flagmanruss

I can consistantly get better mpgs out of the truck than the wife... because I plan ahead. I preposition myself in the correct lane. I coast down when I'm going to stop. I let the speed drop a little climbing hills and I feather the pedal as I crest. Even coasting, get off the go pedal... truck will coast just fine unless you are running heavy. (My mpg sucked towing my monster camper because the windage kept it from coasting even on steep grades.) I'd say lightening your load & reducing windage is the frst step.

I have serious rust problems under my truck / suspension parts. I'm going to use POR15... a system used my antique car restorers. I know people who have used this. The POR15 must be top coated to block ultraviolet. It's widely available from automotive sources and even Amazon. The internet is your friend. I've never used the POR myself so I bought a small kit to test on my current trailer project.

Started doing it only when warmed up when it dropped to idle at a light... now coming on @ 1000 rpm... slowing down, coasting, etc. I don't know if I have test guages any more. It could be the switch failing. Or I could be flirting with a catastrophic failure.I do have a coolant leak in the heater core but the temp guage reads normal...

So I bought this little trailer... http://forum.mopar1973man.com/threads/5385-Bought-a-trailer-Hope-this-wasn-t-a-mistake I'm determined to fix it so I won't have to fix it again. So I am going to run all the wiring in protective plastic tubing... Naturally, the holes through the angle iron frame are not big enough. MamaMia! This trailer is built of the toughest steel I've seen. I managed to enlarge the existing wire holes... one step at a time through my drill-dex, slow turning 1/2" drill and cutting oil. Now I'm trying to drill holes to tap to mount my cushioned clamps (tap drill for 1/4-20). If I could get a pilot hole, I could probably enlarge it. I've been using my old HHS drill-dex, and a new Home Store set... The angle iron is just dulling the drills in a single hole. What kind of drill bit do I need?

I will tell you that, like Iraq & Pakistan which we have reluctantly learned much of in recent years, Africa is largely tribal. Our daughter married an African from Cote d'Ivoire which you might know has been wracked by a long running Civil War, a disrespected (Internationally monitored) election, an outgoing President who had to be deposed by force. My Son in Law, has had a privledged education... educated in Paris, Geneva & US. He has 2 Masters degrees in International studies. My SIL & daughter have just adopted his orphaned niece, now 8. His brother was one of those who disappeared and presumed murdered by one of the militias that overran their villiage. His body was not recovered. Americans can not relate to being targeted for murder because we belonged to the "wrong" tribe. The closest I can compare is being a white guy in Roxbury (Boston, Ma). I don't care if all of Africa is a mountain of GOLD... I do not believe the US should engage in combat there. The Lord knows we have had enough of ill advised wars. However, so much violence remains along tribal lines... and the tribes in power (think Sadam) have enriched their followers at the expense of other groups. It may never change. Those rescued children have grown to adulthood in the IDP camps. We have supported Child Voice international who for $50 will LOAN the funds for a woman who has been to their school, chosen and learned a trade (tailor, baker, hair, buying/reselling food) and assitance with starting her business, be basics of finicial statements (income/loss/profits) and saving... and making payments on her loans... http://www.globalgiving.org/projects/childvoice/ This is not a hand-out but a Hand Up. Koni is still out there... he is weakened but is still raiding villages. Stealing what he wants, taking children... It's all he knows. I feel strongly that the US should NOT go after him but rather support AFRICAN forces to bring their scourage to justice. "First they came for the ****, but I did not speak out ... "

No, the LRA is not new. If the countries of Africa cared about their own people, Kony would have been stopped long ago. The US should NOT hunt down Kony. The US and other responsible governments need to encourage & support... give technical assistance... as they have to coordinate African forces on both sides of the frontiers. The US has provided radio base stations to remote villages so attacks can be promptly reported & swiftly responded to. http://childvoiceintl.org/response-to-the-kony-2012-campaign/ Child Voice is on the ground in Kampalla. My daughter/sil were there with CV. My wife was part of a group who traveled to Kampalla, each bringing an additional suitcase of needed supplies. This picture was taken at the memorial at Lukodi where Joseph Kony and his LRA army massacred 50 people and distroyed their village and school in 2004! KONY must be stopped! This killing has been going on for 25yrs !!! Invisible Children is working toward this end! Child Voice is re-habilitating the child mothers scarred by KONY. (Wife wearing cowboy hat).

