no idea what they were laughing about) and soon you would have a very happy group. And what a great start to a day that would make if you could have a good laugh early in the morning, the whole day just seemed easier to take.

Laugh until your belly hurts

Now when I walk down a crowded street, while avoiding being run down by all the people looking down at the their smartphones, all I see is the occasional smile while someone just typed “LOL” into an app. Socialization has become a series of bits and bytes with no true emotion attached to it. Reminds me of a couple I know, almost 30 years my junior, that I witnessed get in argument, they were 3 feet apart, and they texted their comments back and forth instead of just looking at each other face to face and discussing their problems. Admittedly, I do not get it. Granted i grew up in a time before the invention of cellphones, (anyone remember party lines?) But I was ahead of the curve with technology. My father being a Professor of Computer Sciences, I was thrown into the world of computers and the “internet” back in its infancy. I remember tagging along with my father as a boy to where he worked and if the computer was free (back then it was an IBM 1130, it took up the space of two university rooms), I was allowed to jump on and communicate with other education and government entities that were connected back then. It was simplistic, green monochromatic screen, key card punch keyboard, and basic turned based conversations. But this experience did not deter me from wanting human contact. On the contrary, it made me want to meet the person at the other end so much more. So at what point did technology turn people into hermits that will not even have a discussion with their spouse face to face? Where are we heading when someone needs help and all they can get is “a like and a share” when what they need is a helping hand and a hug.

laugh-out-loud_14271

Although slightly off topic, I believe this next story is still inline with what I am babbling on about. Earlier this week I was at Walmart, doing some Walmartian hunting, the cart I grabbed had a pink leather item in it. I picked it up, opened it and found it was someone’s high end smartphone, all the IDs, credit cards, etc. and I assume their cash (I did not check that deep). I did not mull over what I would do with it, I did not sway back and forth as to whether I would sell the phone and IDs and keep whatever valuable I could use. I instead immediately headed to the Customer Service Desk to turn it in. That is in itself, in my opinion, should not be any big deal. My mother raised me to do what is right “If it was yours, what would you want someone to do”. But what surprised me was the reaction I got from the line of people behind me when they witnessed me turn in the item to customer service. People were agast, comments were being said like “wow, what a good guy” “you just turned that wallet in?” and many others that kind of put me back for a moment. I had to take a minute to process it all and then I had to say out loud to everyone in line. “What surprises me is that you are shocked that someone would do the right thing, and does that mean by your reaction, that you, yourselves, would not have done the right thing?” It is a sad, sad thing that society is actually de-evolving.

images

In closing, all I ask of every person who reads this rabble, go out and hug someone, hug a loved one, hug a stranger and hug life. Then find someone, anyone, and go have a conversation about anything and finally if you can muster up the strength, make someone laugh till they pee their pants, offer them a towel or another pair of pants and then laugh about that.

Love & Light

Nom de Plume

 

Animated_Sniper_Cat-1

NO ONE, but no one, uses my litter box but me!

Just Filling In (don’t kill the messenger)

Goooooood Moorrrrnnnning America!

It seems technology has failed Ishimo yet again and I have been tasked with entertaining you in this issue of “An Off Grid Adventure”.

So, let me first apologize, as english was my lowest graded class in all 16 years of “paid” education. I will do my best with current grammar checkers, spelling checkers, and a few trips to Checkers to try to make this as readable as possible. Considering the anticipated nuclear reaction to my non sequitur view point, I am going to stay incognito and you can just refer to me as Nom de Plume, of course related to the Long Island Plumes, going way back to the Plumes from across the big pond.Plume-NB

Next on the agenda, I was sent a text, well really a waterfall of texts, from Ziggy asking me to put in a few things Ish refuses to post for him. First, Ziggy says he is not getting the expected amount baloney, snausages, & and general treats he would have thought he would have gotten from such a large fan base. So he is sending out another plea for goodies. Claiming he is deserving of them because when you have a smeller that is 100 times more effective than a humans and he has to smell them, there should be a payoff. So message passed on, you all take it as you see fit

.dog-nose-rottweiler

As for out on the ranch. Ish has hopefully made a deal to trade trees for clearing. The back 40 may soon see waves of amber. Draining from the culverts is still progressing to a positive result. With any luck the great flood may recede by 2025. Which of course will mean the property will become “valuable” and the rich will come in, force the taxes up, and the good hard working out. Remember when only the “poor” had small paned windows because that is all they could afford? Now you have to make a six figure paycheck to afford a 6 over 6 window pane. Do not get me wrong, I am not disparaging the notion of making money, it just seems wrong to me when people of lesser means find a way to do something, a place to call home, or create an amazing meal with little. And then a bunch of hoity toity come along, they find they like the idea, the place, or the food. And within ten years all of sudden you have to part of the “in” crowd to afford the idea, place, or food. But here I am rambling on because of well placed culverts. <Pay no attention to the crazy behind the curtain>.

Picture-31

Ish is still attempting to get the shower in, hard to get it done alone and the people who want to help (aka: Nom de Plume) are just too far away to swing in and assist. I am though hoping to stay at the Ishimo8 someday. Anyone who knows Ish, knows you could not ask for a better friend. Back to the shower….., Ziggy has made complaints about Ish not getting the shower in also (the nose thing I suppose).

imgres

I can not post any pictures of the Ishimo8, as I am here, not there. But I have chosen some random pictures from the internet to please your third sense.

b0784f28469192d8de938c292d7ddd0f

Hope you all well

Love & Light