Tag: Electrical

Science with the Wee Ones

Made a simple electric motor with my daughter this weekend

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Rear Hatch

The rear hatch on the Excursion is…. complicated.

Three panels, electric and manual locks, washer, wiper and defroster.

When I bought Fessick, none of the above worked.

The key cylinder was a rusted lump of metal of various alloys. You could put a key in, but it wasn’t turning anything.

The lock actuator didn’t actuate.

The wiper didn’t wipe.

The washer didn’t wash.

The defroster didn’t defrost.

Continue reading “Rear Hatch”

Door lock actuators

When I bought Fessick, none of the power locks worked (as far as I knew). Meh, who cares?
When we got back from our first camping trip however, I couldn’t get into the hatch. I unloaded everything that would fit through the back doors and disassembled the hatch to get it open and finish unloading.
Apparently, one of my children (looking at you, youngest son) had pressed the 7 & 9 buttons and locked the hatch.

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Upfitter panel, or don’t get ahead of yourself

Conversely, when you see a deal, grab it!

I’m a child of the eighties and as such, nothing looks more bad-ass to me than A LOT of cool switches. (Have you ever seen the space shuttle cockpit?)

At the same time, nothing looks worse than a mish-mash of unaligned switches of different styles.

Luckily, the lazy engineers in Dearborn came to my rescue.

Continue reading “Upfitter panel, or don’t get ahead of yourself”

Even diesels need electrons

Once I cleaned up all four terminals and reconnected the batteries, my baby roared to life.

No more transmission faults.

No more blinking THEFT light while driving to work.

All was good, for about two weeks.

Took the family camping in late September. When it was time to pack up on Sunday, I had no problems staring the Excursion up at the parking lot & driving to our site. After I finished loading up though, was a different story.

Crank, but no start.

Continue reading “Even diesels need electrons”

Phone install

Earlier I mentioned that the Excursion is far from a modern vehicle.

I, however, am “the very model of a modern major-general”

Not really, I’ve never served. But I do like my modern communications devices. Two things had to be installed, USB ports for charging and a mount to keep my iPhone visible and stable while driving.

Continue reading “Phone install”