What was your prep for today?

[Poppy]

scout,
Thanks for the information regarding a check valve.
1/4 OD tube for a siphon is also useful information.

I looked at a couple of pictures I had taken of my engine when I pulled the intake manifold, and didn't see a port, so...
I did a google search "where is the fuel pressure port on a 2008 Grand Marquis" and this popped up.

I guess there are slight variations in the Ford vs Mercury engines. I wouldn't think so, but here it is.


Fuel pressure port on a 2008 Grand Marquis Lincoln mercury…

where is the fuel pressure port on a 2008 Grand Marquis Lincoln mercury


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Answered in 12 minutes by:
6/19/2011

Mercury Mechanic: Chris (aka- Moose)
Hello, I'm Chris.
I will do my best to answer your question fast and accurate using the info you have provided. Thanks for visiting Just Answer.

This model does not have a shrader valve to allow for testing the fuel pressure. It is done electronically with a scan tool bringing up the fuel pressure sensor whcih is on the injector rail to check the pressure. If you want to do it manually, you must disconnect the supply line to the injector rail and install a T section to allow fuel to continue flowing to the injectors but also to a test gauge.

[Poppy]

Ah... I just had an "AHA!!!" moment.

I ran out to the car and took a picture of THIS!



It is where my fuel line connects to the easy to get at passenger side fuel rail!

So now if I can find the connector to the fuel pump driver module, I have a way to get the gas out of my tank.
I think it is behind the back seat in the trunk.

[scout24]

(Disclaimer: It's been a few years... ) That's where we would "T" in with a fitting with schrader valve to put a gauge on the later model years, yes. I stopped working on them in 2015, my apologies for the goose chase...

[Poppy]

(Disclaimer: It's been a few years... ) That's where we would "T" in with a fitting with schrader valve to put a gauge on the later model years, yes. I stopped working on them in 2015, my apologies for the goose chase...

Oh NO Goose chase at all!!! Certainly there is no need for apologies!

If you hadn't made me re-check, I may never have come up with the thought of disconnecting the fuel line up top, instead of under the car at the fuel filter. In the rain or snow, it is much easier to work from the top than it would be under the car in the cold rain or snow, on my back! Been there and done that, And pray I never have to again!

Do you happen to know where the Fuel Pump Driver Module is located and how to access it? From the schematics it looks like it is behind the back seat in the trunk.

[idleprocess]

Conducted the semi-annual recharge-a-palooza today. ~60 / 90 low-self-discharge NiMH AA cells cycled successfully and a dozen-ish li-ion cells cycled. One li-ion cell was defective (<2V open circuit voltage upon insertion - yikes), another NiMH cell required forced resuscitation via a parallel adapter ... thus it goes.

I feel like I need a good ≥8-bay multi-chemistry charger rather than cycling through 3 - sometimes as many as 6 - different chargers. But then again it's the li-ions that I otherwise cycle monthly while the LSD NiMH are cycled far less often.

[scout24]

Idleprocess- I actually brought a pair of 18650's that live in my car bag inside over the weekend to discharge/recharge them. My last pair of AW black 2900ma protected cells. They seemingly do fine being neglected.

Poppy- Instead of jumping anything out, perhaps just turn the ignition on with the line disconnected from the rail. The command to build pressure will be sent to the pump and fuel will flow with the pump trying to reach spec pressure thinking you're trying to start the car. No cranking, just key on...

[Poppy]

Thanks scout,
That was my thought as well.
This however this is the response I got at the crownvic.net site.

The fuel pumps are controlled by the pcm via an FPDM basically a pulse width device vary the on off time of the pump through this module. Unless they see the engine rpms come as in cranking or running then it still only runs for just a couple of secs.

I suspect that this gent is right.
Even with the older cars, the PCM only triggers/grounds the coil side of the fuel pump relay, for a couple of seconds, unless it sees a PIP signal. That's why I had to manually ground the coil side of the relay, or jumper it.

Thursday through Monday of this week we should be in very comfortable mid to high 60's. Perhaps I'll get under the hood and test it out.

[Poppy]

And the best laid plans of mice and men!

For the past three weeks, after charging the battery with the charger, the mower started a number of times.
Today, I did a lot of start... run a little bit, stop and then start again. The baskets were filling with leaves pretty quickly, and I didn't want to get off of the unit while it was still running.

The battery died suddenly.

So I got out my little jump starter... it was at 97%.
It FAILED.
There are electronics in it that continued to tell me to connect the jumper cables. Although they were connected, it wasn't sending any juice to the battery.

