flagmanruss

You'll recall, I've never used antifreeze as a poison, just relating the home made traps others used. I supposed used motor oil would work as well. I've had mice get into my horse's deep metal grain bin & then not be able to get back out. I have tasted antifreeze. Not sure I want to relate but we did so pretty routinely. Of course we spit it out! It is distinctive. I have used moth balls in boats, campers, attic. Not good in attic (wife complained she could smell them). Use them in a paper cup so you can retrieve them.Smelly dryer sheets also seem to work. But remember it doesn't keep them out, just makes them not want to stay. BTW, I have mice in our new (to us) camper. I think they came in from the bottom around the water fill hose. Or maybe the toilet drain line. I'll be trying to pack them with steel wool in the spring. Placing smelly stuff under the hood doesn't work for long as it is open to the air.

I knew that about ethylene glycol... always a danger around a shop & pets. Some people are just plain mean... ought to be shot! I think the mice in the 5 gallon bucket drown first...

Another tale from the crypt... I had to pull an engine out of a twin I/O (Inboard/Outdrive) Bertam 25. As the parts came back, I wirewheeled them & primed & painted before reinstalling. I was worried about charging too much... thought the paint job made it look like we'd done more. I guess we didn't charge enough... the owner wanted me to pull the other engine just to paint it! I did what I could in place. Way too much work for a paint job. Many of you may remember the Mercruiser 120 hp (4 cylinder inline block used in the Chevy2 compact).

The idea was a ramp up to the roller. critter goes out on the roller to get bait, roller goes upside down, splash. critter can't climb out of bucket, swims in circles til he drowns. I think Antifreeze keeps it from stinking?? I hate mice.

I had recently seen testing that debunked the concrete floor issues of years ago. We removed all batteries from the boats in winter storage... put them on plank shelves & rotated trickle chargers among them every few days all winter. Probably had 200 batteries there. This was before the days of battery maintainers, of course. Another prestigeous yacht yard I worked at did the same. I have a trickle charger on my camper with it's bank of 3 RV batteries, my backhoe with it's pair of 6V batteries to make 12... also a trickle charger on that. I run both on a timer to run a couple of hours a day, not ideal but hopefully will not over charge them.I have my mobility scooter which runs on (2) 12V AGM batteries to make 24Volts. 1 of the OEM batteries was junk (probably shorted internally as it steadily lost power just sitting & collapsed under load) but the other tested as new. So I have all 3 of them in the house. I'm rotating a battery maintainer every few days. AGM batteries are very pricy.I have a solar maintainer on the dash of my CTD as it's not used a lot in off season... but it's not really out of service either. I drive it to town every week, just to exercise it. Battery maintainers are more pricy than trickle chargers, but are supposed to be more sophisticated in their analizing ability. I bought one so we'll see if they are worth it down the road.

I think this is really great. I was thinking toggle switch, like everyone else. I had the same concerns about the added wires through the firewall but the relay is an interesting bump forward. Like someone reflected, too bad one must remember to switch back if one wants the grid heaters for starting. (In other words, "not wife friendly!" (Unfortunately, wife subscribes to the plan that what is mine is mine and what is yours is mine also. If you don't think so, start messing in her underwear drawer! LOL! Or better yet, try to use HER Subaru.) Back to the original topic, You guys are way more clever than I am these days... what about using the correct IAT sensor to trigger the intake grids... When the intake grids shut off, triggers the IAT fooler. If it picked up 1 mpg in cold weather, every guy would have to have one. You can sell them & we'll split the royalities and we can all move to a location where the grid heaters never run!Russ

I have heard of people making mouse traps out of a 5 gallon bucket, antifreeze, a roller accross it with peanut butter. I never tried it.

JL, Rugged as a brick outhouse! Great!What's next?

Your 2002 is pretty damn close to my 01.5. I assure you it can be reached from the passenger's footwell right against the hump. It may be a little bit of a PITA but FAR better than pulling the dash. Being as I have a disability & only full use of one hand... I've done it a couple of times, since I did it wrong the first time. Here's the Heater Treater guy on you tube:

After finally getting that costly jewel... you sure don't want to bung it up by dropping it! Be careful! Second the thoughts... not dropping it on yourself. Reminds me of pulling a GM671 with reverse gear & wet exhaust out of a lobster boat... so the owner could take it home to rebuild. The owner freed it up, put his chains on it. We carefully moved the boat into the lift pier by hand. We had an off road fork lift with 10 foot extended, 10 ft negative drop forks. Very handy as a sky hook for lifting engines out from under a cabin roof or flying bridge. We positioned a chain fall over the motor, the owner winched it up out of the engine bay. Once it was above deck, we hand walked the boat out from under it. He turned his truck around (a nicely restored late 60s Chevy) & we drove the fork lift over the back. The engine was about half way in when the chain he had on the reverse gear snapped! Most of the weight went on the tailgate. The tailgate had a big U in it, bent nearly to the ground & pretty much torn off the bed which was also damaged. Fortunately the engine fell between the people (including the owner who had a guiding hand on it when it went. (I bet he changed underwear.) We were so glad that it was HIS chain that broke & not our chain fall!! We picked it up again & finished putting it in his truck. When the engine came back, the engine was on a pallet & the truck had a mis-matched tailgate. The owner was a nice guy... tough break but it could have been worse.

I have a "HD" timer... I've had it a long time. It has 3 prong plugs in & out. If it's really cold, I'll set the timer for 2-3 hours ahead. I made an extra winter with the OEM batteries that way! It's nice to preheat... saves a lot of wear I figure.

