Boring rambles for July 29, 2006 - But a good day.

Today was a good day. I saved myself a couple grand. Last week I moved my tractor to hook it up to the blade. It started right up, I moved it ten feet and I shut it down to move the mower deck out of the way. I went back to start the tractor and it would not start. It sounded like the engine had frozen up but on the chance that the battery was dead I hooked up my 200 amp boost charger to it and it still would not turn over. About this time I heard the fuel pump stop running too. I pulled the battery to access the starter solenoid and boosted right to the starter wire - still no luck. Starter is mounted in a place where the engine would have to be pulled to change it out - either way, starter or frozen engine the engine would need to come out. I tore into it a bit to see how bad it could be and saw that it was going to be a long project. Today my wife and I were trying a few things - pulled the spark plugs and found that I could turn the engine over by hand - yeah! Still could not get the starter to engage using the boost and still could not get the fuel pump to run. I had 12.5 volts at the battery cable where the booster was hooked up but only 8 volts at the fuel pump. I hooked the boost direct to the fuel pump and the voltage dropped off again. Seemed odd that a 200 amp charger would drop off in voltage like that. I had noticed that when the spark plugs were out the engine cranked over but slower then normal and would not crank over at all with the plugs in - looking like a weak starter and now with the voltage dropping off simply by connecting to the fuel pump made me start suspecting my boost/charger might be at fault. My wife and I went to town and bought a new battery for the tractor, and now it is running like a champ again. Seems odd that it started fine one minute and then a moment later it would not start. What a co-ink-a-dink that the booster/charger failed at the same time. All that time I was leaning toward the worst case senario and yet in the back of my mind I was suspecting the battery yet was fooled because the only other power source was telling me that it was something deeper and more costly to repair. Whew. Got the washing machine fixed too. What a productive weekend and it is only Saturday. Might not seem like a exciting day to many others but when I can fix something myself and save money it is exciting to me.
The child in me wants to go to Sauvie tomorrow yet I have plenty to do here now that the tractor is running again. We want to get the dirt we had dumped in the yard leveled so we can put up the pool - now that the weather is cooler. Maybe by tomorrow afternoon we can start playing in the water and won't have to drive to Sauvie to enjoy cool water and sun.
Saturday July 29, 2006 - 10:50pm (PDT)