Itinerant Air Cooled Minneapolis 1
Posted: Sat Jun 20, 2015 8:23 pm
Jun 13/14 Done! llarosa16 ........................ Farmington MN
Jun 16 Done! Belle Plaine .......................... Belle Plaine MN
Jun 17 Done! grifftenstein .......................... Saint Peter MN
Jun 18 Done! llarosa16 ii ............................. Farmington MN
Jun 19a Done! the miz .......................................... Eagan MN
Jun 19b Done! grifftenstein ii ..................... Saint Peter, MN
If you look at the schedule, I have made a lot of stops in a lot of states this June. Somewhere, I lubricated the front suspension and cleaned the brake dust off the front wheels in a cemetery. I wondered if people visiting their dearly departed would take offense. Didn't have long to wonder. At maximum Can't Move, Mr. Chevy Pick-up and his wife showed up on the driveway. "Do you think my working here would offend anyone?" "Naw." Well, there you go.
This pedestrian-looking shot of the countryside was actually pretty. The little widdle bright green stripe back there was a most beautiful luminescence. This is the great adjacent countryside of the Great Lakes, pastoral magnificence through four states:
Had to go to Minnesota, so I took a road that followed the upper Mississippi. It is a gorgeous river up here in the Wisconsin Minnesota latitudes, with islands sprinkled through it, and little mountains in the distance, I love it, loved the sunny day, too:
Some of you may remember that I am actually a multi-millionaire who dresses casually . . . .
viewtopic.php?t=2910#p42960
Stopped by my town. I can't remember why they named it after me, hell, I couldn't even remember what state it is in. Couldn't find the mayor to give me the keys to the town.
Camped in a Farmington MN church parking lot. I figured a church wouldn't give me a problem. The impending appointment looked to be challenging, with a shop's repair of llarosa16's 1971 Campmobile wiring not working too well. I arrived in the rain. The bus was parked outside of the garage. "It is dead," she said. I thought to myself, "let's make it undead enough to get it out of the rain and into the garage." I pulled out a couple of lengths of wires from my toolbox and set to work under the dash to make the coil live and juice the starter via the red/black wire nearby. Her younger daughter and friend were looking on as I got the bus started under the dashboard and drove it into the garage. When her daughter's friend's mother came by to pick up her friend, I called after her, "remember the lesson on how to hot-wire any car you want."
The first part of the day was to go through the tune-up procedures. I had a willing and able pupil. Good thing, too. Pupil and professor would be exercised but good before this visit wrapped up . . .
In the rainy day darkness of the garage, we had a mess of green wires and splices and toggles to actuate the turn indicators. Since the fusebox is crammed up under the windshield on the driver's side on the 1971 bus, next to the windshield wiper linkage, it is a total impossibility to track wires. I made it more accessible with these easy steps:
Whilst I tore into the dash, she tore into the brakes. She replaced the left emergency brake cable all by herself. A newbie, a novice, she just did it and it was done. The right cable was intact but did not work at all. We discovered that the cross bar was missing. Entirely.
Lisa turned out to have a crackerjack intelligence with serious focus and great organizational skills, sorely appreciated with this re-wiring job. We both knew that we had to lick this thing. I had been relentlessly critical and coldly condescending about the mess of hack wires and idiot hack fixes that she had paid dearly for, and suddenly it dawned on me that I had blabbed my way into a tight little corner. I had to actually fix this thing, and she had talked me up to her spouse and she needed me to deliver. We had to prevail. There was that moment where I had to jump in with no possible return. Ripping out the green wires was not a reversible operation. Once the toggles and green wires were laying on the floor, we tracked the wires through the original turn signal switch and discovered that the problem that had stymied the shop was a broken wire inside the switch itself. Her younger daughter was instrumental in the successful soldering job on the switch in very tight quarters with a soldering gun that would not shut off (we had to cool it by immersing the tip in my coffee every ten seconds) and my knees proving to be a horrible bench vise.
The Trial By Fire Master Electricians Pose For A Selfie:
With her rapid grasp of the electrical schematics, Lisa was able to guide me through the rat's nest, calling out terminals and wire colors like a pro, and by the end of the afternoon, we had turn indicators, ignition, headlamps that turned on and off with the ignition switch as originally designed, and tail brake lights all working properly:
Except for that small little issue when we hit the dimmer switch and a little smoke happened. The fuse box was not quite in place and the white wire from the emergency flasher switch just let go and we had a smoked out dimmer relay and melted ignition switch. Oh no. We spent the afternoon tearing out the steering column and ignition housing and trying to resurrect the ignition switch and the dimmer relay. No dice. Plastic melts. Melted plastic changes critical dimensions. But Lisa was an eager learner and enjoyed going into these parts to see how they really worked. I was blanching inside at the incredible number of mental notes I was trying to hold in my mind.
The neighbors and friends who stopped by were getting a little quizzical at this continuing display of automotive entropy. The end of Day Two and I am driving the car out of the garage with no dash panel, no steering column, heck, no steering wheel, and a dangling fusebox? It was an ignoble sight as I wrestled the wobbly steering wheel haphazardly plopped on the bare steering shaft, then setting it in the aisle between the seats.
The Master Electricians Both came up with Plan B to procure a new dimmer switch and a new ignition switch and a new appointment slot somewhere in the thicket of Minnesota calls . . . and I was off to more challenges.
