Out and About

Thursday - I needed a couple of things from town today, including some Stabil for the Ural. They had it at Tractor Supply as well as a light fixture for an incandescent bulb. I'll put the fixture under the trash can on the other lot to keep the water spigot above freezing. It seemed like a good reason for a ride, even if it is only about 15 miles or so. And it had crept above 50°F. I had mad Spam musubi a couple of days ago, and one of them made a great breakfast. While I was getting ready to leave Walmart, a younger guy on a Sportster came by for a chat. He was wondering why he saw so few riders out on such a nice day. I mentioned the "rule" about only riding when the temperature is above your age. He hadn't heard that one before. 

By the way, incandescent bulbs are hard to find. I found a 2-pack a couple of years ago, and I was glad that I still had the second bulb. LED bulbs have taken over. After the morning test session, I'll set up the light on the other site. Until the lot sells, it's still our responsibility, so the shed is still insured, and I need to take precautions against the water spigot freezing. The low temperature on Sunday early morning is expected to drop into the teens.  

Saturday - More cold weather prep today. I put Stabil in the class C gas tank and ran both the engine and generator to try and get it mixed into the fuel and into the carb and efi. Plus, I charged up the lithium batteries and the generator AGM battery. It was only down around 5% but very little solar with all the overcast conditions. Between the engine and generator charging, it went pretty fast. 

Later - At 5:30pm, the temperature had dropped to 35°F. And, it looks like precipitation is in the forecast. Today, I drained the tanks, disconnected the fresh water, and added some anti-gel to the fuel tank. I then ran the engine for about 15 min to kind of mix things up in the tank, then ran the generator for about ten minutes. To get some of that fuel into that fuel system. 

The UPS keeps beeping. I think it doesn’t like the old Magnum modified sine wave, i.e. square wave, inverter. I changed the settings to tolerate the worst AC input. Hopefully that helps.

The forecasted low is below freezing tonight and for the next several days. A lot of people are really worried about the temperature as the freezing rain could cause power outages. We have the 7.5KW generator and an almost full tank of diesel so not expecting any issues.