So this weekend, I was camping in the Southern Adirondacks on Route 8, about 85 miles from home. All was going well today, when I got back from my hike. It was a bright and sunny day, and I had my new solar panel hooked up to my truck, and it was cranking out the amps. Solar power charges slowly, but on a bright and sunny day, it adds up quickly.

So I get back to my truck. I noticed my starting battery was low, and the truck would be needed to be started if I wanted to listen to the radio back at camp. I like using the car radio, as it’s nice and loud, and has all my favorite music on it. Portable radios tend not to have good reception in the Adirondacks, and the alarm clock I had with me couldn’t seem to pick up any radio stations at all.

I could do what I did in the past — just idle the truck and charge up the starting battery. The thing was the accessory battery that powers the inverter was almost fully charged from the solar panel I had plugged in to it, on this delightful Good Friday afternoon in the Adirondacks. But that would be stupid. Why not have the panel charge both the starting battery and accessory battery, when the key was in the “accessory” position.

A person a few weeks ago posted a comment on my blog, about a source of “switched” accessory power under the hood of my truck, known as the “Amplifier Fuse”, No. 41. If I simply switched the battery isolator fuse tap from the “Engine Fuse” No. 5 to No. 41, I would be good to go. So I pulled the “Engine Fuse”, and it came out firmly. I proceeded to unplug the 15-amp fuse from the lower blade of the fuse tap, plugging it back into the “Engine Fuse” socket.

To my shock and horror, the “Engine Fuse” socket was loose. How could this be? How could I have broken the socket, pulling the fuse tap. I know a lot of people hate fuse taps, as you can accidentally break a fuse socket with them, if you bang on it the wrong way — at least in theory. But it beats cutting into a wire, and to be honest, that’s just how the place that installed the battery isolator in my truck did it. I wasn’t going to question it.

I fiddled around under the hood, unable to figure out why the “Engine Fuse” socket was suddenly so loose. I figured, what the hell, I’ll try to start up the truck. Maybe it’s okay. Otherwise, I guess I’m screwed. The truck, to my surprise, started, but it ran awful. It sounded like it kept wanting to die, but eventually it found a high but somewhat rough idle.

I figured there goes another $1,000 bucks due to my stupidity and abuse pulling a fuse from the fuse box. Maybe it won’t be that expensive, if they can take it apart the fuse box and replace the broken socket — and it’s unlikely to be that much labor. But there goes buying the shotgun I’m looking to buy for hunting or that lift kit that I am rapidly losing interest in.

I didn’t have cellphone service where I was in the Adirondacks. I had really only four options:

1) Try to flag down a passing car, and ask for help. Maybe they could at least give me a ride back to Wells or Warrensburg.

2) Try to call a trucker, or maybe a Forest Ranger/State Policeman on Channel 9 on CB Radio. I knew there was a lot of traffic, and maybe they could relay my message along to police.

3) Wait and see if a Forest Ranger came by — they usually do their rounds up there around 10 AM on Saturday mornings.

4) Try to limp the truck home, and if I wouldn’t make it all the way back, at least reduce my towing bill and possibly be in a place better for signaling help, rather than empty stretch of NY 8.

Breathing a sigh of relief that at least the engine worked with the broken “Engine Fuse”, I quickly packed up my gear, and decided to try limping the truck home. I figured with the rough idle and general poor engine performance, it wouldn’t do that much damage over 75 miles driving home. I guess it could gunk up the catalytic converter or maybe damage the cylinder walls, but I figured the risk is relatively low, if I drove it easily. Except for a few sections, it’s mostly downhill, rural roads.

If it got worst, I would try the first three options. But first I really didn’t want to have to deal with towing, getting a loaner car, or having to ask for a ride from a friend. I figured if I made it to Amsterdam, it would mean I could probably find a better garage, plus it would be reasonable to ask somebody to pick me up.

I made it to Amsterdam. It ran awful, trying to stall at every traffic light. It helped to keep one foot on the accelerator and in lower gear. Then I made it to Schenectady, then on the Thruway. I drove about 50 MPH on the Thruway at rush hour in the right lane, which annoyed a lot of people. Finally, I made it home. I decided to take one more look at the fuse box, mostly in despair, and suddenly, I realized I had plugged the “Engine Fuse” into the wrong socket. I got confused. I put the fuse in the right socket, fired up the truck, and it ran like new. The second time I started up the truck, the Check Engine light was off.

I drove it out to my parents house, because I needed a pair of needle nose pliers to reattach the excitor wire on the isolator, which I managed to break in the craziness of this all. But the truck drove just fine, and there is no evidence there was any damage to running the engine like I did back from the Adirondacks. I think it probably will be fine, as I didn’t push things too hard, and just disabling several engine sensors, just forced the main computer to go into fall back mode, which was able to get me home, just at much compromised performance.

I feel stupid. But I am going back to the Adirondacks early tomorrow morning, to enjoy the rest of the nice weekend.