My daughter & her then finacee' (now husband) spent a year (2009) in Northern Uganda on a mission project for Child Voice International... helping rebuild a school and working with the former child sex slaves. The school itself was riddled with bullet holes, where the previous students & teachers were murdered... buried outside. It is worse than the press has reported. This movement is very necessary.African politics is very corrupt. It is about making the rich richer & the have nots, are ignored. The Ugandan North was not of interest & probably is not now except for international pressure. These people of the North, families & children, have no value to the rich. Even now, the rescued girls/women (and men) are living in IDP camps... (Internally Displaced Persons... one is a refugee only if you cross borders). The atrocities are unspeakable. The LRA would capture children... force them at gunpoint to murder their own parents or neighbors, ensuring they would not run away. Who would want them? They could never be trusted. The girls, the younger the better (for fear of AIDS), were raped or coersed to be "wives" of Koni's soldiers... Who would want them after they had children of the enemy? These young women & girls were who my daughter worked with. They walked out of the bush with the clothes on their backs & their babies. They have nothing. They live in fear of being recaptured. When my daughter/sil was there, they had an emergency escape route planned by Child Voice... there was not adequate Army troops present to guarentee safety. At one point the solders that were there went on alert & all the aid workers were prepared to bug out. Koni has eluded capture by hiding & moving through the jungle between Uganda, Congo, & Sudan. International pressure is needed to coordinate efforts by all the African countries to run Koni to ground. There is no other way. Koni has repeatedly used negociations & "peace talks" to regroup & rearm.Some have noted that this movement Koni 2012 is only spending 1/3 of their money on the children in Uganda. But Child Voice & other NGO groups have formed based on the information put out there even before this latest blitz. The bulk of the Koni2012 funds are being used to bring this movement to the forefront of International awareness. (Child Voice and other NGOs raise their own funds which go directly to the children & schools. Our family members paid their own transportation to / from Africa.) With the world in recession... it would be easy to cut this program. Only last year, the US deployed 100 Special Forces to Africa to train & coordinate African Forces to root out Koni. The building schools & caring for children is putting our fingers n the dike when what is needed is to stop the leak. If there were precious minerals or oil here, this would have been solved years ago. It's time the US did something (support the African countries) because it was right. Climbing down from my soap box...Russ

Dear Daughter got her elderly (& somewhat eccentric) Aunt's 02 Buick Century last night. The car is not at hand. The car has been losing coolant for a year or so. The coolant loss must be external as no sign of oil contamination. Aunt mumbled something about a "head gasket" but has also said "manifold". Aunt really doesn't remember well & wouldn't recognize anything under the hood anyway. (Hope I'm doing this well at 87!) Daughter noted the heater barely put out anything on low & moved cold air on high. Temp guage showed mid-range when wife drove the car. I know the first thing is to find & fix the coolant leak. I Googled it & found a TSB for failed intake manifold gaskets. Apparently the new antifreeze was not compatible with the original gasket material. Re-engineered gaskets are availible. The TSB also indicates new bolts with thread locker (Loc Tite) to avoid bolts backing out.I wonder if the original bolts could be reused with added LocTite or if these are stretch bolts? What about the heat?

I opted to keep the stock filter housing, installed a new filter but replaced the restrictive stock fittings with fittings from Vulcan. It may be "extra" but so be it. It keeps the water in fuel active as well. (If I get water through the AD separator, I'm in real trouble!) All good!

When I'm back & forth working around the truck, I also pull the key out just enough to shut the dinger off. Warning!! Unlock both doors when you do. One time I must have bumped the lock plunger getting out & locked myself out. Inconvenient. Russ

Sweet Ride!!

After the corners are together, the straight cuts are easy to measure. Sometimes it is any port in a storm.

Welcome. Describe your rig in your signature, we can help you more.

Suggest putting the biggest size that'll fit in the tray.

I had a easier solution... when I was much younger, I insulated the piping in my first house. I made the cuts in a mire box. Did the corners first. Then measured & added the straight runs, only needed to read the tape!

She said "I don't feel safe". She did not act on her intuition. Honestly, very often I have plunged ahead when I felt things going to crap. More recently, I have tried to dial back on days when I have these feelings. Try to avoid sharp power tools... put off critical decisions... avoid long trips...

Is your trailer plug factory wired on the truck side? If so it will include the ground. If not, look for a wire from the plug to the truck frame. Be sure the plug has a good ground. Then the same on the trailer side. The trailer's plug should be factory but doesn't mean it's not broke. A lot of small trailers have ground problems between truck & trailer. I've lost count of the intermittant light problems traced to the actual ground being through the ball & reciever.

