Thread: Checking in

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Mike, very nice and glad to see everything is going well there! I've heard of a lot of kids struggling with the virtual learning. It's a mess.

Thanks Ryan. The move's done now and except the wife deciding where little stuff should go (usually a good time for me to hightail it to the shop) both us and our daughter and grandkids are pretty much settled into our respective houses.

The Granddaughter is doing a LOT better going to school full time and her grades are coming back up. The youngest grandson is still doing full time on line and is one of the kids that does well with it.

I'm cautiously happy with Cade......he's a Senior this year and doing 3 days on-line and 2 days in school a week. He's also getting about 15-20 hours a week at his job in a restaurant. He knows that the job (and car) are both reliant on keeping his school work up and graduating in the spring. He's not an honor roll student by any means but he is keeping up and may be able to test out of a couple of his make up classes this winter.

He's saving a decent part of his pay checks hoping to be able to move out on his own after he graduates. He went to Lowes with is mom yesterday to help her get some things and discovered the tool department which happened to have some Craftsman tool sets on sale. He had picked up a set of deep sockets and a few odds and ends and came over to tell me about it. I had to chuckle a bit and told him that yes he had finally discovered the big kids toy store.




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First off, happy Easter to everyone.

I still check the site about everyday but virtually everything automotive has been put on hold for a while as we get some other priorities taken care of. If anybody has caught the news that involves the illegal border crossers down in Cochise County AZ……well that’s where I live at. We’re about 25 miles from the border so we’re not right down there on it, but close enough to be wary about what’s going on. My daughter and I have been working on getting the place a bit more self sufficient. Her and the grandkids are putting a garden in, we’ve started on a backup water system and hopefully sometime this summer we’ll have a backup generator for the new house.

Cade didn’t finish HS……yeah, I’m pretty disappointed. Maybe if it had been a regular school year he would have, but who knows (I refuse to let him use that as an excuse). On the bright side he has had a job of the last few months and has moved out on his own. He seems to be doing pretty well and finding out what the world of adulthood is like.

Missy and the other 2 grandkids are all pretty well settled in now. My granddaughter is going to school 5 days a week and the youngest Grandson is doing 100% on line learning. Both are doing well in their classes so that’s something.

A lot of my time has been spent patching the old stable and putting in some new fencing for the horses Missy bought (she’s had horses off and on for several years).

DC by M Patterson, on Flickr

Besides her horse she also ended up with one that’s for the kids to ride.

elise by M Patterson, on Flickr


austin by M Patterson, on Flickr

With my other 2 grandkids right next door now we get to work on some projects now. The current one is building a rabbit hutch. Elise is turning into a fair artist and got an art tablet for Christmas. I asked if she wanted to help me draw up the plans for the hutch. She readily agreed but was a little taken back when I told her we would NOT be using her new computer!

I drug out the old drafting board and T square I built back in High School along with my old drafting set, triangles etc. She actually got into using “the old stuff” and it was a pretty enjoyable afternoon for both of us.

She enjoyed that part…….. not so much the cutting, grinding and welding to start turning the plans into the real things. Fortunately her brother Austin does like that part and is turning into a pretty good shop helper. To give Austin something to do and keep him interested in the project I gave him a squirt bottle of water to cool the welds……that pretty quickly devolved into a water fight between him and his sister. I tried to tell their mom I had no idea that would happen (I don’t think she believed me ).

hutch by M Patterson, on Flickr


While I haven’t done anything on the Poly/Hemi project in quite a while now (the engine is still sitting in pieces over in the machine shop) I did get the 46RH back from the transmission shop a couple of weeks ago. It is built by the same guy to the same specs as the one in my 37 Dodge which I’m very happy with.


46RH by M Patterson, on Flickr

I still drive the 37 dodge and 57 Plymouth out every couple of weeks but boy it’s a bit harder on the old billfold now.

And that's pretty much what's happening around here.


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Be safe Mike, unfortunately you're pretty much on your own for security.

Cades' out on his own!?!?! Just doesn't seem possible that it's been all that long ago he was tootin' around on his homebuilt go cart and then getting the Mustang II going and fixed up.. wasn't that just like yesterday? Or maybe last week???? HMmmmm..

Oh well. Nice to see the next crew likes being with you in the shop.

Mike, I see why everything automotive is on hold now..... Hay burners.

It is crazy to think Cade is out on his own. It seems like you guys were just fixing on the MII to get it going for him. Stay safe. Are you done travelling to your home town now or do you plan on going back this year?