I bought a SS 4" turbo back with straight through "muffler"... the OEM head pipe was 3.5" but the tail pipe was smaller. Dang OEM exhaust rotted right out of the muffler. Well, SS pipe won't do that, I hope! Truck sounded nice until I hooked up a heave trailer & took it on the highway for 6 hours. Wife got earplugs for the return trip. I have a FTE SS resonator to put on when it goes in the shop next time. They have great reviews so we'll see.

Is this the door in the passengers foot well? It can be removed without pulling the dash... I have done it myself. The blend door motor can be put in reversed in the case... the dang thing is not marked & is physically reversable... but just won't work right. If removed, the gears must be set to center then reinstalled. The unit will relearn the limits. http://www.heatertreater.net/ sells a replacement coupling & instructions. To drop the actuator, the rug must be pulled back & the rubber padding MUST be cut out. It's no where you'll ever put your feet, so don't sweat it. Then the screws must be removed with a right angle screw driver. It's a PITA but it takes a half hour. I'll walk you through it if we're talking about the same issue. --- Update to the previous post... Once the blend door control module has been removed... inspect the coupler for cracks. The heater treater .NET I had listed sells a simple SS coupler but more importantly the directions to re-orient the sensors. When the coupler breaks, the unit goes out of limit & must be reset. Open the gear case carefully as the actual motor can just fall out on the ground. Put a mark on the motor, as it can fit in the case either way!..As I recall (my copy of the instructions are out in the cold truck), you clean the grease off the bottom gear & find a mold mark on the rim. Set the gears so it is right at the edge of the gear over it. Reassemble. Reinstall. With a few heater cycles, the controler learns the new settings & it the motor is in right, the blend door works. If the motor is in wrong, remove the assembly, open it up again... rotate the motor 180 degrees, reset the gears to center & try again. By now you'll be getting good at installing the cussed screws behind the unit.

Well, I have always heard to replace both paired batteries together. I tried replacing just one & ended up replacing the second shortly after. I need to find a use for the orphaned batteries! LOL!

I've been window shopping the For Sale sites... More confused than ever! I've not been keeping up with the Makes & Models. One divide is the CrossOver SUVs on a unibody type platform VS the traditional Body on Frame (truck based) construction. Even though I'm only planning to plow our own drive, it's a fairly big drive & I'm thinking I would do better to have a more rugged truck based unit. I own a quad cab long bed truck... this needs to be a shorter maneuverable vehicle. Since this is going to be USED, I'm thinking I ought to buy a common popular make that I can get serviced anywhere... it would be a gasser... Sheila's brother owns a used car dealership... So we can get a deal. EVERY used car needs something. Just about anything can be fixed... given time & money. A year ago, Son in Law needed a good car... Sheila borrowed cars & drove them for several days on dealer plates until they found a good one... The rejects got repaired or sent back to the auction.As a starting point, I think I need to invest some time hitting some car lots... and getting in / out / sitting in the seats. Several years ago, my Dad bought a pair of Fords (Dad had vested retirement from Ford) got a hell of a deal... 6 months later they sold them at a loss because the seats were uncomfortable to them. Ya know with the severe rust underneath my truck... I don't know if I could buy another Chrysler product. I've basically been a Chrysler man... Sadly the only one that appeals to me so far is a 93 Blazer. But I'm still early in the process...

Cool!!

This would have been late 70s 7 truck wasn't new... might have been 60s. In any event, retrofitting required changes. I was into fast cars & diesel trucks came later.

I wish I'd thought to take pictures... back in late 70s a guy I did business with dropped a Detroit 4-53 into a Chevy pickup. It was mean!! I know they had oil pan cross member issues but the guy was a welder so he solved it somehow.

I was able to drive the CTD with the front brakes so rusted... expanded edges fragged on the caliper frame. Truck drove fine. MPG sucked. Dealer state inspected & checked out my poor & falling mpg complaint. It passed inspection & the repair slip said "no codes". Much later a old school garage found it... I've also had the e brake cable Y adjuster rust completely off.

I gotta agree. I only have the OEM wheels. The center caps must have worn through the plating & is all corrosion creeping out. I've never liked the teardrop holes in the OEM wheels... I wonder if junkyards might find you wheels... spares that have never been on the ground. Mine is still under the truck.Russ

1999 5.9 long block $1000 http://newlondon.craigslist.org/pts/2151168510.html I wonder if it's a 53 block?

Yes, I built the porch myself... when others told me it couldn't be done. 20+ years later, it's still on the house. The top of the triangle frame is SS bolted through the house floor joists (doubled & blocked inside). The bottom is lagged into the sill plate (except for the far left which has anchors set into the wall. The deck platform is a separate part, spaced off the siding by a half inch.

Mike, I can send you some!Russ

Sheila's photos Sheila plowing nearly 12 inches on railing... one night JD backhoe in hybernation our house view from the driveway Storm on top of storm Our yard ATV overwhelmed with snow My car Took a bit to dig the backhoe out John Deere 410 JD Tire chains... old school traction... JD Kirk, grandson at controls

Wife's Subaru is Outback "Wagon". I find the car tighter than a dry scuba wet suit... I have a hell of a time getting my foot up & in the door. I actually turn the cane over & get the hook under the weak knee to lift... still a struggle. I didn't pick out the Cirus, inherited from my mother. (5 years old with 8,000 miles!!) But I've gotten pretty used to the size of it.