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Pop N Wood

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Posts posted by Pop N Wood

  1. I lived with back pain for years. The lowest two vertebra in my back were crooked. The pain would come and go. At times the pain would be so great I couldn't bend down to tie my shoes. Doctors did nothing for me saying it was all muscular. Chiropracters were great for temporary relief, but being a poor student they were unaffordable on a regular basis.

     

    Eventually I quit lifting weights and the pain went away. A few years ago I had an xray for upper back pain. Turns out the lower several vertebra in my back have fused into one solid mass of bone. The doctors can't believe I don't have trouble from this, but I don't.

     

    My current upper back problems are from sitting at a computer all day. It is not just lifting that will cause back problems. Posture, how you sleep and muscle strength all work together to keep your back properly aligned. This prevents problems in the first place.

     

    Good luck with your surgery. You must be in some pretty bad pain to resort to such a drastic course of action.

  2. Yeah, getting rid of the second wire is a good idea. I think a drawing is the only way to go on this. I think this is what you are recommending

     

    tt4b.gif

     

    But I think there should also be a second jumper going directly from the battery lug on the solenoid to the lug with the wire coming out of the starter itself. That way the main starter current is only forced through the set of contacts in the remote solenoid. In the picture above, the main starter current is being switched at both the remote solenoid and across the two main lugs of the GM solenoid.

     

    I imagine you have taken a GM solenoid apart. In the end there is a copper disk that gets pushed forward when the solenoid activates connecting the battery wire to the starter itself. These disks pit and corrode from all the arcing and can eventually get to the point where the starter can't get enough juice to turn. When I was younger is was standard practice to loosen the battery cable lug at the solenoid and turn it around 180 degrees to expose an unpitted copper bolt head to the contactor disk. If you jumper out the two main lugs, it bypasses this disk and lets full battery voltage go to the starter motor.

  3. You don't really remove it, you just jumper over all the switching done by the GM solenoid.

     

    Run the battery cable to the Ford solenoid. run another heavy cable from the switched side of the Ford solenoid to the big lug on the starter. Then hook up jumpers on the back of the GM solenoid so all of the lugs are connected together. This includes the S terminal, the batter cable lug and the post coming out of the bottom of the GM solenoid and into the starter. Then hook up the S and I wires from the car to the lugs on the Ford solenoid.

     

    This way all current switching is done by the Ford unit, and all the GM unit has to do is push the starter pinion into the flywheel.

  4. I like the hook up shown in MikeKZ's link better. The way MikeC says to hook it up will also work, but IMO has the disadvantage of having the main starter current being switched through both solenoids. There is no reason for this and could cause a voltage drop to the starter should the contacts in either or both solenoids get a little corroded.

     

    There is a third way of doing this that bypasses all of the contacts in the GM solenoid, but I think it will just further confuse things.

  5. That site was pretty vague.

     

    Well the whole point is a 10 second google search will yield you more information than you could possibly absorb.

     

    No, you cannot run E85 in a vehicle that wasn't specifically designed for it.

     

    Go back and read a few posts about what it takes to run a straight alcohol motor and what kind of HP you can get from something like that.

     

    BTW, the only reason E85 or even 15% gasohol is cheaper than regular unleaded is the government subsidies. People want to hold that stuff up as some kind of cure for our energy problems. I suppose it may have it's place, especially for small scale biomass solutions, but IMO it has just been so much government pork up to now.

  6. the voltage meter on mine reads at a 16+ when the motor is running. the other day i tried to crank the car and eventually wouldnt turn over anymore. i removed the spark plugs and the car turned over again (then the battery lost juice again). did the battery regain some power as it sat for a few minutes or is the battery really my problem or is there something else i should be concerned with?

     

    should i look into a gear reduction starter to improve start up? i've got a rebuilt alternator waiting to go in regardless' date=' but i want to take care of the problem all together if possible :)[/quote']

     

    Removing the spark plugs removed the compression braking load on the engine. You could probably spin the engine by hand with the plugs out. That test is meaningless.

     

    If your alternator is maintaining 16 volts with the engine running, then it is not the problem. Replacing it will do nothing but waste time and money. If your battery cranks the engine for awhile, but only a little while, then you need a bigger battery. Simple as that. Batteries lose their ability to hold energy as they age. Bigger batteries seem to live longer than smaller ones because they have more reserve capcity that they can afford to lose.

  7. The whole point of the remote solenoid is to bypass all the resistance in the key start circuit and to get a full 12 volts to the S terminal. The wire from the key switch has enough amps to hold the remote solenoid in the full start position, but maybe not enough amps to force the one on the starter into the full start position. Your idea of a second switch will work, but you would want to use a completely separate switch (i.e. nothing off the key). If I were you I would just put in the remote solenoid, since this does the same thing.

     

    Don't overlook the obvious either. How old is your current battery and when was the last time you wire brushed the terminals? Are your engine grounds making good electrical contact (i.e. no rust or paint under the ground connections)?

  8. I went there with my family 2 years ago. Got snowed on and the canyon was completely fogged over. Did get one vista where the fog cleared a bit. Took the train ride to the canyon. Awesome country. Would love to do it again, but maybe when it is not so cold and wet.

  9. There are quite a few differences. Bumpers are an obvious one.

     

    One of the more noticable differnces is doors. 240's do not have side impact beams in the door and use a weaker C shaped door latch bolted to the door jamb. Doors with the impact protection have a post on the door jamb that fits into a groove in the door.

     

    240's also have very weak "frame rails" under the body that don't go all the way to the back of the car.

  10. Well I am no battery expert, but I have played one on TV.

     

    That is a small battery. You can probably get away with it if you don't try and start a high compression engine in cold weather.

     

    The reserve capacticy of that PC680 is only 24 minutes. The reserve capacity of a typical size 24F battery is 120 minutes. That means the conventional battery stores about 5 times as much energy as the PC680

     

    http://www.batterymart.com/pdf_files/odyssey_guide.pdf

     

    http://www.exideworld.com/pdf/exide_specs_april_2003.pdf

     

    But I am not familiar with that type of battery. They claim it has better cold weather capabilities than a conventional lead-acid design. They also claim it can more easily deliver short bursts of energy. So maybe if your car starts easily, doesn't see bad weather, is a track only car or if you replace the battery every couple of years. You would probably not want to use an alternator cut off switch on a battery with that little capacity.

     

    Guess I would want to hear from someone who runs one in the same conditions that I would use one. I like big batteries on my daily drivers. Leave your lights on with that thing and you will be stranded in short order.

  11. I saw something like that in a Mother Earth News magazine 20 years ago. That guy simply bolted an alternator to a plain ole lawn mower and rigged up a belt. They had to add a battery or else the 3 1/2 HP motor would stall when the arc was initially struck.

     

    Pretty good survival skills should one ever have to survive in a post nuclear apocalypse world.

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