Author: Mike

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Tornadoes in Cleveland, Tn

Young Road
Last night possibly as many as five tornadoes passed through my home of Cleveland Tn in Bradley county. The power went out before eight pm but came back on some time in the night. I live in the southeast corner of the county. It appears the worst of the storms went north and west of me.

My parents who live north of me were without power until later this morning. Cell phones worked some but not reliably. My Verizon Mifi was always able to get a connection however.

Neither of our homes received any damage. However, just a few miles up Spring Place road, there was a lot of damage. An abandoned restaurant and a hair salon were destroyed. One end of the strip mall across the street was hit as well.

I have been listening to the emergency services radio part of the day and it sounds like there is damage all around the county. So far nine have been confirmed dead including one body found hanging form a power line.

I am thankful that a bubble of protection was placed around me, my family and friends. My dog did a good job of guarding the under side of the futon in the back room last night as well.

I am looking forward to seeing our community work together to recover quickly from the damage.

For lessens I learned helping with the clean up see the next post: Tornado Safety

Bar on Spring Place road
Hair Place on Spring Place
House of BBQ
Traffic backed up on Spring Place due to other routes being closed.

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Learning to Weld

Learning to Weld

I grew up around welding. My Grandfather had a welding shop where he built bulldozer blades. My dad worked his way through college as a welder. And as Plant Engineer, I supervised welders. However, I have done very little welding myself.

I know a lot of the theory and I know how to set the welder to the specs for the material being welded. But the actual physical skill of making and holding an arc and forming a puddle, I am just learning.

I have three welders to choose from. I have a small flux core wire feed welder. I have a large Lincoln MIG wire feed machine. And I have an old Hobart gasoline powered DC ARC welder.

The little wire feed is great for tacking stuff and welding exhaust. Because it is small and portable, it is great for working under the car. It makes ugly welds however. And with minimal control, it often does not hold very well.

I have learned to make pretty nice weld with my MIG. The Lincoln has continuously variable controls for voltage and wire speed. As long as I keep good tips in the nozzle, it makes nice smooth welds.

Only recently I go the old Hobart running again. It has sat dormant for at least five years. It took a bit of work to get the engine running again. But after the twigs and acorns flew out of the generator, it is making good power.

I have begun learning to use the stick welder. It turns out that the current setting has a much narrower range than I expected. If it is too hot, it blows holes in the metal instead of welding. If it is not hot enough, then the rod will not strike or it will stick. Also, the arc length seems to be critical. If it is too long, then the weld just splatters. If it is too short, then the rod sticks.

Getting the hand coordination right has been the most challenging part for me. I now understand why people say that the only way top learn to weld is to practice. I have been practicing on some simple projects that allow me to grind away my mistakes and try again.

While you can’t learn how to weld by reading a book, you can get some valuable tips. Luckily I have my dad and a good friend to ask when I have a problem. But there is a great reference that tells you all the things you need to know to learn to weld. Get a copy of Welding Secrets Revealed to learn more. Sign up for their newsletter to get timely tips in your inbox. Welding E Book

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Mifi 2200 mobile hotspot review

Mifi 2200 mobile hotspot review

I recently swapped my Hugesnet Satellite system for the Verizon Mifi 3g mobile hotspot. So far I have been very happy with it.

I was at fist concerned about signal strength as we sometimes drop cell calls at our house. My plan to was to find somewhere in the house that had a good signal and then use a router as a repeater. However, in actual use, it picks up everywhere in the house. I just sit it near what ever computer I am using or, if it is charging, just lay it in the floor in the hallway.

This past weekend, I took the device to my mother’s house so she could test it. She currently uses the Verizon USB modem. To get reception in her computer room, she has to plug the modem into a long USB extension cable and tape the modem to the window.

My Mifi needed charging so I sat in on her sewing table well away from where hers gets a signal while I booted up my lap top. I let it connect to the wireless signal and I planned to move it once it charged up a bit. However, to my surprise, it had plenty of signal right where it was. This was in the center of her basement where cell phones hardly work.

She was able to connect with her laptop and carry it upstairs while the Mifi sat in the basement plugged to the charger. Both of us were amazed at the signal strength not only of the wireless signal but also the cellular reception.

So far the only disappointment has been that the tethered mode of plugging the Mifi into my computer via the USB cable refuses to work. I had hoped to use tethered mode while in the car to avoid running down the battery in the Mifi. My computer uses XP so I suspect that there is some problem with the installer it my older version of windows. I gave up trying to use tethered mode as the wireless mode works so well. The battery life is several hours so it has not been a problem yet.

In order to connect my desktop computer to the Mifi signal, I used dd-wrt software to convert my old router to client mode. The router automatically recognizes the Mifi anytime it is turned on and logs in automatically. All, I do is turn on the Mifi hotspot and in a few seconds, I am on the internet with the desktop.

When using my laptop, I always have to hit the refresh button to see available wireless connections before it will see the Mifi. But once I click refresh, it connects automatically.

I have the 3GB per month plan and so far I am on target to use about that much. The satellite plan gave me 200MB per day so I am accustomed to working within bandwidth restrictions. I use Opera in Turbo mode to save bandwidth when possible. However the other users in my house just browse as they normally would.
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Flea and Tick control

Smash is starting to collect tick already this year. Every afternoon during a pet the puppy session, I pluck off a dozen or so ticks.

I hate to use chemicals but I am seriously considering using K9 Advantix flea and tick medicine.

According to their web site, Advantix kills not only ticks but other parasites for up to a month.


Absolute Lowest Prices on Pet Supplies

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Jeep Distributor Indexing

Indexing the 4.0 distributor
Jeep Cherokee Repair – Motor Problems

After having heard and read many horror stories about Jeep 4.0’s that don’t run after pulling the distributor, I was very careful about installing the distributor in my new Titan Stroker Motor.

The procedure in the factory shop manual is surprising simple:

Use a 3/4 inch wrench to rotate the engine to the zero degree mark on the Damper. This is easier if the electric fan is not in the way. Also, you must ensure that you are on the compression stroke of the engine. One way to ensure this is to watch the motion of the valves and make sure that you are using the mark just after the intake valve closes.

Another note: If your damper is old, this is a good time to make sure it is not twisted by checking that the engine really is at TDC when the damper lines up with the mark.

With the cap on the distributor, scribe a line just to the left on the number one terminal. Transfer this line down onto the metal distributor housing. On the Renix version, it will be near where the wires come out.

Use a screwdriver to set the slot in the oil pump drive to 11 O’Clock.

Now take the distributor cap off. Eyeball the mounting tang over the mounting bolt hole in the block. Pick up the gasket you just dropped and put it back on.

Set the rotor to point to about 4 O’Clock. This will be a bit to the right of your mark.  (on the HO distributor, align it with the wire.)

Lower the distributor in to the hole and allow it to engage the cam shaft drive gears. The rotor will turn as the gears engage. When it hits bottom, the rotor should be pointing at the mark you made earlier. If not, try again.

Put the mounting clamp on and tighten the bolt.

From the stories I have heard, the computer will not work if the distributor indexing is off even one gear tooth. By using this procedure, yours will be right. Check off another item from your list of Jeep Cherokee motor problems.