Colin
Jun 16 Done! Belle Plaine .......................... Belle Plaine MN
Jun 17 Done! grifftenstein .......................... Saint Peter MN
Jun 18 Done! llarosa16 ii ............................. Farmington MN
Jun 19a Done! the miz .......................................... Eagan MN
Jun 19b Done! grifftenstein ii ..................... Saint Peter, MN
If you look at the schedule, I have made a lot of stops in a lot of states this June. Somewhere, I lubricated the front suspension and cleaned the brake dust off the front wheels in a cemetery. I wondered if people visiting their dearly departed would take offense. Didn't have long to wonder. At maximum Can't Move, Mr. Chevy Pick-up and his wife showed up on the driveway. "Do you think my working here would offend anyone?" "Naw." Well, there you go.
This pedestrian-looking shot of the countryside was actually pretty. The little widdle bright green stripe back there was a most beautiful luminescence. This is the great adjacent countryside of the Great Lakes, pastoral magnificence through four states:
Had to go to Minnesota, so I took a road that followed the upper Mississippi. It is a gorgeous river up here in the Wisconsin Minnesota latitudes, with islands sprinkled through it, and little mountains in the distance, I love it, loved the sunny day, too:
Some of you may remember that I am actually a multi-millionaire who dresses casually . . . .
viewtopic.php?t=2910#p42960
Stopped by my town. I can't remember why they named it after me, hell, I couldn't even remember what state it is in. Couldn't find the mayor to give me the keys to the town.
Camped in a Farmington MN church parking lot. I figured a church wouldn't give me a problem. The impending appointment looked to be challenging, with a shop's repair of llarosa16's 1971 Campmobile wiring not working too well. I arrived in the rain. The bus was parked outside of the garage. "It is dead," she said. I thought to myself, "let's make it undead enough to get it out of the rain and into the garage." I pulled out a couple of lengths of wires from my toolbox and set to work under the dash to make the coil live and juice the starter via the red/black wire nearby. Her younger daughter and friend were looking on as I got the bus started under the dashboard and drove it into the garage. When her daughter's friend's mother came by to pick up her friend, I called after her, "remember the lesson on how to hot-wire any car you want."
The first part of the day was to go through the tune-up procedures. I had a willing and able pupil. Good thing, too. Pupil and professor would be exercised but good before this visit wrapped up . . .
In the rainy day darkness of the garage, we had a mess of green wires and splices and toggles to actuate the turn indicators. Since the fusebox is crammed up under the windshield on the driver's side on the 1971 bus, next to the windshield wiper linkage, it is a total impossibility to track wires. I made it more accessible with these easy steps:
Whilst I tore into the dash, she tore into the brakes. She replaced the left emergency brake cable all by herself. A newbie, a novice, she just did it and it was done. The right cable was intact but did not work at all. We discovered that the cross bar was missing. Entirely.
Lisa turned out to have a crackerjack intelligence with serious focus and great organizational skills, sorely appreciated with this re-wiring job. We both knew that we had to lick this thing. I had been relentlessly critical and coldly condescending about the mess of hack wires and idiot hack fixes that she had paid dearly for, and suddenly it dawned on me that I had blabbed my way into a tight little corner. I had to actually fix this thing, and she had talked me up to her spouse and she needed me to deliver. We had to prevail. There was that moment where I had to jump in with no possible return. Ripping out the green wires was not a reversible operation. Once the toggles and green wires were laying on the floor, we tracked the wires through the original turn signal switch and discovered that the problem that had stymied the shop was a broken wire inside the switch itself. Her younger daughter was instrumental in the successful soldering job on the switch in very tight quarters with a soldering gun that would not shut off (we had to cool it by immersing the tip in my coffee every ten seconds) and my knees proving to be a horrible bench vise.
The Trial By Fire Master Electricians Pose For A Selfie:
With her rapid grasp of the electrical schematics, Lisa was able to guide me through the rat's nest, calling out terminals and wire colors like a pro, and by the end of the afternoon, we had turn indicators, ignition, headlamps that turned on and off with the ignition switch as originally designed, and tail brake lights all working properly:
Except for that small little issue when we hit the dimmer switch and a little smoke happened. The fuse box was not quite in place and the white wire from the emergency flasher switch just let go and we had a smoked out dimmer relay and melted ignition switch. Oh no. We spent the afternoon tearing out the steering column and ignition housing and trying to resurrect the ignition switch and the dimmer relay. No dice. Plastic melts. Melted plastic changes critical dimensions. But Lisa was an eager learner and enjoyed going into these parts to see how they really worked. I was blanching inside at the incredible number of mental notes I was trying to hold in my mind.
The neighbors and friends who stopped by were getting a little quizzical at this continuing display of automotive entropy. The end of Day Two and I am driving the car out of the garage with no dash panel, no steering column, heck, no steering wheel, and a dangling fusebox? It was an ignoble sight as I wrestled the wobbly steering wheel haphazardly plopped on the bare steering shaft, then setting it in the aisle between the seats.
The Master Electricians Both came up with Plan B to procure a new dimmer switch and a new ignition switch and a new appointment slot somewhere in the thicket of Minnesota calls . . . and I was off to more challenges.
Colin