Daily Archives: March 14, 2016

March 14, 2016   Uncategorized

Another Day, Another Problem . . .

We didn’t walk this morning, but just sat around and enjoyed our coffee. We’ll get our walk in later at Wal-Mart. I did some computer stuff for clients and then sent off some emails and answered some comments from the blog.

About 2pm I headed out to drive around the park and try to find a more level spot than  what we have now. I was hoping some campers had left this morning, but no luck. The park is still pretty full. I did find a couple, but they were only 30 amp. And the empty 50 amp sites were even more off-kilter than mine. And right now my rig’s right front tire is about six inches off the ground and we’re still not level. So I’ll keep looking over the next few days.

While I was driving around, I found that my radiator fan noise was back. A week or so ago I noticed that my radiator fan was making a kind of clacking noise, like it was rubbing against something. And in fact when I reached down and pressed in on the grille part of the shroud, the noise disappeared.

So last week before we left Colorado River I used tie-wraps to tie down any movement of the grille, and that seemed to have fixed the problem, at least until this morning.

So when I started driving around, I found that the clattering noise was back. And definitely associated with the fan speed, since the noise didn’t change with engine speed. Also as before, there was a slight burning plastic smell, which at the time I attributed to the fact that the plastic fan blades were rubbing against the plastic grille.

Getting back to the rig, I tried to look at the problem, but it was just too hot under the hood. So I left it up to come back out later to take a look. But when I did come back out, I once again couldn’t find anything loose or wiggling. So I cranked up the engine, and as before, the noise was gone.

Around 4pm Jan and I  headed out for dinner and Wal-Mart. And the noise was still gone, but a coup;le of more problems had appeared.

The AC was no longer working and I now had a Check Engine light.  So using my phone, I started up the Torque app and check for the code. The app said the code was P0480, and then clicking on that code, was told that the problem was with the Cooling Fan Relay 1 Control Circuit..

The Torque app connects through the Bluetooth on my phone and the Bluetooth on a module that plugs into my truck’s diagnostic port.

Bluetooth Scan Tool_thumb[2]

Bluetooth Scan Tool

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The free Torque app not only lets you read and reset fault codes from your phone or tablet, it also let’s you configure a personalized virtual dashboard with your own choice of instruments.

Torque App Dashboard_thumb[1]

Check it out.

Filing this away for later use, we drove into Conroe with our first stop at the local Culver’s. We both love their Butterburgers. While we were there I spent some time online searching the P0480 problem. I found a lot of stuff online about the problem, and a bunch of things to check later.

Then it was on to the nearby Wal-Mart and our walk today. As before I started up the Runkeeper app on my phone as we left the car, and then turn it off when we got back. And this is what we got.

WalMart Runkeeper 3-14-16_thumb[1]

So we did 1.66 miles doing our shopping there. Apparently we did nothing in a straight line either. And at 299 calories, I doubt we walked off our Butterburgers.

Finishing up, we drove down the Interstate about 12 miles and then back to check out the cooling on the truck. Tomorrow morning we’re heading down to our daughter Brandi’s house. to meet up with Landon’s other grandparents so we can all take him to the Houston Zoo. And then Wednesday we driving down to the Clear Lake area for our final doctor get-together.

So I wanted to be sure that we wouldn’t have any overheating problems on the way. But the engine stayed cool the whole test run so hopefully we’ll be OK. Especially since the thunderstorms scheduled for Thursday and Friday, it might be Saturday until I can get back to the problem.

And after a stop for gas, we were back home a little after 7pm.

Thought for the Day:

“The trouble with life is that you’re half way through it before you realize it’s a do-it-yourself job.”

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