Murphy's Law (part 2)

To Paraphrase "Letters to Cleo"
Just livin' on a Sunday Mornin'
Get my toast and tea and I'm warmin'
I just thought I'd think about... Getting my butt outside and start working on my truck...

No watchin' the enthusiast shows on TV today. My enthusiasm's just about spent anyway after yesterday.

After fiddling with the "universal" mounting brackets for the fan for about an hour and a half, I finally settle on a configuration that I think might work. The trick is to get the "L" brackets hooked under the radiator without taking the radiator out of the truck. Wouldn't you know it, I'm in luck, I can wedge them in there quite simply. Maybe Murphy will leave me alone today.

I spend another hour drilling the bottom of the fan to bolt from the inside (don't worry, it's made to do it that way, honest). Another 15 minutes and it's bolted on. Time to wire this thing up and get it going.

The instructions were unbelievably clear on the wiring details. It only took me about 30 minutes to get it all together. Final step, plug in the fuse and warm up the truck. Nice!

According to the directions, I set the thermostat to the highest setting and let the truck warm up to where I would like the fan to turn on. I get into the cab and turn her over. Crank up the AC to get the motor warmed up quicker. 150... 160... 170... 180... Perfect, let's turn down the thermostat until the fan turns on.

Very slowly, I start turning the control knob on the thermostat to the left. Slowly now... Slowly... I'm about halfway down now... I have to be close to 180 degrees soon, don't I? Turn some more. Nothing is happening. I now have the thermostat on the lowest setting, and nothing. Not a peep from the fan.

Ok, let's retrace my steps... Ground to fan, ok... Ground to battery, ok... Red positive wire to fan... Looks good, red positive to battery... Looks good too. Positive wire to thermostat... That's just fine. The last thing to check (why didn't I check it first??) is the fuse. Hmm... It's blown. That's odd, you'd think it at least come on for a second before it blew the fuse.

I pull the fuse out and set the thermostat to where I think it might be on. Actually, now I notice that I can hear a click on the thermostat when it gets to the right temperature. Very good, at least I know that part is working. I stick the new fuse in and immediately it pops.

Time to go back and double check the wiring. Hmm... The positive battery terminal is a little corroded, I'll try another connection that's hot. Ok, new fuse time! Pop! Same thing.

I take out my faithful volt meter. I check all the grounds, circuits, and make sure I have the right voltage everywhere. All is well. New fuse... POP! This is getting frustrating.

The morning is flying by and it's getting to be about time for lunch. I'll get this thing going after lunch and still have an hour or two before dinner to work on my almost completely remodeled bathroom. (Anyone care to wager if I ever do finish the bathroom?)

After lunch I pull every last inch of wire that I just ran around the engine bay and start from scratch. A run to the auto parts store across the street, then to Sears Hardware, then to the other parts store to collect all the new connectors I need along with more fuses (I'd better stock up). You just had to know I wouldn't find everything I needed in one store.

I spend 30 minutes driving around like a nut, then another 30 minutes re-wiring the entire thing. It's gonna work now. Stick in fuse... POP!!!

It's right about now when the "Ralphie" in me starts spewing more fudge. In addition, I'm throwing tools, and kicking things. Forget about breaking anything in the car, I'm probably going to break a toe.

What the frig! I come inside the house and log on to Flex-a-lite's web site. Seems at some point they had an issue with a fuse holder that they supplied with some of their fans. This is a new model, so I don't think that could be the issue, but it is on just about every page of their site. I'll try another one just to be safe. This is the onset of another run to both parts stores.

Again, more cutting and stripping an fastening of wires. Go for another fuse... Pop! AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

Unhook the fan... Check wires inside... All is fine. Pop in fuse... Hey, whataya know, it works!! Crank the fan down nice and tight, turn it back on, pop goes the fuse...

Oh... Wait a sec...

Think for a minute... Pop goes the lightbulb in my head. (At least it wasn't another fuse). The back of the fan motor is touching the radiator. That's what's causing the fuse to break.

After spending another 10 minutes moving and re-tightening the fan, I crank it up again and all is good. I take the truck out for a test spin and get her nice and warm. Everything is looking just great! The needle on my truck's temp gauge is pegged about 195 degrees... Right where it should be. (Although now I'm thinking it's a good idea to put in a 180 degree thermostat).

Awesome, I'm now a happy camper. It's time for dinner now... Guess I'm not getting to the bathroom work. Everything is good... Well, sort of...

It's a week and a half since I put the fan in and the fuse still goes every now and then. I think the fan might be moving around just enough on occasion to get some static built up and short out with the radiator. For now, I'll keep enough fuses in the glove box to get me through until I have time to get it perfect, but all-in-all it's working well.

So, you see, Murphy's law gets me just about every time I embark on a weekend project. Shoot, if you have a project that you think I could help you out with, you'd better think twice. It's contagious... Or at least it will be as long as I'm helping. Steer clear of me and Murphy.

And for those of you who were betting, no, the bathroom still isn't finished.

Murphy's Law

Who is this Murphy person? Is it Saint Murphy that's blessed me? I don't know who he or she may be, but they have touched my life in a big way. I'm sure there's someone out there who knows the back story...

You know the saying, "If anything can go wrong, it will." It's the motto of pessimists all over the world. The odd thing is, I think of myself as an optimist, almost to a fault. I'd like to think I'm a realist too, but it's hard to imagine the two going hand-in-hand.