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Missed your post somehow Ryan.

The HS reunion got cancelled last year because of the virus. Supposed to be rescheduled again for this year.......tentatively for August 2021 now.

Still planning on driving the 57 Plymouth back (provided the county's not on fire then)......may be the last time I do the cross country thing. With mom gone not a lot of reason to keep making the trip.




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Mike,
You're likely way ahead of me but you might ask your tranny guy if you need to put 3 or 4 quarts of fluid in the pan to submerge the valve body. Had I done that it would have saved me $350 getting valves replaced that rusted in place due to condensation. Of course mine had seven years to rust....

It's a thought Roger......something I hadn't thought about and truthfully I'm not real sure when it will get put in service. We do get a bit of humidity for a couple of months out here, I'm wondering if I could get by with bagging it and throwing a couple of the big bags of desiccant in with it.



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Originally Posted by Mike P

Missed your post somehow Ryan.

The HS reunion got cancelled last year because of the virus. Supposed to be rescheduled again for this year.......tentatively for August 2021 now.

Still planning on driving the 57 Plymouth back (provided the county's not on fire then)......may be the last time I do the cross country thing. With mom gone not a lot of reason to keep making the trip.




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Mike, if you do make the drive, let me know. Maybe we can have you over for a meal or some laughs.

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It may not be an issue with the 46RH tranny, but I learned the GM 700R4, and I expect the 4L60e, have tight tolerance spool valves that tend to stick if not submerged, and apparently it can only take a couple of months. You might ask your tranny guy what he recommends. The bag & dessicant may be the ticket!

I finally got one the “last” projects checked off the list for the house. Our local power grid has been pretty reliable for the last 30 years since I’ve lived here. On average we usually lose power for a couple hours or more just once a year during the summer for one reason or another. Normally that’s not a big deal but if I or my wife ever become house bound (invalid) it could potentially become deadly if/when it happens. Installing a backup generator has always been on the to do list.



We did a backup generator for my mom’s house several years ago….it was pretty straight forward. Call the dealer up, order the generator, have it installed…..about 3 weeks total.



Not so much here A bit over a year ago I noticed the prices on the Generators starting to go up, so I figured it I better jump on getting started on it.



First problem I found was there was not a dealer within 100 miles from here (someone who could provide warranty or repair services) the cost of service calls for estimates and installation was exorbitant so that pretty much eliminated that route.



Anyway, I found one on-line at Lowes for the old price and went in to the store to order it. They honored the old price and with the military discount it wasn’t too horrible. The downside……5 month backorder.

I debated on whether to go natural gas or Propane, but the gas company made that choice easy. As the house is all electric they wouldn’t run a natural gas line just to service the generator due to the low usage it would get. In the long run that was OK. The generators are rated at a lower output when running on natural gas. Running on Propane I can get by with an 18KW but would have needed a 22KW on natural gas (the 22K is only rated at 19.3K on natural gas).



Anyway I ended up buying a 350 Gal tank and had it filled last July just before the propane prices started to go up. Buying the tank instead of leasing lets me shop around between the local companies to get the best price when I need to refill.



Smooth sailing now right? Nope, no one locally was set up to do a complete install (yeah 10 years ago I would have just done it myself, but digging 50 foot of trench is just not real appealing at 70 years old). Anyway the one outfit that did the gas hookup keep screwing me around for about 3 months before they finally came out.


gen tank by M Patterson, on Flickr



Then it was finding an electrician to do the electrical. After a lot of looking, I found a company that had done the installs before. Yeah they were backed up…..a month to come out to do the estimate, then another 6 weeks to do the install.



Anyway, after a bit over a year the generator is finally done.


gen by M Patterson, on Flickr



The one thing on the generator I’m a bit skeptical of is that it’s WiFi capable. If I understand the instructions correctly hooking it up to the WiFi allows for monitoring the generator over the phone real time (on a subscription service) and auto downloading of software changes. May be just a bit of paranoia on my part but if they can download stuff remotely it can be shut off remotely either by the company or a hacker. There is an option to set it up without WiFi…… guess which one I chose



Next on the list is to try to get a wheelchair lift in. Thank God neither the wife or I need one right now but you never know what the future holds. I’m going to try to get that done this year too. I looked them up a couple days ago and the one I’m looking at just went up $400, and I sure to see anything going down in price over the near term.


