Good morning. Happy Friday. If you look through the haze you can see the weekend. Okay, it’s not that hazy out but it’s cloudy to start out the morning.  Currently 35 degrees. Later we are looking at partly sunny, with a high near 44. Northwest wind 8 to 10 mph.

Big Red rides again or so it seems. I drove to Glenmont got some gas and it turned over fine. I was blaring Budd Lindemann’s Car and Track theme song, as I drove. The alternator saw the fully charged battery and after about a minute was just floating the battery.
Lesson my learned about not letting the fuel get almost to empty and taking repeated short trips in the winter. The fully charged battery turned it over after enough pumping of the accelerator. The truck has been bad about getting vapor locks since it rolled off of the line in Indiana. Apparently if you get it down to below an eighth of a tank, it doesn’t like to start. I know it’s bad for the fuel pump to get that low as it can cause the pump to overheat.

The real test happens tomorrow morning when I go to start it but it looks like the starting battery is in its happy spot. I pulled the fuse on the accessory battery. I’m going to install the fuse and add a override switch in the cab for the battery isolator so I can easily disconnect the accessory battery in the future. I already have the wire and an extra lighted switch to do this. In the winter months, I will just switch off the isolator, so it doesn’t charge the accessory battery until I see the starting battery floating. That should avoid future problems. My guess is when both batteries are somewhat discharged, the wiring to them is too thin, which causes a voltage drop, causing neither one to charge well, especially on short trips in the winter. I will try to confirm this with a voltage meter this weekend when I connect both.

But other then that I’m happy. I have a busy weekend planned, and hopefully next weekend I’ll be up camping. Might even see some snow finally, especially depending on where I decide to go camping.

Should be a great Friday! Enjoy it.