Monday, April 05, 2010

New Battery

Went to breakfast this morning, drove the truck as it has sat for 2 weeks. Started and ran find but the battery was dead when I left the restaurant.

So I am sitting there with no jumper cables - ok I had a set of cables but no tools to connect them. I check and what do you know bingo I have my booster pack. No luck - a slow turn over then click, click, click, click.

I get a jump from someone with cables and I head to Walmart for a new battery. I know the current one is old and I hope Walmart is open on Easter Sunday.

I pick up a new battery $77 - not a great price but they didn't have the smaller 2 yr battery in stock. I head home and turn off the truck - no restart, no radio - deader than dead - some funny relay sounds from the steering column.

I put the charger on the battery for 30-40 minutes - 40 amp fast charge. Just some funny clicking and when I try to start everything goes dead. I try 200 amp boost - click, click, click...

So the battery is dead and not taking a charge or something is wrong with the electrics. It is a no maintenance Motorcraft battery so unless a new battery was installed before 2001 this is the original battery - it lasted 13 years. The old battery comes out and I replace the terminal mounts as well. I also install my jumper cable plug - using the post of the hood support to hold it in place.

Everything works - truck cranks and starts great. The hood closes but for the time being I will need to open the hood to use the jumper cable plug. I can close the hood when charging. I have some longer cables to install but I need new plug contacts to solder the new cables to so I can again mount the plug down on the bumper.

I check the charging system, good, the new battery good.  The old battery weak - under 500 cca (was a 750) and around 11.5 volts.  For a 13 year old battery one cannot complain - it got me through the winter with just a little bit of maintenance from the float charger from time to time.  The new battery is a 850cca with a 3 year replacement warranty.  Now I just need to turn the core in for a $9 refund.

My plug jumper cable system installed.  If I had a 7/16 wrench with me today I would have been ready to jump.

 





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Sunday, April 04, 2010

My big old tool box


I unloaded my big tool box this morning. By big - I mean it was built on a pallet to fit in the bed of a PU truck. So now what to do with it?

I did find some missing tools - my glue gun, tap and die set, rotozip circle cutter.

It has a nice set of drawers that I am going to move to another tool cabinet in the garage. (see the last image) It is a little heavy to move without a forklift - it was built on a pallet to serve as a HD box to moved around with a forklift so I could store my tools at work (in the old days) before I had a garage.

About the only idea I have is to mount some pipe or 2/3's and use it as a canoe transport box. The problem is it was never really built to be water proof - it was built to get a little wet but not really for highway use in the rain. With some better hasps it would make a nice storage box for camping and canoeing.

Of course I just now need to figure out how to get it back into the truck - I pushed it out this time.





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