Personal - The Weekend . . .

This weekend was extraordinarily warm for this time of year in northeastern Pennsylvania; Saturday it hit 70 and Sunday it hit 74 degrees, which is VERY unusual.  So my son came up from New Jersey and we took advantage of the warm weather to get the snow plow up-to-snuff.

Long time readers know that I inherited the snow plow from my younger brother John, after he died from Esophageal cancer in 2017.  He was three years younger than me (to the exact date) and before getting sick, he was a husky guy about my size - he was 5'9" tall about 230 pounds. I'm shorter.

He fought the cancer for four years.  Had surgery to remove his Esophagus, underwent Chemo and radiation.  Cleared it all up . . . until about 6 months later, when it came back with a vengeance.  It was on his heart, in his lungs, one kidney . . . and tumors regrew in his stomach.  When he died, on April 25, 2017, he weighed ninety-seven (97) pounds.

When I got the plow truck, it was a mess. My brother had gotten it free from a neighbor up here in PA.  He put the bare minimum into it to get it going and used it for plowing.

I put new everything: Radiator, Steering box, Mechman alternator, dual batteries separated by solenoid, new A/C compressor, then evaporator, then core under the dashboard . . . friggin thing still leaks even with all new parts. I put new leaf springs in the back, and heavy duty coil springs up front. New Shocks all around.

The rear differential was filled with water when I got it, and he must have run it for quite awhile that way, so the differential had to be replaced. I put in a true posi-rear.

Then, of course, new tires, brakes rotors, drums in the rear, new brake shoes for those new drums in the rear, all new actuators, new emergency brake. OMG, I went for my lungs with repairs on this truck. But I wanted it to be safe and absolutely reliable, and it is.

The truck also had body rot.  A lot of body rot.  So I had the guys at the shop do what could be done to deal with that.  Fortunately, the rot does NOT apply to the frame, just the body.  So structurally, the truck is still strong.  The body, no so much, but it still looks ok with the mountains of body putty/ BONDO.

Last winter, the transmission went.   I found out my brother had put one in, but the one he put in was NOT for the RAM 1500, it was for a lighter duty Dodge Dakota.  The plowing caused some of the bolts to shear-off the torque converter.  So I put a re-manufactured transmission from JAPSER into the truck, and this one is the correct model trans for this model truck and engine.  That was $4500 alone!  OUCH!

One of the snow plowing things my brother had was a SnowEx 1875 road salter. It was rotted out really badly when I inherited it, but it still worked. And since a new one would have been $3800, I used it until it died, which it pretty-much finally did by the end of last winter.

I bought a new one last winter but then my mom died in November and that sent a shockwave through my whole family, so I didn't put the new one in.

This weekend, my son and I did that.

Now, even though I bought the exact same model (SnowEx 1875), the new one had a new wiring harness and new controller unit for inside the cab, and the old setup would NOT work with the replacement. So all the wiring harnesses had to be pulled out, and new ones put in. We did that Saturday. What a job. Thank God for my son, Michael. Without him, I'd a been a basket case!

We got the new one on the truck, the wiring harnesses run, then ran out of daylight.

Sunday,  we had to run all new wiring for the flood lights that attach to the salter, and for the flashing amber lights.  The old wiring was all corroded.  The new wiring is soldered, wrapped with heat shrink, and enclosed in split loom to better protect from corrosion.

Then, I decided that while my son was up here, we should attach the plow to the truck.   Even though it was 74 degrees, that will be short-lived up here.  Heck, last week there were two days of frost with temps hitting 31 and then 30 over two days.   So the cold will be back . . .  quick.

Last year I set the plow on the ground and it never moved, but the blade SANK into the dirt. So when I pulled the truck up to it, we couldn't line up the locking pins from the plow frame, to the mounting bracket on the truck frame. Had to use a chain and drag the plow from the dirt onto the asphalt driveway so it would line up and go onto the truck mount. Got it done in about twenty minutes; not bad at all.

Hooked up all the wiring and, lo and behold, it all works. Up. Down. Left. Right. Both headlights (on the plow frame) high beams, marker lights, turn signal lights, main front flood light, all good. So the truck is ready to plow this winter.

Then, inside the house, I needed my son to change the fans inside the computers that run my radio show. The ones that came with the rack cases made an annoying whirring sound, a whining noise, which I can hear in my headphones when I do the show from up here in Pennsylvania. If I can hear it in my headphones, my audience can hear it too.

So he took both computers out of the rack, opened them up, and found that these cases and motherboards use a three-pin fan instead of the four pin he bought. No problem, the fans could still go in and would still work, they just wouldn't be as variable speed as we would like.

Fan speed equals noise. So for a radio show, noise in the studio is an unwelcome thing. Anyway, the fans went in and they are quieter. No more whining sound. Just the rush of air you expect, and the noise of that air.

The fans came with in-line resistors that we can insert if we want the fans to run slower, but we'll see how it goes from the internal temperature logs for the CPU. If it is cool enough, we might open the cases again and insert the resistors to slow them down a tad and then see the temp records again.

The trouble with CPU temperatures is that a CPU will get so hot when under heavy load, it WILL melt itself. Yes, there are safeguards built in, but that's something you definitely don't want to mess around with.

If the CPU overheats -- like during a show -- safeguards would shut the computers off to save the CPU from melting, which would knock me right off the air. So we gotta approach this issue cautiously. But at least the whining sound is gone.

My son also installed the new Behringer audio compressor/limiter, but because he was pressed for time to leave for home Sunday night, we could not calibrate it. So it may be another week or so of uncompressed audio during the show - but we'll get to it.

Anyway, that was most of my weekend.