The Battery Minder

I mentioned the "Battery Minder" previously that helped my 2005 Toyota start in its last years.  Well it may not have been the Toyota's fault.  I just don't drive far or often.  I know most people enjoy driving; I don't.  But it did make up for my lack of driving.

I discovered my new Subaru Forester was starting "slightly" slower than before I fell off the ladder and was taking some steps to attach the battery-minder to it the day I fell off the ladder.  But the Subaru battery is farther back under the hood than most batteries are.  The wire wouldn't reach!  I had 2 wires with the Minder and I spliced them together.  Used some brush-on rubber insulation to help prevent a short.  And there it say for 7 weeks!

Well I got back to hooking it up to the Subaru battery a few days ago.  I wrapped electrical tape around the new rubber insulation on each wire and them wrapped both together.  And set about attaching the spliced wire to the battery with the hood open.  The wire worked; the Minder came on flashing the appropriate lights. But you can't just leave the wire there, the hood will crush it when closed...

So I set about feeding the wire through the grill to the battery.  What a PAIN!  It didn't want to go from the battery out through the grill and it didn't want to go in through the grill to the battery!  It is REALLY cluttered in there.  No room for human hands...

I tried a bunch of different ways to feed it through and/or grab it with something.  It was getting REAL uncomfortable bending down into the engine compartment.  I FINALLY found a space I could get a hand into, but it wasn't enough.

Well, when several approaches don't work, try something else, right?  

I pushed a stiff wire in through the grill, and with one hand, guided it into view.  I made a loop on one end and tied some string to it and tied the wire to the string.  Perfect.  No.   The outside plug wouldn't pass through a narrow spot.

So I had to reverse the pulling wire.  The battery connection has 2 flat washers that slip over the battery posts.  I got the stiff wire through the grill from inside and attached the washers to the wire.  THAT didn't work; too stiff to get around a sharp corner.

So I pulled in partially back out, tied the string to the pulling wire (crushing the loop tightly) and pulled/twisted the pulling wire carefully.  

SUCCESS!!!

The Minder wires were through the grill and reached the battery.  I attached the washers over the battery posts and tightened them.  

Attached the Minder plug to the grill (so it wouldn't get pulled in).  Plugged the Battery Minder to an extension cord, the Minder plugs together, and the Minder showed normal charging signals.

And the car needed it!  It stayed on trickle-charging (solid red light) for hours before it turned green (charged).  HURRAY!

I just don't drive enough to keep a battery charged without help.  Seriously, my new-bought 2005 Toyota only had 30,000 miles on it when I donated it to Vehicles For Change in 2020!  My new Subaru has only 500 miles after 7 months.  

But I got that battery-discharging problem fixed, and that is the important thing.  When I want to do a short errand, the car has to work.  So I make sure it does.

It's the story of my life; I am just not "standard".  The world just isn't built for my habits.  I always have to struggle...

I usually win eventually, but it sure is never easy.  ;)

Cabinet Door Change

I expect the US election results to take days.  So life goes on...  One thing that has annoyed me for 25 years is an upper cabinet door.  My fault, I installed it that way.  I always assumed that cabinet doors right of the center should open toward the right and cabinet doors on the left of the center should open to the left.  

Assumptions are stupid!   The cabinet door nearest the passageway from the kitchen to the TV room has always gotten in the way.  I have hit my head on that SO MANY TIMES!  I would open it to get someting and forget to close it because I was in a hurry.

I clamped a straight edge under the door for ease in keeping it level while I changed it left to right.  THe kind of hinges it hhad allowed that easily.

But getting the screws out was a nightmare.  They wouldn't budge.  I wedged a screwdriver against them; no movement.  I finally hit them with a hammer to loosen them.  No luck.  Squirted some lubricant in.  That got them out with help of Many Bad Words.  Took many many minutes of struggling.  

So I put some paper tape where the new holes would go, reversed the door, and clamped it in place to mark the new drilling spots.  Took the door off and drilled.  Well, you have to be careful about drilling holes for screws.  No small and they are really tight.  Too loose and they don't hold well.  I have a little plastic gadget that has holes to measure screw size and recommends the drill size according to soft wood, hard wood, and metal.  Cabinets are mostly pine or particle board, so I started small.  

The screws wouldn't go in all the way.  And were hard to get back out.  So I went to the next size drill bit.  Same problem.  Went larger and squirted in the lubricant.  It got worse.  

I think the lubricant actually made the wood swell up a bit.  After 30 minutes, I was almost ready to try NAILING the damn hinges in, but I knew that wouldn't last.

Part of the problem was that I was up on a stepladder and you can't get much leverage on a narrow thing like that.  So I took a dining chair and clamped IT to a board against other lower cabinets so IT couldn't move.

With that bracing, I finally managed to get the hinge screws in with the door level and opening properly.  The whole process that should have taken about 5 minutes took 90.  The Mews were all hiding in the bedroom by that time.

I am not a trained or especially natural carpenter.  I do my best.  Persistence usually works and I've never built anything that failed structurally.  But damn, some things are harder than they should be.  

But I succeeded...  The open cabinet door won't be hitting my head again.

I always win eventually, but it sure can be a struggle sometimes!