Honesty the Best Policy

Thursday

The phone rang just after 7am I answered it but then Bonnie cut in so I hung up.  Phone rang again it was Alexus, Bonnie told her to call again maybe I would answer.  Seems she missed the bus.  Elizabeth  had an early day at work so I got up to to take her.  When I picked her up I asked her what happened.  She said she was up on time but got to playing with her new phone and missed the bus.  So she was honest.  So no yelling or chastising she was telling the truth and perhaps when I was her age when I got something new I might have missed a bus too.

We made it to school on time.

Bonnie is off to the chiropractor again.  My project for this morning is changing the transmission fluid on the CRV.

I pulled the car out and checked the transmission level.  Then pulled it up on the ramps.

Ready to start

Let the draining begin

 All that was left was to wipe off the magnet on the drain plug, replace the crush washer, and add 3 liters of fluid.

All the pieces and parts needed

 I took the car out on a test drive and checked the level all looks well.  So on to the next project.  I checked the mail and the lube had come for the pac brake.  So I put the slides out and soaked the pivot points with this lube.  Maybe a test drive tomorrow.

Special Lube

Now I will let it sit over night.  Time for some lunch.  Now its time to cut some grass.

Got the grass cut which finishes up this go around.  I will start again probably on Monday.  I came in and relaxed a little.  Bonnie left to pick up the girls for a woman's mentoring social at church.  I did not have training tonight so stayed home.  I had posted about my exhaust brake issues and started to get some feedback.  Joel even sent me wiring diagrams and it is looking more and more like it will need to come off to be worked on.  I can disconnect the linkage and see which part is sticking as a next step.  If all that is actually loose then there is an air valve that may be bad and I will have to find it to check it out.

Well thats about it for tonight time for a little reading before dreaming.

Friday

Was up a little earlier today.  Had my oatmeal and coffee.  Studied the wiring diagrams some and planned to work on the coach later today.  Then after Bonnie got up I headed up to court for a couple hours.  Took care of the paper work there and then got to play a little.

My new iPhone has a built in hot spot and up on the hill I connected to the new LTE cellular network and using my iPad I was downloading at over 10Mbs, seems really fast.  Then home and a little lunch and TV with Bonnie.

I finally headed out to work on the exhaust brake.  Got my tools together.

Bucket of Tools

I decided to take the linkage apart and try to move the butterfly valve without the air cylinder hooked up.  At first I could not get the pin out of the linkage where it connects.  Got a bigger hammer and a couple of drift pins.  Drove the pin down until it hit the bracket, it would not come the whole way out.  But now things were starting to move.  I lubed the pin up good and got it back into the proper position.  I was able to move the whole linkage now.  I went to the garage and made a jumper cable.

Jumper with fuse.

Using the wiring diagrams that Joel sent me I was able to find the wire that goes to the air solenoid that controls the exhaust brake.  I took it loose from the relay and used my jumper to hook to it and connect to 12 volts.  I could hear the exhaust brake moving.

Jumper connected to 12 volts

So I went in and looked and sure enough the brake was activated and when I took the jumper off it returned to the normal position.  Looks like it is freed up and working.   I put the tools back in the bucket, closed up the engine hatches, pulled in the slides and fired up the big CAT engine.  Road Test Time.

Everything worked fine, hurray that saved a bunch of bucks.  I will be sure to keep that pivot point lubed in the future.

Put everything away and headed into the house.  Bonnie had supper ready, Salmon Patties and potato salad.  It sure was good but I ate too much.  Relaxed and watched TV with Bonnie.  Now time for a little reading and rest.

Saturday

Up this morning and waiting for Elizabeth and Alexus to come.  Today is the first of several wood days.  She wants wood to heat her house this year and so they are coming to get some ready.  Once they arrived they got busy stacking up a pile that had blown over and covering it so it will stay dry.  Then I headed out and set up the wood splitter.

All set up and ready for action

I had a bit of cherry cut up and ready to split so we got busy.

Let the splitting begin

Alexus did all the stacking

I showed Elizabeth how to operate the splitter

We worked a little over an hour and did not even go through a tank of gas.

It made a pretty good pile

She did a good job of stacking and we covered it to keep it dry.  Then we cleaned up and headed in for lunch.

Sunday

Another beautiful day we are up and getting ready for church.  Off to pick up the girls.

Had another really good service and then headed into East Aurora.  I made a quick stop at the bank and then we headed to Larwood Drug Store to pick up an Rx.

Dropped off the girls and we headed home.  Bonnie fixed a nice salad for lunch and then I took a little nap.  Now relaxing and watching some TV.  I did open up the Coach and some windows to let it air out some.

It was sprinkling when we left for church this evening, but did not last long.  We had a congregational meeting on personal and program changes and budget.  It was a good meeting and lots of information.  Plus we made a quick stop at Tim Horton's on the way.

Finally nome now and watching the New North America series on Discovery Channel.

Its been a good week got some things accomplished and looking forward to the coming week.

Thanks for Checking In and May God Bless You This Week.