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It's crazy at how fast prices are going up, and the backorder time on appliances ect!. Nice work!. My next house project will be a battery back up system to my solar panels. Our local power utility in fear of solar owners frying them during outages, and rightly so, shuts off solar to the power meter. With the battery backup, it automatically kicks in. Problem with that is battery banks very quite abit and the technology is constantly changing so for now I have a few gas generators until I can afford to invest in another project! Glad you were able to get the propane backup, smart way to go!

I learned a lot after my mom had her stroke and we had to make some changes to her old house so she could live by herself. She was wheel chair bound the last few years and it was not unusual for power to go out during the winter, sometimes for a couple of days during ice storms.

We originally set her up with a large portable generator. It was electric start but had to be manually started and it had a manual transfer switch. My brother and sister each lived about a mile away and we figured it should be a problem for one or the other to get it going if needed. Inevitably the first time she needed it was during a snowstorm and my brother and sister were both out of town. Fortunately the power was only out a few hours, but it was a lesson learned. Over the next couple of months we had a generator installed that would automatically start and transfer over when the power went out and then shut down and transfer back when the grid came back.

I put the same system in at our place. I could get by with a manual system, but if something ever happens to me it’s one less thing for the wife to figure out.

I’d looked into solar with battery storage a bit but really wondered how much battery storage I’d need to run the heat pump for any period of time.

It’s funny I’d originally looked at this as backup for the rare occasions when the power goes out (usually because of someone hitting a power pole or a transformer blowing). With the geniuses we have in government I may find I end up using it more than I expected.

Right now we’re in an area where the chances of rolling blackouts are only slightly elevated. I talked to my sister who lives in Illinois a while ago and there they are almost guaranteed to have rolling blackouts this summer. Seems their Governor has had all the coal fired electrical plants shut down since he’s been in office (you know before all the magic renewables are on line to take up the slack). I’ll guarantee that his personal mansion and the Governor’s mansion in Springfield all have a power backup system. I also suspect the least affected areas will be in Cook County (Chicago) where the majority of people vote for him.

Oh well I’m just an old man, what do I know? Just thankful the generator is finally in.


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California is taking it to the extreme. They will ban all gas powered small engine sales over the next few years. First to go leaf blowers and chain saws, I believe in the up coming year no gas powered portable generators I.E. anything you can buy at costco, tractor supply Cabella's ect will be ilegal to sell here. Mind you we have power shut downs when ever the winds pick up , PG&E our power company immediately shuts down huge power grid areas. They know they will be sewed for fires that happen when their decaying power lines snap, because of law suits. So I asked a local Politician want-a-be candidate, "How are we suppose to preserve our food and keep either cool, or warm as these happen all year now, if we don't have gas generators, His response, "Oh we are going to allow electric powered generators sale, which are clean air!" I started laughing at him, to which he felt taken aback. I said how are you going to charge the electric generators when the power has been out for more than a few hours? He looked at me like I was stupid. So I told him about the floods in Petaluma in 1997 or 98, when we were without power for 5 days. I said, you guys don't really think about this when you promote electric vehicles, and generators and heating and cooling systems, or when you ban gas stoves and ovens in all new houses in this State. I had to explain to the idiot that batteries can't power a house unless they get recharged. The short sightedness of electric vehicles alone was painfully felt here in 2017 when the First major fires destroyed over 5000 homes, and killed people who couldn't get out in time. People with electric vehicles found out quickly when trying to evacuate in a start stop traffic jam don't get you to the next safe charging station, and can't run on gas. Every car rental agency ran out of vehicles over the first day. I guess the real point is we can't generate enough power without fossil fuels. A Point of fact, that is not arguable. Our current leaders like to use buzz words to get people who don't think, all righteous and excited for a great future. All a big joke for the blind followers. This last Christmas here, Almost all the gas generators in California were sold out. People are waking up, and I'm not referring to the "woke" folks! I'm part of a Ham Radio emergency communication network locally. We are spread out all over our town. We have served the hospitals, police, and Emergency first responders for years now. Most cell towers can only manage 20% of that networks clients. In disasters they quickly are impossible to get on. So we man local emergency centers and evacuation places like out county fair , etc, and to make sure our neighbors in crisis have a way to communicate to get help ect. Our home radios have big deep cell batteries that will give us maybe 10-14 days of communications with out a recharge.
Well I've ranted too much, point being preparing ahead to be self sustainable is a smart and responsible thing!