Extreme airflow sensitivity

I've noticed something very odd about this PowerStroke engine: if I screw up and don't put the air hoses and this odd, empty "percussion chamber" on exactly right and completely tightly, I have no power at all. Like, climbing a hill at redline and 40MPH kind of no-power. Like, thermostat is full open going a couple miles no-power. Like, blowing though a tank of very expensive biodiesel in half the time no-power.

I've made this mistake often enough that I dread taking the air hoses and filter off, because I know if I put all back less than super-tightly, it feels like I'm driving on a treadmill.

A somewhat lesser sluggishness happens if I forget to connect the air temperature sensor back onto the air filter housing. This happens often-- it's easy to forget to reconnect the thing--, and I can always tell, because my mileage sucks and there's a lot less power... though it's not nearly as bad as if I don't tighten/seat the hoses and have an intake vacuum leak.

I'll have to figure out why this engine is so sensitive to the tiniest intake vacuum leak, nor why I seem to get them so easily. I'm still reading the docs, and it looks like the mass airflow pressure sensor is in fact upstream of the leak, though I haven't gotten down in there to figure out where it is.

It may have something to do with the fact that it's a turbo, but I haven't figured out exactly how. Being lazy I guess. It's easier to just get out an 8mm socket and re-seat the hoses and re-tighten them whenever this happens.

I've got the wanderlust

Only two weeks of living in one place all the time, every day, all week long, and I'm already missing being mobile!

This weekend I made a long-ish trip just to get out, and I realized a weekend is not enough time. As soon as I got exploring, I had to turn around and come back. Drat.

I realize now that I'd gotten used to disappearing for 4-5 days at a time, whenever I wanted. I miss it now.

TruckFridge FTW!

I sold some gear and was able to scrounge up enough to buy a TruckFridge.

These things are awesome. I'm stunned at how amazing it is. It's the size of my crappy TEC cooler, but much better built, a lot more expensive, and it actually works! It keeps the food cold, like 35 degrees cold! All the time! And it runs the compressor maybe 5 minutes out of every hour, and uses only about 2A when it does! This thing is PERFECT. I should have bought one years ago. It keeps my food colder than when I was using ice blocks, and I don't have to deal with ice blocks. And it doesn't drain my batteries either, like that awful TEC cooler did.

3 months of wrestling with the wrong thing, putting in hundreds of hours on microcontroller development and research, and I finally solved the problem in 1 hour by just replacing the peice of garbage with the correct and proper unit.

Truckfridge, and I have the same kind of refrigeration convenience that anyone in a stick house would have. At last!

Patience is a virtue

Finally fixed my right front turn signal a week or two ago, so I'll be much safer doing lane changes in the rain. It was easy (had to replace a short length of cable and connector). I've got a plastic checkvalve, a quart of DOT 4 brake fluid, and the correct size vynil hose (1/4" fits perfectly) to flush out my brake system. Just waiting for the rain to let up. I drilled out the rusted-out bolt on my mirror, and now I have to locate my reverse-thread tap in order to get it out and replace it. Just got my new fuel pump in, and I'm ready whenever the right time comes to put it in-- it's going to depend on a combination of weather, location to do the work, and time available before I end up employed again.

Speaking of which, same with money: I've got some breathing room now, but I'm using that to try to find some source of income. If I start now, I'll be ready by the time I really need to be ready.

It is very odd to be feeling this patient, but I like it a lot.

Be careful what you wish for

The old proverb is true: be careful what you wish for, you might get it.

I've been saying for years now that what I really want-- my end-game in vandwelling-- is to have a permanent, safe, secure, legal (or legal-ish), stable place to park, work on my van, and generally not have to drive around.

But that wish was mostly based on a combination of panic and fear, and not really understanding the vandweller lifestyle: keep moving! It's counter-intuitive to think that moving all around is safer than being in the same place, but it is.

And, in the last few months, I've abandoned my wish for a stable parking space, and I've finally learned how to be a vandweller, and to come to terms with a nomadic lifestyle, even to prefer it! I don't feel a need to have a "safe" parking space; I've learned that the safest thing is to move around every day. I have MANY "safe" space. I've come to enjoy being in a different place every day.

