Yesterday we had 10-12 family members over for a barbecue (a traditional 4th of July where we barbecue chicken). Alas, we went to fire up the Traeger grill (given to us by a friend) to start cooking everyone's chicken (the parents of each family bring their own chicken) -- and the grill refused to start up! Fortunately, everyone always boils the chicken ahead of time so it's already cooked.
But we kept some of my brother-in-law's grandkids and our grandkids so they could play all day at our house. We're having their parents over again tonight, so my wife asked me to fix the grill. I was NOT looking forward to it, as it's an electronic control with a digital readout and the manufacturer will not release any schematics.
We cleaned everything out to get access to things. Then I removed a panel to get access to the auger and blower motors and glory be! In moving the barbecue yesterday, a wire had moved enough to get caught in the fan blades of the auger motor. That was the symptom too, as I had manually dumped pellets into the firebox yesterday and they fired right up. So it was a simple one tie-wrap solution and sew the patient back up. Those are my favorite kinds of problems.
Now, here's the icing on the cake. My daughter had gone to meet a guy she had a date with last night and she called my wife to say she was stuck in an auto supply store's parking lot because her car radiator was leaking fluid and the engine was overheating. She was going to drive it home, but I had to warn her that a leaking radiator is a life-threatening problem for an engine, so stay put until I got there. My brother-in-law and I drove down and could immediately see that the radiator was kaput, as it was leaking fluid out where the plastic top meets the metal fins.
The boy she was meeting fortunately had some water in his car (I had foolishly forgotten to bring some), so we nursed the car back to our house by stopping two or three times to fill the radiator again.
Here's the other good news. I've replaced all the radiators in our other vehicles and they all cost a bit of work to get them out, especially my wife's van. I loved my Land Cruiser's radiator, because it's brass and I could just solder up the holes. Anyway, I took one bolt out and was able to lift the whole radiator out of my daughter's car! I was able to lift it high enough to sneak a pan under it, then remove the bottom hose to catch the fluid in the radiator. Total time to get the radiator out was a few minutes, mainly because I had to figure out what to do. It took me about 15-20 minutes to get everything put back together. What a treat -- less than 45 minutes total to replace a radiator -- and that includes sitting around teasing my daughter in front of her friend (he's a nice kid who's a radiology specialist in the Army).
So, I've spent enough time on the projects from hell over the last 50 years to occasionally warrant Murphy on vacation. Today was the day. Of course, you cynics will say the fly in the ointment just hasn't appeared yet...
But we kept some of my brother-in-law's grandkids and our grandkids so they could play all day at our house. We're having their parents over again tonight, so my wife asked me to fix the grill. I was NOT looking forward to it, as it's an electronic control with a digital readout and the manufacturer will not release any schematics.
We cleaned everything out to get access to things. Then I removed a panel to get access to the auger and blower motors and glory be! In moving the barbecue yesterday, a wire had moved enough to get caught in the fan blades of the auger motor. That was the symptom too, as I had manually dumped pellets into the firebox yesterday and they fired right up. So it was a simple one tie-wrap solution and sew the patient back up. Those are my favorite kinds of problems.
Now, here's the icing on the cake. My daughter had gone to meet a guy she had a date with last night and she called my wife to say she was stuck in an auto supply store's parking lot because her car radiator was leaking fluid and the engine was overheating. She was going to drive it home, but I had to warn her that a leaking radiator is a life-threatening problem for an engine, so stay put until I got there. My brother-in-law and I drove down and could immediately see that the radiator was kaput, as it was leaking fluid out where the plastic top meets the metal fins.
The boy she was meeting fortunately had some water in his car (I had foolishly forgotten to bring some), so we nursed the car back to our house by stopping two or three times to fill the radiator again.
Here's the other good news. I've replaced all the radiators in our other vehicles and they all cost a bit of work to get them out, especially my wife's van. I loved my Land Cruiser's radiator, because it's brass and I could just solder up the holes. Anyway, I took one bolt out and was able to lift the whole radiator out of my daughter's car! I was able to lift it high enough to sneak a pan under it, then remove the bottom hose to catch the fluid in the radiator. Total time to get the radiator out was a few minutes, mainly because I had to figure out what to do. It took me about 15-20 minutes to get everything put back together. What a treat -- less than 45 minutes total to replace a radiator -- and that includes sitting around teasing my daughter in front of her friend (he's a nice kid who's a radiology specialist in the Army).
So, I've spent enough time on the projects from hell over the last 50 years to occasionally warrant Murphy on vacation. Today was the day. Of course, you cynics will say the fly in the ointment just hasn't appeared yet...