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Thursday, 06/05/03; Brooklyn, Minnesota
Shade Tree Mechanics 101
Originally, our target for today was to have been Monticello, a town northwest of Minneapolis. Instead, we stopped early at this suburb of Minneapolis to continue our car maintenance. Keith still had electrical problems and Dennis needed to pull a rear wheel to tighten the backing plate and shock absorber mounting bracket (the Olson’s car has modern shocks with a non-standard mounting).
On this beautiful sunny day, we had a very pleasant drive. We stopped early in the morning in a small town where Keith was able to purchase a new turn signal switch and some hardware needed to install it. After fighting traffic on the Interstate through St. Paul and Minneapolis, we were glad to arrive in this agreeable little city with a park handy for our noon picnic meal.
Following lunch, the guys found shady spots in the parking lot and began their maintenance tasks. Keith was not happy with his battery ground wire repair done in Dubuque, so he went all the way and crawled under the car. With Dennis’ help, the ground cable was removed and thoroughly cleaned, as was the chassis where it fastened.
Keith operates; Dennis picks up the pieces.
Without a diagram for the turn signal system, Keith had to feel his way. He finally isolated all the wires and thought he knew where each one went. Then he tentatively connected the new switch and tried it out. It didn’t work! It became obvious that the existing blinker module was not intended for the new turn indicator switch! Dennis’ car was operational by this time, so he took off for the nearest Pep Boys auto store and came back with a compatible module; however the store didn’t have the module socket and we had no way to plug it in! Keith “haywired” the module into the circuit. After much frustration, he got the left side to work and the right front, but the right rear stoplight would not function. The switch was removed from the steering column and taken apart in the forlorn hope that it would become clear what the problem was. It was not very clear, but by making some judicious bends in the contacts, the right light would work for the turn indicator, but would not function for the brake light! Since the left stoplight and the stoplight mounted in the rear window worked, the job was halted until the morning as it was getting late. The switch had yet to be reinstalled on the steering column as well as the side panel and insulation behind it. We decided on an 0800 departure to allow for this final reassembly. Notably, the generator and the CB radio were working normally after the ground wire repair!
Before he could get to bed, Keith prepared the next day’s routing instructions for the navigators – his normal task and made contact with the Internet to upload previously written reports and pictures to Pat Burbank. He finally got to bed and fell asleep thinking about the stoplight problem and what might be wrong and the task of getting the maintenance finished in time for departure the next morning.
Keith at work.
The Undaunted Three and a Puzzled Fourth!
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