Day 1839

 I got up a little after 8, did the pet stuff and had breakfast.  Then it was back out to the garage.

I started out by looking through all of my train stuff for a diode.  The only ones I found were electronics ones which wouldn't handle the power.  So I made a quick trip back into the house and ordered some from Amazon.  My only alternative was driving to Fry's.  They should be here tomorrow.

Then it was back to the garage.  I started to work out how the switch for the dash worked.  I needed a 12V supply, so I got one out of the well house.  It didn't have clips on the leads, so I got out the new soldering iron and installed some.  That took linger than it should have because I kept doing things wrong.  The new soldering iron was great though.

I used the supply to identify the switch leads.  Then I went to look at the leads in the Ranger that I removed from the old switch.  I found something puzzling.  Both were ground wires.  It turns out that I'd marked a +12 wire as a ground when I was doing rewiring a few days ago.  It's good I did, it would have caused a short to ground.  I fixed the wiring and removed the extraneous wires.  By then it was after 1 and time for lunch.

After lunch and some surfing I went back out.  I finished the wiring harness for the dash switch.  Then I installed the switch and the harness.  That actually completed the wiring except for one wire that I can't do until the diode gets here.  I tightened down all of the terminals and tested everything.  To my delight everything worked.  The phantom leak in the interior light is still there though.  I have no idea why.

After the successful test I put the Ranger back together.  I can finish the last wire under the hood.  Then I put away all the tools and cleaned up.  There was quite a mass of wire that I removed.  It all went in the garbage.

When I was finished I got Ellen and Lucy and we took a ride around the development in the Ranger.  Lucy really enjoyed the smells.  The rig really needs a tune up.  I put it back in the garage with a battery charger on it.

Ellen fixed BLT's for dinner.  After dinner I surfed and watched some TV.  It's great to have the Ranger back together.  I hope the battery drain issue is fixed.  It will  be awhile before I know.