I really enjoyed meeting everyone and we had a great time right up to when Denise & I tried to leave. Blair & cvbill, I'm sorry we missed you.
I need to thank Thanos (sp?) & Tina, Chris & Jack (particularly Jack, a 3 year old's attention span isn't great for this sort of thing and he was Stellar!) for staying to help when the Sub made me "that guy." You know, the guy who has mechanical problems that should have been caught at home.
A little background, the Sub has had an issue with it's pair of Exide Spiral batteries. One tested 12 VDC sitting, but dropped to ~0 under load. Those got replaced with plain old Dura-Last's less than a month ago. Unfortunately that masked a starter that was dying. Among many normal starts since replacing the batteries it gave exactly one warning slow start and one marginal start off the new batteries, which I erroneously interpreted as possible battery wiring issues or possibly being due to sitting while the fridge was running after a short driving (charging) time.
Thinking that it was just a low battery thing (still) Chris tried to give me a jump start. Then when it still wouldn't spin over and I noticed that the volt meter was showing 13 VDC when not cranking & not jumped to Chris's 4Runner I realized that I had a deeper problem. Tried the easy thing first, by-pass the battery selector switch. Didn't work, so out came the starter. Examination of the solenoid contacts really didn't show much wear. The guide pin through the coil core was pretty worn, but the contacts were in surprisingly good shape. Cleaned them up and then opened up the starter's end plate. Which revealed the cause of the problem. The brushes were done!
Perhaps had we been all alone I might have been able to fangle something to make them work, but I doubt it. This design had swing-arms that the brushes were mounted on the ends of. Some of the brushes were worn to the point that the arms were beginning to wear on the commutator. I cleaned them up, reassembled the starter, and installed it hoping for one more start.
It was not to be.
Chris' cell was the only one of 3 that had service in camp (AT&T). I called my friend Cam in Ojai about getting a starter to us. Calls were spotty (stand in the right spot, hold your mouth just right, point your hand in the air like John Travolta in "Saturday Night Fever", etc.) and I wasn't sure if he'd gotten all of the particulars, so I tried my friend Matt in Camarillo & got a much more robust connection. Gave him all of the particulars and Cam's number asking if he could coordinate from there. Between them they got it sorted out. Cam, by his odometer, was 70 miles away, over a twisty mountain road with an ~8000' pass on it. He's driven that road for 25-30 years and he told me that he was taking it easy in the many bad spots for ice, but I think he made the trip in something just over an hour - including going to the NAPA (in a different direction) for the starter.
Thanks again to Thanos & Tina for staying when they had a long drive home, and to Chris & Jack for going well beyond the normal protocol of not leaving someone who was stranded. And to Cam for making an epic drive when I know he had other things that needed to be done. I owe some rounds at the next gathering.
:clapsmile
The few pics that I took:
Clouds & dusting on the way in:
Casa Azul in the snow. I'm disappointed that it's so dark. On the monitor it was much brighter. oh well......
Denise working her Dutch Oven magic with some pasta:
This last one is on Qaatal Canyon Road (Most maps & all road signs spell it wrong):
He didn't seem to mind the cold when he was throwing snowballs at me when we were up at the top of cottonwood cyn.
