Baked and Fried

Who ever said you can never have to much of a good thing was full of cr@p. I mean a warm summer day is awesome, the heat of the sun is great....but too much heat can cause 'issues'. On the journey back from Manitoba I ran into a problem with my house batteries. The long and the short of it is that they died. Ran down to nothing. I didn't know why, although I had a plethora of tools, I didn't have my power probe and so I couldn't trace what was going on until I got home. A little detective work found that my house batteries were not receiving a charge from the alternator. Connections were good,wiring was good. Next thing to check was the battery isolator.






Waaaaay back behind the fuse panel we find our little friend.

After a few scratched knuckles, I managed to pull it from it's hiding place. Sure enough I was getting conductivity where I shouldn't and none where I should.

The diode in the thing was fried, like a fresh farm egg....but not as tasty.How? Why?....Well, I will take this on my shoulders. A design flaw. My design flaw. The radiator for Fillmore is a side mount design. So I fabricated a mounting place, had perforated custom panels made, and the rest is history...really it all went down just a little while ago...no wait... that was 2011! The practical issue is that the hydraulic fan sucks air from outside in through the rad and exhausts it into the engine room.
On relative short trips in mild temperatures....yes it got warm in  the engine room but not too bad. Now throw in a 14 hour trip in 30+ degree weather and like I said earlier, you could have cooked a roast in there. The engine ran fine, was nice and cool, running in operating parameters....but the engine room was a fricken hot box.  The over heating was too much for the isolator and it must have melted the diode. The good news is that I knew exactly where to go and what to ask for to get it back on the road. Less than 24 hours later I was back in business. My buddy Chris whom I consult with about the mechanical end of things was concerned when I would report my voltage readings. So like any mechanic worth his salt he just said,
Chris: "hmm that puppy just needs to be dialed down just a bit....."
Blake: "Uhhhhhh,....what needs what?....I can do a mean root canal but how do you dial down the alternator just a bit?"
Chris:" Oh ya right...."
So he took a few steps back and removed the assumption that I have a real working knowledge of the basics and told me about adjustments to voltage regulators.

He really wasn't kidding, you just have to dial it back....just a smidgen.

OK, electrical seems to be settled...'tick-tock'...now what other things need to be done...'tick-tock'
Outdoor shower! 95% of this job was already done. Water lines plumbed, bulk head fixtures in place, braided supply hoses attached. I just had to do a wee modification 'tick-tock' to the unit to allow for the rivet line.

Check....NEXT?....tick-tock'