Holidaze, Hood and Harnesses

Its been 10 days, and I've been on vacation for most of them.  I'l hit the highlights, and describe my final engine harness resolution.

Mt Hood Xmas Eve

Holidaze
The miniature house painting, like so many projects I undertake, took longer than I described in my post before.  In fact, it took as long as I told folks in person: over 40 hours.  It still needs to be shipped, so it totally missed the holiday window.  Once its been delivered, I'll post a picture.  My dad says that the Three Kings actually arrived on the 12th day of Christmas (Jan6), not on the actual birth-night like the songs imply.  So.. I'll stretch that so I can have the finished product in-hand by Jan6 and still meet Christmas expectations.  Its all in how you frame it...

Hood
As I write this, I've been to Mt. Hood to go sliding 13 times since the start of the season.  That is more than all of the times I've ever gone in all my previous years combined.  On Christmas Eve and the 26th, I took the boys to Ski Bowl.  After nearly a month without fresh snow, the conditions were really very good.  Ski Bowl has snow-making machines like the resorts in Vermont, so the sub-freezing weather allowed them to make snow almost every day.  This left an inch of top-powder on top of the packed base.  The mountain was practically empty on the 24th and it was almost as quiet on the 26th.  These were possibly 2 of the best days we'd had to date.

Mt Hood from Mid-Reynolds
top at Ski Bowl

We went up to Ski Bowl again on the 27th, but it rained.  I was practically soaked through by the top of the first lift, so I only took a couple of runs and called it a day.  We took the next 2 days off, so our legs could recover, and we had family holiday parties to attend.  Our last trip to Mt Hood was Friday Dec30 to Timberline.  Mt Hood was experiencing blizzard conditions, making the drive a little challenging for some, and the sliding a little interesting for us.

Sunset over Ski Bowl Lodge

The drive to Government Camp didn't require chains, but I pulled over into the rest stop/Summit ski lift parking lot and had them on in a few minutes.  All those early trips gave me lots of chain-up practice.  It also gave me some needed snow-driving practice, which came in handy.  We found a front-row parking spot, set the car in gear (leaving the hand-brake off), and stepped into some of the worst weather I've experienced since moving to the West Coast.  In the time it took to get our gear on I had an inch of snow in my back seat and over an inch in my trunk.  The car was completely covered, and we were all cold to the skin.  We hauled our equipment to the day lodge and set to sliding.  Timberline had at least 16" of fresh powder on the ground and more was pouring out of the sky.  Visibility was about 15' and foggy through goggles.  Still, the sliding was slow with the fresh powder, but that encouraged more direct paths downhill. The spills were all the more epic.
I avoided a young woman who was sliding very slowly down the center of the trail (in an outstretched jumping-jack pose), but ended up hitting the drop-in at the top of Thunder with my body out of balance.  I dropped about 10 feet hit a mogul, bounced, hit another mogul and then cartwheeled twice before landing flat on my back with a thud.  If the 16" of powder weren't there, I would have been hurt.  Instead, I caught my breath, checked my extremities, jumped onto my toe-edge and finished the run.  Good times, and more to be had for sure this season.

Harnesses

wires don't go to the same pins

So, I bought a replacement harness.  It wasn't the right one.  I found the part number on the ECU plug and bought a replacement off of eBay.  It looked right, but once I unwound the tape and pulled the dust cover off the back, it was clear that it wouldn't work either.  The picture here shows how the wires don't route to the same pins.  So, even though the part number was right, the implementation was different enough to make the part useless to me.  One more thing to sell.  Great.  So, at this point, I got a little creative.  I looked at the pin-holes that click into the ECU on both the old plug and the replacement.  It looks like the inside of each of those little holes contain a metal clip.  I figured I probably damaged or bent the clips with my connectivity testing.  Next to each square-ish hole is a tiny slot.  I found a tiny paperclip and started working the holes where I could see the clips. I did this on and off while watching football, so I'm not sure how much time this took, but it was more a case of move slow, than bang-it-out.

plug underside

Once the holes looked more like the plug I bought, I took the harness downstairs.  First, I tested the loaned harness with the OBDII trip computer.  I had only one code: P038 - Glow Plugs.  I pulled the loaned harness out, shot every plug on the original with Di-Oxit5 and strung it into the engine and ECU.  Quick test with the OBDII computer and I only had the one code.  Hazah!  I tried to start the engine and it wouldn't start, but its because I hadn't fully primed the fuel circuit.  I'll be completing that this week, and I should be able to drive the bus again.

Well, that's like 2 or 3 posts in one.  There's so much sliding season left, I expect to have lots of outdoor pictures and experiences to share over the next few months.  It seems like the bus is almost road-ready again after a 3 month span.  I plan to prime the fuel circuit this week and he'll be ready.  When he drives again, he'll have a completely refreshed fuel tank, a fan on the intercooler, an operating glow-plug circuit, a freshly painted exhaust and studded snow-tires.  Wow, when I spell it all out, its been a very productive 3 month lay-over.  Like every other time the bus goes back into service, I'll start a list of things I want to work on the next time.  If it goes well, I won't plan for another run of projects until May when the ski season is over but camping season hasn't started yet.  As always, thanks for following along, and I'll post again soon-