I'll have to call for warranty tomorrow. I hope I didn't toss the receipt. I see that I didn't take a picture of it.

Whoa is me

Leaves are starting to fall, and I went to my ride on lawn mower to scoop them up. Oh no... dead battery! No pull cord. I can't find my battery charger. My generator has a 12V output, but for some reason I thought that it didn't come with the necessary cable. There were warnings in the manual that it is an unregulated 12 volts and that you shouldn't use it to charge a battery. So I pulled the battery, carried it to my car, and with jumper cables let my alternator charge it for 20-30 minutes.

I was able to start the mower and pick up three garbage cans of leaves. Good job Poppy!

When I tested the battery for voltage, it was FLAT DEAD, Zero volts! It came up to 12V after charging, but I didn't know if that was surface charge, and/or if it would hold a charge. SLAs don't do well if you fully discharge them. The next day I went out and checked the battery, it was at only 10 volts. Ah... not good. So I jump on the net for a new battery, that is well rated, at the best price, available locally. It seems that they are about $40 and negative ratings seem to say that they only last two winters, even with occasional topping off of the charge, if kept in an unheated garage or outside. My mower lives outdoors, and I looked all over for my charger. Winter is coming, so I don't really want to buy a new battery now (now that I'll only start the mower maybe three more times this season) I'd rather wait until after winter and get an extra year out of the battery.

Then it dawned on me to get one of those LiIon jump starter battery packs!



The 10 volt dead battery almost cranked the engine, but with this jump starter attached, it cranked nice and fast as it should.

Now if the battery in my generator goes dead, I can use this to start that too.

This should be good for I guess 5-10 years, @ $60 a good preppy investment.
It was a spur of the moment purchase, and I see that similar units are available for about $40, of course the quality of the battery may vary considerably.

Oh... yesterday I met my son and his girlfriend at a winery. It was a very pleasant afternoon. I told him about my ordeal, and not being able to find the charger despite looking high and low. She described it to me. It is in their closet. He forgot he had it, I had loaned it to him for his trolling motor battery. I think he sold the motor, so I should get the charger back later today.

[Chauncey Gardiner]

coffee

[Poppy]

Winter is coming.

I am getting ready to hunker down; preparing for more Covid isolation.

I have two gas cans that are not labeled regarding their capacity. I filled them up and now know, one is a 1 gallon, and the other a 2 gallon. I also have a new 2 1/2 gallon one that I had filled. I added 1 ml / gallon of marine Stabil to each. And I put a label on my bottle of Stabil ... 1 ml/gallon. The instructions are 1 oz per 10 gallons, so I had to do some math. Interestingly, they have a graduated cylinder on the container in both ml and oz. but only instructions for oz. I didn't recall the conversion, so I had to look it up. Without the internet during an outage, if the cell towers were also down, that would have left me head scratching.

I have two new, 5 gallon cans that I'll keep empty, unless it looks like they'll be needed.
I recall when Sandy hit, spare gas cans were unobtainable.

I topped off my car's fuel tank.

[Monocrom]

Made a list of all the items needed to fill holes in my preps.
Will take care of the biggest ones by Christmas this year.
The rest can wait a bit.... I'm a very patient man.

[bigburly912]

I bought 10 more pounds of dried beans to seal up in Mylar bags. Need to buy a small multi-fuel cook stove as well.

[Poppy]

I'm shipping a new carburetor to my brother, for his generator. I don't think he used it since Sandy 2012. It wouldn't start, and was leaking fuel. Easier to replace than rebuild.

Fortunately, he didn't have an outage, but was just prepping it for: "Just in case."

IMO, he was lucky.

Personally, I've had enough instances of having to fix something in the worst of conditions, usually a combination of Cold, wet, rainy, windy, and/or snow; that I have learned to do a periodic check of equipment during mild weather. (Usually)

[Owen]

I'm always prepping for my next off days or vacation.
Today, I started laying out my backpacking gear for a trip starting Dec. 1. Working 8 shifts in the intervening 5 days, so don't want to procrastinate.
I had it all planned out to head out West for a glorious road trip of favorite/epic dayhikes and overnighters from NV and UT over to CO, but switched to one closer to home(Southeast) that's looking more like NC and KY with possible quickies in SC and the corner of VA.
Right now, there's not so much difference in the forecast between the temps at places like Kolob Canyons, or the Needles district of Canyonlands, and it's actually looking like it'll be colder in the NC mountains, so my stuff will hardly change. Southern gorges and mountaintops don't have the same otherworldly beauty as the high desert and its canyons, but at least KY has waterfalls to go with their arches, and I might be able to find some conditions inhumane enough for my liking in NC.
Lord willing, my previously planned post-season trip will roll over into another pre-season one at the end of February(love cold, not crowds!), with mostly the same gear, so it's all good.

