Friday, January 9, 2015

Under pressure....

Depending on how many miles we travel over a given period of time I need to 'clean' the rear facing radiator on our Newell at least once in a year when we only traveled slightly over 5,000 miles, or possibly twice when we drive further.  Thursday was the day for that to be accomplished.  I had noticed as we drove south from Lone Pine, CA a few weeks ago that the coolant temperatures were running 5 degrees warmer than normal, and that is normally my cue that the radiator needs to be cleaned.  While we were still at Cape Blanco I ordered a pressure washer via Amazon knowing I would need it by the time we got back home.  In the past I have just borrowed pressure washers owned by friends we were visiting, but that is not always convenient.  I chose Thursday because it was to be a warmer day, and since there would be a lot of water involved, and the significant possibility of me getting wet why not do it on a warm day, huh?

Thursday was also a continuation of '2nd Christmas' as I got an e-mail from Monoprice that my HDMI cable and splitter order was ready for local pickup, so while I dove head first into the cleaning of the radiator TLE drove to the Costco in Rancho Cucamonga to do some shopping, and to order her new reading glasses.  Since Monoprice is just around the corner she agreed to pick up the Monoprice stuff while she was there.

Just after she left I began to get ready to clean the radiator.  First I had to empty both engine bays, set up the pressure washer, and buy some degreaser.  Fortunately there is a Napa Auto Parts store about a block from my daughter's home so I just walked over and bought the degreaser.  Finally it was time to get down to business......I sprayed the degreaser on each side of the radiator, gave it some time to 'degrease' then powered up the pressure washer and sprayed from the outside in to dislodge the gunk that had accumulated on the engine side of the radiator since last March.  I repeated this process two more times before I was satisfied that the radiator was clean.

TLE was back home a little after 12.......by 2 pm I was into my daily exercise routine, and then about 2:45 I headed out on my daily bike ride to the top of Mt. Rubidoux, and around Fairmont Park.  How fast I can ride this 10 mile loop is largely dependent on how many green lights I can hit as I ride down University from Kate's home.  On Thursday I only hit one red light out of 8, and managed to complete the ride in 51 minutes, which is probably about as fast as I can do it 'door to door' considering how many signals there are.

By the time I got back from my ride I was ready for a nap, so I took a shower, then the nap!

Friday I'll tackle running the HDMI cables for the bedroom TV and the outdoor TV as well as install the wireless transmitter and receiver for the trailer TV.

Thanks for stopping by!

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