Behold the Donkervoort D8 GTO.
Wednesday, December 21, 2011
Monday, December 19, 2011
Have I ever mentioned I hate electrical work?
Those of you who know me, know my beloved old 1996 Jeep Cherokee. While mechanically I've had very few problems with my Jeep, even including several trips across the country (from Pennsylvania to Nevada 6 times, with side trips to the Pacific coast, and several trips to the Atlantic coast), recently the age, and Northern love of piling salt on the roads during winter have started taking their toll.
Mysteriously a couple of months ago all my exterior lights quit working. After telling myself I was going to troubleshoot it myself I finally bit the bullet and decided to go to a shop. $405 later I had function headlights! But the gages no longer worked, and the turn signals were pretty iffy.
Going the simple route I decided to check fuses for a gauge fuse, and sure enough there was one fuse that provided protection to all the gauges. I pulled it, and it was NOT burned out. I replaced it anyway and viola! Gauges.
On to the blinker. Since they were intermittent, I thought it seemed like a blinker relay problem. New blinker at NAPA $20... blinkers! for about 5 miles, then intermittent again. Frustrated I go after the blinker fuse. Book says it's in slot 8. Pull perfectly fine fuse from slot 8, but notice that there are only contacts on one side of the terminal. Think to myself "that's odd, shop must have screwed that up when they worked on it" but just for fun, I pulled the fuse and tried the blinker... well... the blinker worked. On to plan B
Started pulling fuses with the blinker running until I touched one... did not pull the fuse, but the blinker stopped... wiggled it and blinker came on again. A Ha! Pulled the fuse and only the plastic portion came off in my hand. Off to the garage to get pliers and remove the rest of the fuse. Fuse out, and no blinkers... put the new fuse from slot 8 into slot 10... blinkers! reliably! Consult the owners manual to see what slot 10 is... "Empty".
So, on the day that my Jeep was built in 1995... I think some assembly worker just decided to have some extra fun when he wired up the fuse block.
Mysteriously a couple of months ago all my exterior lights quit working. After telling myself I was going to troubleshoot it myself I finally bit the bullet and decided to go to a shop. $405 later I had function headlights! But the gages no longer worked, and the turn signals were pretty iffy.
Going the simple route I decided to check fuses for a gauge fuse, and sure enough there was one fuse that provided protection to all the gauges. I pulled it, and it was NOT burned out. I replaced it anyway and viola! Gauges.
On to the blinker. Since they were intermittent, I thought it seemed like a blinker relay problem. New blinker at NAPA $20... blinkers! for about 5 miles, then intermittent again. Frustrated I go after the blinker fuse. Book says it's in slot 8. Pull perfectly fine fuse from slot 8, but notice that there are only contacts on one side of the terminal. Think to myself "that's odd, shop must have screwed that up when they worked on it" but just for fun, I pulled the fuse and tried the blinker... well... the blinker worked. On to plan B
Started pulling fuses with the blinker running until I touched one... did not pull the fuse, but the blinker stopped... wiggled it and blinker came on again. A Ha! Pulled the fuse and only the plastic portion came off in my hand. Off to the garage to get pliers and remove the rest of the fuse. Fuse out, and no blinkers... put the new fuse from slot 8 into slot 10... blinkers! reliably! Consult the owners manual to see what slot 10 is... "Empty".
So, on the day that my Jeep was built in 1995... I think some assembly worker just decided to have some extra fun when he wired up the fuse block.
Wednesday, December 14, 2011
Land of the Free
So I saw this mentioned on HLN this morning
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/12/13/ntsb-wants-to-ban-mobile-phone-use-in-cars-across-the-country/
While I would welcome the opportunity to drive on roads not infested with texting, internet surfing "commuters", if taken by their word this would also preclude use of GPS systems, MP3 Players etc. While GPS *can* be a distraction, it can ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflso help you avoid distraction since you won't have to be consulting your printed or hand written directions and watching closely for road signs.
In the near future a "hand held" cell phone ban is going to take effect for commercial vehicle drivers, requiring us to use a bluetooth or other hands-free system. That seems like a far more logical route to take as far as keeping ones eyes on the road, and hands available to keep control of the vehicle.
While the traffic fatalities related to "distracted driving" are clearly unacceptable, it seems like there should be a more logical way to correct this situation. I will be interested to see what the outcome is as this moves forward.
http://www.autoblog.com/2011/12/13/ntsb-wants-to-ban-mobile-phone-use-in-cars-across-the-country/
While I would welcome the opportunity to drive on roads not infested with texting, internet surfing "commuters", if taken by their word this would also preclude use of GPS systems, MP3 Players etc. While GPS *can* be a distraction, it can ahttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.giflso help you avoid distraction since you won't have to be consulting your printed or hand written directions and watching closely for road signs.
In the near future a "hand held" cell phone ban is going to take effect for commercial vehicle drivers, requiring us to use a bluetooth or other hands-free system. That seems like a far more logical route to take as far as keeping ones eyes on the road, and hands available to keep control of the vehicle.
While the traffic fatalities related to "distracted driving" are clearly unacceptable, it seems like there should be a more logical way to correct this situation. I will be interested to see what the outcome is as this moves forward.
Wednesday, December 7, 2011
Too much to do
If anyone still reads this, I'm sorry to have not been more active recently. I moved in July 2010, and got married in July 2011 so I've been busy! The good news is I've started racing, and the home-life is starting to settle down (a little), so hopefully I'll be able to get back into the swing of things here.
If you want an update on the racing side of that, my brother was kind enough to do some write up over on his blog some time ago.
http://broketoe.blogspot.com/2010/09/race-cars-kids-marawage-and-other.html
Done a little since then that I will try to update on soon!
Time for some car content.
If you want an update on the racing side of that, my brother was kind enough to do some write up over on his blog some time ago.
http://broketoe.blogspot.com/2010/09/race-cars-kids-marawage-and-other.html
Done a little since then that I will try to update on soon!
Time for some car content.
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