Sunday, July 16, 2006

Vacation - Day 1

We're in Waco Texas, the ancestral home of Jerome Scott, Mayor of Pollock, and good friend. Jerome and the lovely Pat is with us on this trip. The first thing we did when we got into town was go look at the house Jerome grew up in. Actually, his grandmothers house. It is vacant, and for sale, so we wandered around. When we got back to the car, it wouldn't start. Jerome and I trouble-shot it and decided the battery had blown a cell, so we walked down the street to a flea market, then got some nice young man to drive us to Wal-Mart for a battery. While at Wal-Mart, I also bought a set of wrenchs and a VOM meter to check the alternator, then back to Jerome's gandmas house, installed the battery and checked the alternator. It is producing 13.25 volts, so we should be okay.

I tipped the kid $40.00 for his hour's trouble. It was a lot cheaper than hiring a wrecker on a Sunday afternoon.

Thence to the cemetary to put flowers on the graves. Waco has a great big ole cemetary, with trees in the road. Jerome explained that when they widend they could't stand to cut the trees down, so they just paved around them.

Click on the photo for the large picture. It looks like they just paved around the tree and painted it white. One large chunk of bark has been beat off the tree. I bet that guy didn't expect to find a tree planted in the road.

Note to Waco. Cut down the damn trees.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

13.25 volts

You probably know this, but that's a mite low. Usually I see something like 14.0 and 14.5 volts with the engine running a bit above idle.

If the alternator is okay, perhaps you have some old and corroded cables?

Have a nice vacation.

Pawpaw said...

I normally read over 14 volts on my other alternators (tractor, motorcycle, GM truck) at idle, but my son, who is a ASE Ford mechanic tells me those alternators produce "something over 13 volts" at idle and a little over 14 volts at 2000 rpm.

Anonymous said...

If it were up to me I'd keep the trees and take away the license of the moron that can't see a great big tree coming right at him (or her).

Flintlock Tom