Murpy's law applies to me whenever it comes to doing any sort of manual project. Whether it's making some home improvements or working on my automobiles, it happens. Everything goes wrong. A four hour project very rapidly makes its metamorphosis into a 2 or 3 day affair.

Case in point: A few weeks ago, I ordered an electric cooling fan for my '99 Dodge Dakota R/T from Jeg's. I got the brand-new Flex-A-Lite Black Magic XTreme 180. It's a sweet setup with its own built-in shroud and thermostatic control. The box arrived a few days later and being as giddy as a 4 year-old on Christmas morning, I opened it right away. Of course I justified this as just wanting to make sure everything that was supposed to be included was in-fact in the box.

Still excited just thinking about it, the next weekend I postponed plans to do some finishing work on our master bathroom that I just completed remodeling (another Murphy's story within itself). My thought process went something like this: I can put the fan in on Saturday and still have time on Sunday to finish the bathroom. ...pretty funny huh?

Saturday morning the fun begins. Still thinking that this is probably something that I could do in about 4 or 5 hours' time, I bum around the house in the morning watching some of my favorite enthusiast shows on cable. I hate missing "American Muscle Car" and "My Classic Car" on Speed.

Finally, I put on a ratty charcoal gray sweatshirt, an old but comfy pair of jeans, slip on my beat-up navy blue Vans and mosey on out to the driveway to pop the hood of the Dak. "Wow, that's a really big nut on the old clutch fan! I'll get to that in a minute," I thought to myself. Four nuts undone and the shroud is loose. I should've known it wouldn't fit past the fan. No biggie... One nut goes right back in to hold it in place while I work on getting the fan off.

I fetch the channel-lock plyers from my tool box and grab the fan nut. Ok, yeah, it's a clutch fan silly, that's not going to work too well. If I can just hold the fan and turn the nut, it'll loosen. No such luck, the pulley is turning. For some reason, in the back of my mind I was thinking that the fan was attached to the crank pulley. Of course it's attached to the water pump pulley, everybody knows that!

Hmm... what now? Maybe if I just put some pressure on the serpentine belt (I'd like to have a word with the guy who invented those), it'll hold the pulley in place. NOT! Ok, let's pull out the handy-dandy Craftsman strap wrench. Nope, no measure of tightness will keep that pulley from turning, not too mention the channel-locks just aren't gripping well enough.

By now it's well past lunch-time and I'm starving. I run out to Lee's Hoagie House to grab a bite and then it's off to the 2nd hand tool store to find a wrench big enough loosen this friggin' fan. I'm getting a little testy by this time.

Back to the driveway and the wrench fits like a charm, thanks to the info I found on the www.dodgetrucks.org forum. I still need to keep that pulley from turning. It's simple, just find something to wedge against the pulley bolts and the water pump or some other imovable object in the engine bay and I'll be good-to-go.

I found some other interesting information on the dodgetrucks forum as well... yep, the pulley is pressed on. No bolts in the pulley at all. Fortunately the holes are there to be used in a bolt on application as well. I'll just wedge a screwdriver... nope too tight to get it in there... allen wrench... that might do it... nope too short... slip... whack... there goes the knuckles.

As Ralphie exclaimed in one of my favorite scenes of one of my favorite movies of all time, "Oh, Fudge!!!" You know the one, it's a classic. I don't even have to name it for you, do I? Only, like Ralphie, I didnt' really say "fudge." I also didn't really say "shoot," "galdarnit," or "mother-anything." Nor, did the sayings go on for the duration of my project...

I can't even remember exactly what happened in the next hour or so. I just started slamming everything I could to wedge that fan and turn that nut. Applying the full force of all my 230 lbs (beer... it does a body good), this thing just wouldn't budge without everything slipping.

Fortunately, I didn't break anything, but honestly, by this point, I didn't care if I did. I was going to get this thing off even if it killed me. Bright idea after bright idea just wouldn't hold that fan in place. Finally I run in the house to grab a three inch screw from my trusty jar-o-bolts. It took me a good twenty minutes to wedge that into the vacant bolt hole on the pulley and wedge it up against the water pump.

Kneeling on the front bumper, right hand on the fan, left hand on the wrench, I push in two directions with everything I've got. Pushing so hard that, fudge [sic], it slips again just as all the veins are popping out of my head and everything is going black... but wait, no... what's this?

"Holy moley" (yeah, that's what I said, really). It didn't slip. The nut is loose! I'm so ecstatic that I'm practically doing cartwheels in my driveway!

I go inside for a celebratory dinner. I've been married for 6 years now, I can read my wife pretty well. I can tell that even though she's happy for me in my moment of triumph, she's getting a little grumpy that I've been out in the driveway all day and not spending any time with her or the bathroom.

I head back out to the driveway to figure out how to get these (now picture Austin Power's Dr. Evil gesturing quotation marks) "universal" mounting brackets for the fan to fit. By now it's getting a bit too dark to really see what I'm doing, so I call it quits for the day.

Tomorrow's Sunday. I'll get an early start and finish up by lunch. I'll even have enough time to get some trim work nailed down in the bathroom... I go to bed that evening feeling like I just ran the Boston Marathon, but I'm satisfied for the day.

(To Be Continued...)