Friday, April 8, 2011

Changing my mind on the wiring.

Ya, I know that I can check the credit card on line, but this card is issued on my investment account with my brokerage firm, and not on the bank.  Consequently I don't use the card as much as the ones on the bank account.  So, I don't think about checking the transactions on this card.  It is also paid automatically from the assets in the brokerage, so it isn't necessary to look it over and then pay the charges.  But with that said, I'll bet it will be reviewed more carefully in the future.

Today I got to looking at the coiled cord that the lady sold me over at the trailer place to hook up my CRV tail lights.  Even completely uncoiled, it was only three feet long.  On the web sites they advertise cords that are 7 feet uncoiled.  So I had the slow epiphany that the cord wasn't going to reach.  So I went back over to the store and returned the short little fellow.

And I soon learned why she had sold it to me since she didn't have a 5 foot or a 7 foot coiled cord in stock.  So in order to complete this hookup with a minimum of stress, I decided that the cord didn't really have to be coiled.  People end up weaving the cord around the tow bar arms anyway, so I purchased a straight cord that was 7 foot long.

This is the same cord that a fifth wheel has to reach down to the plug in on the back of the truck.  Then I purchased the end that plugs into the car.  She was trying to sell me an installation of the plug at their normal hourly rate, which would take about a half an hour.  That would have more than doubled the cost of the parts, so I said I could do it myself.

Of course, I had to look up the pin outs of the wires and decide where they all went here at home.  And it did take me over an hour to do it, since I don't have lots of experience.  but I got it after a while, and took it out and plugged it into the car.

Using a starting battery, I hooked up the correct wires to the plug to try out the new lights in the CRV.  The lights worked nicely.  The bulbs that they installed are very close to the original bulbs, so it is mostly impossible to tell that they are add on lights.  The tail lights look just the same as if they were the stock bulbs.

The thing that adding these separate bulbs does, is just that "remain separate."  With all the computers and logic on today's new cars, introducing electricity from another vehicle that the computers do not control is suicidal!  For the car's computers that is.  The Honda doesn't even know that these bulbs are there, from the electrical stand point.

The rest of the day was spent messin around here somewhere, as I didn't get back on that tax return.  But that procrastination had better be eliminated from my attitude fairly quickly!

Retired Rod

2 comments:

  1. Rod I know what you are going through when trying to complete a project and you keep having to go back and get ther RIGHT stuff! I just got off the phone with Home Depot cause I forgot to have them put the concrete on my delivery. Such is life

    ReplyDelete
  2. Most projects require me to revisit a store 2 or 3 times before I complete it. Nice job on getting all the pins right!

    ReplyDelete

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