Hotwiring . . .
I was up kind of early this morning, especially the morning after a long trip day, but I had a lot to do.
First up was a call to the Onan Tech Support guy to follow up with some more questions, only to find out that he was out all week for the 4th holiday. Bummer! But Google being my friend I found another Tech Support number and gave it a call
The new guy was a lot of help, answered my all my questions, wasn’t talking on a crappy speakerphone that kept cutting in and out, and wasn’t nearly as curmudgeonly as the first guy.
He confirmed that I should be seeing 12vdc on the line coming from the controller box to the governor actuator, and that if I didn’t it would keep the genset from starting and/or running.
So getting off the phone, I went out side to unbutton the generator and find out what I had on that line. And it turned out to be no voltage at all.
Well, this brightened my day, since I thought I had a workaround for this possibility. One that might get me running. Since the actuator needed 12 volts, I’d just give it 12 volts directly.
So using a couple of heavy-duty alligator clip leads, I hotwired it with 12volts coming from the power connection on the back of the solenoid and the other lead loose so I could touch it to ground to energize the actuator box.
And a trial run produced a loud ‘clunk’ from the box that I hadn’t been hearing on previous tests. Things were looking up.
But not for long. When I had Jan crank it over, nothing had changed. Just ru-ru-ru.
Oh well. It’s back to the drawing board, or the phone, as it were.
By now it was about 2pm so I got cleaned up and Jan and I drove next door to visit my Aunt Janis, who owns this RV park, along with her son Wes
We were happy to hear that another of her sons, Jimmy and his wife Beth, were visiting from Florida.
I didn’t get a good photo of Beth. it came out too dark to use.
In one of those strange coincidences, we found out several years ago that Jimmy had gone to school in the 70’s with my client back in Houston. Small world.
Finally about 5:30 we said our goodbyes and headed over to Huntsville to have dinner at Rosie’s Cantina, a place we always eat at at least once when we’re here.
We were kind of surprised to find the place so busy on a Monday night, but then realized this is essentially a holiday week with the 4th being on Wednesday.
I had the Beef Fajitas for One and had leftovers. Really good with the meat tender and flavorful.
Jan had her usual Pollo Loco.
Also very good.
Tomorrow it’s back on the phone with Onan, and more relative visits.
Thought for the Day:
“The press is impotent when it abandons itself to falsehood.” – Thomas Jefferson
ghdgh
