Thursday, Jan 10, 2013, Guerneville, CA.
Good day to test the van out and get some propane for my new van tank too.
That’s what I did. It was a bit cold when I got up this morning, so I decided to take a test drive to Santa Rosa to give the van a test run. I went to Steve’s house as he was having some trouble getting his pictures from his new cell phone to his computer. That was far enough to give the new van computer time to set itself up and see if the gas peddle adjustment I made the other day was going to work or not.
My ol van gas peddle needed more work.
As I took off from my house, the gas peddle seemed much better, but when I went though the lights in town, I could tell it needed more work. It was more or less either on or off, with not enough peddle travel between those two points, so it was hard to control and not very good for a smooth take off. It was also not returning to idle well, so that needed adjusted too.
Steve’s cell phone wasn’t transferring pictures either.
I made it to Steve’s house ok. We tried to get the cell phone to be recognized by the computer, but no go. I think his cell phone is bad, but it might be his new USB cable is defective?
Adjusted the throttle linkage and tried it again, but.
I adjusted the van throttle linkage so it would go back to idle as it should and went back to the Guerneville hardware store to get the new van propane tank filled for the first time. I brought an old blanket with me to put on the ground for the guy, as I knew he’d have to get real low to the ground to hook the filler up to the tank.
And the new propane tank wouldn’t fill.
He tried to get that darned nozzle on the tank, but it just wouldn’t thread onto it, seems I need to go home and remove a little off the bottom side of the van so his propane filler would line up to the threads. A little metal trimming needed to be done. Sometimes new things just take awhile to get working. :O)
Where’s the fuel oil guy?
On the way home, I stopped at the fuel oil guy’s place that is just down the road from me, but he wasn’t there. However, his house is even closer to my house and I caught him just leaving in his truck, so arranged for him to come right out and fill my new house heating stove tank.
Cut some metal off the van for the propane tank filler.
As I was waiting for his arrival, I started working on trimming the side metal of the van for the propane filler. It was fairly thick metal, but I was able to just barely cut it with a pair of right cutting metal shears. That left things a bit jagged, so some hand filing was in order. I filed away, but soon tired of that and got out the electric hand grinding wheel and made short work of that, with just a bit more hand filing to finish things up. I’ll make sure it works before I put some paint on there.
The fuel oil guy showed up and filled my fuel oil tank.
Just as I was finishing up that, the fuel guy showed up, so I let him do his thing and did my thing by filling out a check for him. Of course we had to shoot the bull for awhile too.
Sometimes, you just need to do what you need to do.
After he left, it was starting to get cooler, but I persisted and worked on fixing the van throttle linkage. I knew what to do all along, but I was hoping not to have to do what needed to be done, until I was sure it needed to be done. That makes sense, doesn’t it? ;O)
To get more foot peddle travel, so it wasn’t just on and off, I needed to make one of the levers in the linkage shorter, so when I pushed the gas peddle, it took longer for it to move the throttle. I had already eyed the particular lever, which was about five inches long so all I had to do was take it off and drill a quarter inch hole in the middle of it, so it was only about two and a half inches. I drilled a couple other holes in it at different places, just in case and deburred it and put it all back together.
I started it up and it seemed to be much better. Only problem now is the stop I had put on the gas peddle, wasn’t letting the throttle open to full throttle. I’m not sure it mattered as I don’t’ think this thing will ever have to go to full throttle, as it really zips along without going that far.
But, do it right Bob, so I removed the foot peddle stop I’d put on it earlier and checked it out. Perfect. How’d that happen? :O)
What a pleasure it was to drive the ol van now that the gas peddle was working right.
Ok, so now I’m ready to give it another test drive. Off to town to try and get the new propane tank, under the van, filled at the hardware store.
Started that ol van up and let out the clutch and what the hay, it worked like it used to work. All the way to to the hardware store, it was really working great now. I made it though the stop lights without jack rabbiting across the intersection and slipping the clutch.
And now the new propane tank would fill up too.
It was getting late at the hardware store. I rang the bell for the propane fill up, but no one showed up , so I went in the store and the lady said Larry is a little slow moving, but he’d be there. Turns out Larry lives on the river at Monte Rio where I kayak, and is a real ol timer, like me, so we shoot the bull quite a bit while he filled the tank.
When I left from there, I went down a little side back street and oh, the van is working just great now. :O) Much better than the last time I went down it earlier in the day.
Not a bad day, I accomplished getting my new propane tank filled up for the first time. Even better, I got the gas peddle throttle linkage all fixed up real nice, so the van is a pleasure to drive, once more.
I think I need a bigger new house heating stove, than the one I just purchased.
My only set back is my new fuel oil house heating stove seems to be a bit under sized for my house, so I think I’m going to have to trade it in for one twice the heating capacity. It heats the house ok, but it takes longer than I would like to get it comfy. And since we are going into a cold spell,…….about thirty degrees F., it’s a good time to test it.
I did mention that I may have bought too small a stove to the fuel oil guy who I bought the stove from.
He said, no problem if you decide to replace it, we’ll just work something out with the next guy who needs a smaller stove. I think if I’m smart, I’ll tell him to order the larger stove when I see him next.
Oh, and I just remembered, now I can go out and test out my new van propane Wave3 heater, now that I have propane. I think I better take some soapy water out there to test out all my new propane plumbing too. No use blowing all this up now. :O)
Had a great day, it’s cool here, but not windy, dusty and cold, or even really freezing. Great.