The title of this entry reflects yesterday evening's activities: Jacque's Exploder got it's wheels aligned and repaired, then she got on me about getting the "Check Engine" light problem fixed since the vehicle is a couple weeks away from needing re-registration, meaning it has to pass the dreaded emissions test, which it wouldn't since the check engine thing has been glowing brightly for a couple months at least.
I took it to Autozone after retrieving it from the alignment joint and got the nice lady there to run a diagnostics check to see if the
warning lights" might be anything I could repair or replace myself. It had two error codes that recurred several times, each with a suggested solution of catalytic converter (Ouch- hundreds of bucks) or oxygen sensors, of which this vehicle has 3 of, front, middle, and back. The nice lady printed out the codes and suggested solutions so I could review them at my leisure. I had noticed on MY car (Ford Taurus) that the check engine light comes on and off almost every day but if I STOPPED any tracker beaconing or transmitting on any of my other ham radios, the check light would never come on. I decided to try an experiment with the Exploder: I disconnected the battery, set my cell phone alarm for 15 minutes, and sat there in the Albuquerque heat reading my latest e-book novel and then reconnected the battery, thus resetting the vehicle computer to clear all old codes. I unplugged her ham radio tracker (Which produces a fairly strong pulsating Radio transmittion every few minutes) and turned off the voice ham radio transceiver so I wouldn't be tempted to talk on it if I heard someone I knew, and drove home.This was over 30 minutes of driving including a stop for gas at Sams Club, and NO engine check lights came on, at all.
If no check lights have blinked by the time Jacque gets off work at Beehive at 3:00 PM this afternoon, she's supposed to RUSH it down to a local emissions place and see if it passes the test, which if successful, will allow re registration for the next couple years. Technology and Bureaucracy... What a Combination. BAH
This morning I caught a couple cute videos: 2 speed-racers who passed me and heckled me about all my electronic stuff on the handlebars. The 2nd guy to pass me hollers out "What Channel are you Watching on TV??" at which point he, looking at me over his shoulder, goes slightly off the path into the gravel and just BARELY misses going down while being the smart-aleck:
Awakening BG: 120 Post-Ride BG: 107
Beginning Battery Voltage: 13.1 Ending Voltage: 12.3
Morning Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.44
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed10.3 Mph 11.9 mph 22.8 mph
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
43:10 mins 37:27 mins 05:43 mins
This afternoon's ride back to the car was not too bad, though of course the usual headwind is bothersome.
One of my bike-riding co-workers asked me, disbelievingly, if I was "Still riding in all this heat." He seemed to think that was amazing. I think it's more amazing that I ride all through the winter months with few exceptions. This guy is a cool dude, but he obviously misses out on a lot of riding... he doesn't ride when it's cold OR hot. That really limits the number of available riding days.
Passed a nice group of cyclists this afternoon, must be a riding group of some kind:
Beginning BG: 254 (Having a bit of trouble with this lately) Post-Ride BG: 166
Beginning Battery Voltage: 12.3 Ending Voltage: 11.8
Evening Stats from the GPS: Total Miles: 7.40
Overall average speed Moving Avg Max Speed09.9 Mph 10.3 mph 20.2 mph
Total Trip time Moving Time Stopped Time
44:59 mins 43:04 mins 01:55 mins
No comments:
Post a Comment