Most of my "prep" is deciding on gloves for the likely conditions, since the rest of my gear is long since dialed in, and that's really all I screw around with at this point.
But it's a road trip, so...maybe all of them

[Owen]

Maps! I love maps. The Avenza app for my phone often lets me download duplicates of my "real" maps. Super handy to be able to see, not just the map, but exactly where you are on that map. It's so accurate you can see which way you're facing, and walk right over to unmarked trails that are on the map, but overgrown due to lack of use.
In this case, it'll be doubly convenient, as I'll be doing some off-trail routes in an area I've never been before. I found some online sources that show GPS screenshots from things I want to see, so all I had to do was match up the terrain features with an actual map to pinpoint the locations of some "hidden" arches and waterfalls. That's good enough, but as long as my phone and app are working(always, so far), it's really nice to be able to track my progress at a glance when bushwhacking, and prominent terrain features aren't visible. It can really speed up the process by eliminating backtracking in places like gorges with series of drainages that all look alike, too.
I need the process to be speedy, as my time will be limited. The sooner I get where I'm going, the sooner I can leave...to go find the next awesome thing

[Owen]

I've been prepping, and didn't even know it
As my departure coincides with a cold front, I've been watching forecast temps for the first couple of days drop.
I've also been sleeping on my semi-retired Exped Downmat UL7 the last few days(night shift) to test a patch job that I redid, as it still had a very slow leak. It's not leaking any more, but is "semi-retired" due to the fact that I sleep outrageously warm, and my 8oz lighter Synmat HyperLite has been good to go after testing it several times in the mid-teens.
AND, last week, I got mittens for the first time in my life(except some eVent rain mitts) due to my hands becoming unusable in teens with 40mph wind in the NC mountains last December. Insulated shell with 300wt liners. Got them, but wasn't sure I'd really use them.
It's almost like I subconsciously planned this!

Was looking at the forecasts, and realized the one for what will be my first or second night was showing temps for the nearest town. Well, that forecast is down to 12 and 19F, respectively, and I'll be on a mountaintop 3200ft higher than the town. With a lot more wind, too. Rule of thumb being -3.3F per 1000ft of elevation gain means subtracting 10F, but the reality is that I could easily see subzero temps up there, so...Downmat it is.
Think those mittens will come in handy, too!

I hardly looked at CPF for 7-8yrs, and had never seen this section. It was a cool idea, but hardly anyone posts here, and it could use some life.
Anybody else getting ready for some "adventuring and questing" this winter?

[Poppy]

When I saw you posting about gloves, I was about to post: that I have a couple of pairs of three finger shooters mitts. They are more usable than full out mitts, because you still have use of your index finger and thumb. They are almost as warm as a full out mitten.
https://armysurpluswarehouse.com/tri...inger-mittens/

Planning to go out in sub-zero conditions... you are a younger man than me!

[scout24]

Owen- No trail running for me this winter, but I am shopping for new inflatable sleeping mats. The two I had were from Eastern Mountain Sports, about 17 years old, and had both completely blown seams last time I went to use them. Like 2 feet of delaminated and split seams. Being insulated from the ground is important, so shopping I go!

[bigburly912]

I bought 50 more Mylar bags. Going with quart sized this time for easy storage

[hsa]

Owen, what kind of mittens did you get? I'm always interested in glove and mitten reviews.

[Owen]

Planning to go out in sub-zero conditions... you are a younger man than me!

I'm 49, but pretty young for my age. My primary care physician is an orthopedic surgeon who says I have to be at least 90, though, based on the amount of damage to my spine
Having a long rough spell is why I'm not bound for Utah, and sticking to short hikes where I can get back to my car in a day if I get crippled up again.
Rain and temps lower than the teens are a lot easier to deal with when you're just out in it for a day or three, and not extended periods! I'm off for 9 days, and should get in 5-6 "bag nights", but 2 or 3 will be in motels. My friend calls it "gentleman hiking". That's me, all right

I like the liner on those gloves you got. These days, I'm not shooting with anything but a little point & shoot camera, or the one in my phone. The mittens I bought have liners with flip up pieces to free your fingertips, and the liners are the reason I got them.