I haven't done the pipes in my new (used) Tahoe Toy Hauler trailer. There is access to very little of the piping including the cross over ducking under the floor. The underneath has a stiff fabric which I've supposed was for wind drag.My old 5th wheel, Scamper camper came with all the copper piping freeze cracked. (Trail had been owned by my inlaws previous to that. The seller said he'd "Never used the camper"... neglected to say he'd filled it with water & let it freeze!) I replaced the piping with Quest which I'd had good luck with on boats. The cross over was through the step to the gooseneck. That fall I had the water system freeze over night even with the heat on, I was living in it the year I got divorced. The next day, I didn't use the water before leaving for the day... I returned "home" to find the water a foot deep, running out the door (after the pipes thawed). I found the ice had pushed the fittings apart in the rear bathroom. I successfully reassembled & it never leaked again. I did shut the water off when I left the trailer after that. The camper was active until Dec 30th when I remarried... I had the trailer tires on planks & down off the jacks. The RV park owner thought I was stuck, going to have to pay rent all winter. I fired up the Chevy C30, Camper Special, built 454... pulled it out through 11 1/2" of snow. The lessons are that there just isn't enough heat in the cabinettes & cubbyholes to keep the pipes from freezing... even with the doors open, there are dead spaces. Where mine was forced apart was in the open though, under the bathroom sink against the wall.

Oh, boy, candy store!! LOL!!

I am very glad your wife is OK. However,In far more cases seat belts save lives. Saved my HS girl friend when her sister lost control on the NY Thuway & hit a light pole base before the days of breakaways... 1963 Chrysler 300. When I saw her naked, the seat belt bruises were most impressive & interrupted our sex life for a time... but she walked away. Same GF & I were wearing seatbelts when I stuffed my Dad's 59 Ford Fairlane under the rear of a Olds 4-4-2 in heavy traffic Christmas week in 1967. I spun out my 68 Plymouth Roadrunner (freakin bias tires it came with), without the seatbelt (vynal bench seat) I'd not have been behind the wheel to recover. I did a bunch of damage to some guys lawn, missed the massive oak trees and his house. More recently, daughter's HS friend (brother of her BBF)... a decent kid, where he should have been, doing what he should have been... driving to a summer job (apprentice to a construction contractor). Pulled the shift knob off his import truck on the interstate ramp, lost control & rolled it. He WAS ejected & is now in a wheelchair. I give him a lot of credit for returning to HS, graduating on time & then College. I always start the vehicle with it off. Then while the oil pressure builds, I buckle up. You've been blessed... make the most of it.Russell

Dropping the knee panel is no biggie. Very few screws along the bottom edge & then it'll pull off the spring retainers higher up. Mine is mounted on the panel to the left. You should be able to see the retangular trailer harness plug behind the e-brake without or before removing the panel & just follow the wires as far as you can toward your controler. If the controler leads go through the knee panel (my controler is to my left when seated & low enough that the leads go under the panel) you will likely have to drop it to confirm they haven't been damaged.

I'm noticing that the springs have only 2 leafs. I'm looking up 2 leaf springs & finding that they're rated for 750-1000 pounds. Do you think this is enough? Springs would be easy to change out with the deck off... don't have to crawl under. I know that's enough for what I'm planning to carry... but yas never know what'll end up on it.

Further research & different search words brought me 2 sources: http://www.etrailer.com/dept-pg-Hitch_Accessories-sf-Pins_and_Clips-pt-Lanyard.aspx http://www.horsetraileraccessorystore.com/hitch_pins.htm I bought from this one & correct product arrived by Priority mail which I didn't pay extra for. Good Source.

The VIN number appears on several components, door stickers, glove box, etc. The thing is in a repair, some damaged components might have no number or a mismatch. I found this on a stolen vehicle court case: "and on a metal surface inside the vehicle, usually within the engine compartment (the confidential VIN). All vehicles bear the public VIN and the federal certification VIN; ninety-five percent bear a confidential VIN. The confidential VIN, which is stamped into the metal of the vehicle, is the most difficult to locate and alter."

I'm still running 1 oz / gal WalMart 2 cycle oil... I don't run the tank way down & refill 1 qt TCW3 bottles to the correct level for a typical fill. Even the wife can add it. I picked up about 1 mpg which is pretty good since I was already feathering the go pedal (mostly). My VP44 survived a lift pump wiring fault... might be because of the lube!