You'll win me back a little at a time.....
Martin
There may not be a point to the radio, though.
The girlfriend and her son came by today, showed him how to do an oil change and such. Anyway, we took Tankie out for a Sunday drive, and at any speed, the various wind and tire and whatever other noises conspire to prevent conversation, or in fact any hearing at all. At speed, no way I'd hear the radio
Toodling around town was nice though.
I've also switched back to a traditional 12SI alternator, one of the ~100A stockers (Part # is 7294-3, for those with V-belts wanting such an alternator.)
I've been having fitment issues with the pulley on that 140A Pontiac one where the pulley was starting to move out at speed, fray the belt a bit, grrr. (I also suspect that some or all of the of the rectifier array is shorted as one of my batteries wore out, but that may be partially due to neglect
as well.) I've gotten tired of futzing with the thing, so I figured I'd put a regular one on Tankie, so I could have the same type on both trucks, same wiring/mounting, carry one spare that fits both, simpler solution.
So I went through my stash of stockers, found a working trail spare that will fit either truck, found a dead one to turn in as core, and went and bought a nice new one for Tankie. I figure I'll get 80% of the output, and in turn have a less exotic, more easily replaced part. Time will tell.
I was telling the gf and her son about the
mall-crawlin' picture thread in the Garage. At 14 he tends to be dubious of everything any adult says, but I still think I saw a spark of interest. Coming back from our jaunt I might have accidentally driven, umm, up and across the lawn (about a foot of concrete pavers -- which, thanks to the Doubler, were left unscathed!) which led to some eye-rolling on his part ... and that gave me the idea to stack up some extra pavers and do a little side yard flexing
I think Tankie's getting basically streetable and my comfort with driving her any distance is increasing accordingly, so I may be running out of excuses to actually take her wheeling
Anyway, we had a good, family-oriented sort of time and the kid seemed to have enjoyed himself and the truck, which is a good thing, I think.
-- A
Alpine head/changer (this was, uhh, before MP3 
) a coupla half-assed loud 6x9's and the amplifier in the head unit would prolly do fine. I was debating doing like 6x9's behind the seats and for the fronts, do like those kick panels from LMC with speakers, presumably replacing the crap speakers that come in them with something nicer ... but then, the moisture would eventually wreck 'em, etc etc. I hate to put nice electronics in the truck as it's just gonna get beat up or stolen. I donno, we'll see. I think cheap/simple will suffice.