Owen- No trail running for me this winter, but I am shopping for new inflatable sleeping mats.

I prefer the Expeds' baffle orientation to anything else, but YMMV. They're certainly not the cheapest around, but worth a look. I blew a baffle on a 5-6yr old Synmat Hyperlite, that it was a known issue of, a couple of months ago, and sent Exped an email with a picture. My pad was actually past it's 5yr warranty period, but I had a response in 9 minutes(!) offering me the newer, updated version as a replacement. No complaints here!


hsa,
I bought the OR Meteor mitts on sale for $55. Mixed reviews online, but my friend has and likes them. Fortunately, that friend was with me when I couldn't feel my fingers any more in my little 100wt gloves, and the liners are what he handed me to warm them back up. I don't know one mitten from another, but they made a great first impression.

[hsa]

Mylar bags. I couldn't make the connection. Had to google it. Pretty amazing. It's hell to get old.

[Poppy]

Ran my generator for forty minutes today. It's hard to believe that it is already 3 months old!

[bigburly912]

Mylar bags. I couldn't make the connection. Had to google it. Pretty amazing. It's hell to get old.

I use them for long term food storage. You just put an oxygen absorber in with whatever you are going to pack. Try to get as much air out as possible (or use a vacuum sealer) and seal it off with an iron. Easy

[hsa]

Sounds like a great idea. Now I know. Thanks.

[Monocrom]

I use them for long term food storage. You just put an oxygen absorber in with whatever you are going to pack. Try to get as much air out as possible (or use a vacuum sealer) and seal it off with an iron. Easy

Going to have to put those on my prep. list.

[bigburly912]

I get mine from packfresh but there are several options. Packfresh is just easy because eBay and they go ahead and put the bags and oxygen absorbers together.

[Poppy]

I bought a 50' 12 gauge extension cord. For what? I don't know!

I needed it, just in case I need it.

[Owen]

Haven't left on my road trip, yet. My first two destinations got nixed due to weather. #1, the trail I most wanted to do(Rim of the Gap between Caesar's Head and Jones Gap in SC) as part of a bigger loop got closed for the winter a few days ago. Destination #2(Hangover Mtn. in NC), ended up forecasting 4-8" of snow at the nearest town, up to 12" up high, and messed up roads, which are my biggest concern.
I always have a plan B, though, which is part of what prepping is about, IMO. I could have gone somewhere else, and still headed in the direction of my later destinations.
Which brings up another kind of prep for people with medical "problems", whether it be physically debilitating flareups for people like me, diabetics, people with severe allergies, etc.
I carry my normal prescription meds(muscle relaxers and nerve pain pills) to work, and everywhere else, in little screwtop pill carriers. Sometimes they're effective, sometimes ehhhh, and sometimes don't help at all. So I carry a little hoard of some "real" prescription painkillers in the event I get crippled up in the backcountry. Only have a few, and never touch them, as they're for worst case scenarios where it's too much to just tough it out-like if I'm days away from an exit point, say on a 7 day trip in the Rockies, or deep in the Canyonlands with lots of challenging terrain.
When I'm not hurting, it's hard to believe anything's wrong with me. When it's bad, I can't walk. Right now it's somewhere in between, but enough for me to wait and see how I feel tomorrow!
Anyway, I think some meds for people that need them are a good thing to plan ahead for. I keep mine in my first aid kit, that never gets opened unnecessarily, and stays with my backpacking gear.

I can still do rough trails and have fun like this, but the going is slow and painful. If anybody's bored enough, my friend makes videos of a lot of hikes, including 3(I think 3) we did last month. Here's one of my favorite dayhikes, though we did it as a short overnighter with a late start, and skipped my favorite part to check out an alternate route neither of us had done.
Through most of it, I'm moving in slow motion and getting stabbed in my hip whenever my left foot hits the ground, but you can't let every little thing stop you.
Mark said that if we met other hikers he'd just tell them I had Tourette's
Pretty sure some video got deleted for that reason
Regardless, most people seem like they're waiting until everything is perfect to go on "adventures". If everything's perfect, it's not really an adventure, though!

[Poppy]

Nice video Owen.

I hope when you go out, it is with more than just you and Mark. I'd hate to be him and have to make the decision of possibly leaving you alone while going for help, or staying put with you and praying that help comes your way. The path you were on appeared to be well maintained, but wet and slippery. If you got hurt, it could be quite a problem.

Stay safe, and travel in threes.