Another task completed. One or more of the five clearance lights on the front of the truck cab have been leaking for years. A very small leak as in a couple of drops after a heavy rain. It turns out that four of the five lights had cracks in them radiating from the screw holes. I was thinking of swapping them out for a set with LEDs for quite a while. The last time I looked for a set, it was over $100. Now, a quick search on Amazon yielded quite a few options all around $25 with free shipping.
I simply removed the old lights and cut the wires. I decided to solder the wires together and cover the splice with heat shrink tubing. After verifying polarity (current only flows one direction through LEDs), I made all of the connections. To help ensure no leaks, I used some silicone caulk on the roof opening and the screw threaded inserts. The bottom of the new lights have a thick gasket so it should seal pretty well.
They work pretty well and seem to be brighter than the stock incandescent bulbs. I like the smoke grey lenses of these replacements. I can't really fault the bulbs as they are still the ones that originally came with the truck in 2005. In fact, in the last eleven years, I've only had to replace the headlight bulbs once. Hopefully these last as long and the leak stops.
While I had all of the electrical repair stuff out, I decided to finally repair the wiring in the right rear door. I had repaired the drivers rear door about 7 years ago so I knew exactly what the problem was. The rear doors open about 80° so there is a lot of movement in the wire loom from the body to the door. With our cold weather, the insulation gets brittle and cracks resulting in some things not working. In this case, the electric windows worked but the power locks didn't.
I spliced in a 3" length of wire into all of the wires and covered the solder joints with heat shrink tubing. Even the wires that weren't broken I cut and spliced so they would all be the same length. I taped it all into a nice tight bundle and scratched one more project off of the list. (Even though it had never made it onto any "list") Like most tasks, this one took most of the day.
On another note, the suspense was killing me. I had to try some of my sauerkraut. I picked up some bratwurst and cooked them in a mixture of caramelized onions, apples, garlic, sauerkraut, brown sugar, a grainy mustard and a nice beer. In this case Deschutes Black Butte Porter. The sauerkraut turned out pretty good. It could've fermented a bit longer but the flavor was right on. I paired the bratwurst with a nice warm sour potato salad.
Sunday - Another beautiful morning. Not a cloud in the sky and 23°F (-5°C) about an hour before sunrise. After the record rainfall this summer, we expected the moisture to continue and get dumped on with snow. But then again, it's still early in the season…
The forecast for the next ten days is more of the same. Last year we've had a pile of snow by this date. I don't think anyone around here is complaining. I talked to a KLR650 rider this evening and he is enjoying the extended riding season on his new-to-him bike. Other riders at his job have been saying that it's past the time to put the bike up (as they already have done). His response is "no snow so why stop riding?". He mentioned that he told them that he knew the guy on the sidecar and they just shake their heads. Some people just don't understand.
If you look carefully, you can see the Alaska Range showing through the trees. This is what the weather has been all day. On Monday there was some great aurora but I didn't try and take a photograph.
The oil pan swap went pretty smoothly and it increases oil capacity from 2 quarts to a little over 3. The extra oil is not really needed for cooling but I think it may extend the life of the engine. Adding the extended pickup allows the oil pump to continue to pick up oil even when the level in the pan drops such as in colder temperatures. The spin-on filter conversion requires you to remove and replace the front engine timing cover. The allen screws were carefully removed and we celebrated when none broke though some were pretty tight. The PowerArc ignition assembly also needed to be removed to get the old cover off. Assembly was the reverse with new gaskets and anti-seize on the new screws. This was a good opportunity to show him how to set the timing as part of the PowerArc re-installation.
