November 26, 2007 by Rob.

I bought myself a little heater / defroster from Fry’s last week. It was just $10 and has already proven to be valuable. It’s not very powerful, but it does the trick to defrost the windshield or warm up my hands.

I especially liked that Fry’s sticker described the heater as “for heat w/o engine.” I’m certain that they did not mean it was a heater for cars without engines, but it describes my application perfectly! Fry’s can caulk up one sale due to poor English.

Note: That little heater is pretty minor so I’m considering putting an AC box heater in the car to warm it up on cold mornings. That would make it nice and toasty!

Posted in Daily Use, Parts, Improvements, Pictures | 1 Comment »

November 26, 2007 by Rob.

I had a scary ride home in the rain, cold, and dark over the weekend.  My auxiliary battery was so weak that my DC-DC charger cut out.  That left me with very dim headlights, minimal wipers, and no defroster.  I jumper cabled in one of the traction batteries and recovered, but it was not very fun to be playing with the cables in the rain.

It turns out that the 10 amp fuse between my auxiliary charger and the auxiliary battery blew out a while back.  When the fuse is blown, the battery vent fans run off the auxiliary battery instead of the charger and eventually drain it during charging.  Unfortunately, I discovered it was the fuse only after replacing the charger.  What a waste of 2 hours on a Sunday!

Posted in Safety, Daily Use, Storyline | No Comments »