Well, that's over now. I now have a consistent, reserved parking space, and I pretty much have to use it, for at least the next few months to a year.

It's in front of my ex-wife's house.

Bleah.

How did this happen? Now that my ex has found a job, I'm back on dad duty, and, due to her new and very long commute, I'm on dad duty every morning starting really early, making breakfast, packing lunch, shuttling kids to school. This is the job I did when I was married, and it looks like I'm back to it, for at least some time.

Since I often work nights, it doesn't make sense for me to try to find a parking place and then get up and drive down to my ex's house. And where she lives is, for now anyway, a block with a huge number of commercial vehicles which tend to be parked there for years at a time. Mine fits right in. It's walking distance to many things so I don't have to drive. I can work on my truck there without worrying about being grafitti'd or ticketed. It's got plenty of sun for my solar panels (as much as anywhere around here gets sun, that is). It's literally a perfect parking place.

Except for where it is. It feels to me like going backwards. I don't want to be stuck in her orbit. And I also need to get some kind of job or income soon too, which will shuffle the schedule around as well. So it'll be interesting to see how this works out, and for how long.

TECs suck

Well it turns out that my whole project of attempting to run my TEC cooler on a short duty cycle in order to save electricity, is pointless.

TECs run at only 5-10% efficiency. If I'm using 48W of electricity, I'm only getting 2.4W of actual cooling!! That's a HUGE amount of wasted electricity, considering my entire panel gives me only 200W in full sunshine, maximum exposure, daytime. It's also not enough to actually cool the food. This would explain why the specs on TEC coolers are that it will only cool to 40 degrees below ambient, and not down to refrigerator-safe temperatures. And in winter? I'm getting NOTHING when running it on a 15-minute-per-hour cycle (1A), which is all I can afford in the dark, certainly not enough to run this damn thing, and definitely not enough to keep food from spoiling. This whole TEC cooler idea is brain-dead.

I need to get an actual refrigerator that uses state-change, a condensor, an evaporator, and a compressor. These get 40-50% efficiency, and so to make an even comparison, my 48W of electricity would get me 24W of cooling.

There are plenty of small 12v high-efficiency refrigerators out there, but they are VERY expensive: anywhere from $1500 to $700 to $400. This is crazy. Although, there's one out there that supposedly uses only 10Ah a day. That is what I need.

It seems that these super-ridiculously-expensive units use the Danfoss compressors, which are especially efficient on electricity, and also run off of 12v. A fellow vandweller (who is also an EPA-certified refrigeration tech, luckily), suggested I just buy an old, small, college dorm refrigerator off of Craigslist, then buy a Danfoss compressor, and weld it in, then have him charge it up with refrigerant. I'm really liking that idea. Even better, I can pull the condensor out of the unit, and mount it and the compressor OUTSIDE of the van, underneath it. Got plenty of room under there, and it would keep the heat out in the summertime and also the noise out all year long. So that's an especially intriguing idea.

But either way, this cooler has got to go. It was a good experiment, but it just won't survive the winter, and certainly won't work in the summer.

Lead feet save fuel

I've discovered something very bizarre. I get MUCH better fuel efficiency when I really slam on the pedal and use up more fuel! Very, very strange.

But then, I drive mostly short trips. I have a diesel engine, and it takes forever to warm up, and it's totally inefficient when it is cold. But it's always cold, because I don't drive it long enough to warm it up, so my fuel efficiency sucks.

Well lately I've been laying my foot into the thing the second after I start it. Winding it out, giving it way too much, and climbing hills aggressively on a stone-cold engine. The net effect of this is that the engine warms up really quickly-- on a 4 mile trip uphill I can actually get it up to operating temperature by the time I'm done.

And I'm getting nearly double the mileage I used to get when I was babying the engine, bogging it down, keeping the revs low, and not letting it warm up. Plus, it idles smoother and seems happier.

Who'd have thought? I've dramatically increased my fuel efficiency by being a lead foot.