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I was once told that it is much cheaper to replace the belt on schedule than it is to have your car towed to a shop to rebuild the engine.  It made sense to me at the time. MG

I removed a pull out cup holder and an ashtray from the back of the area between the front seats.  The fuse panel is were the ashtray used to be with a small bit of velcro holding the cover in place.  The cover of the former cup holder is also held with velcro over the inverter.  The ciggie...

We could all take a lesson from the Sasquatch.  Leave your campsite exactly the way you found it and people won't even know if you were really there. MG

Just an aside about e-brakes.  Many years ago my brother had a 1960 Land Rover.  The e-brake was a drum brake on the rear drive shaft.

In past decades my road trips involved throwing some things in the car and going.  Some of the things included a 2x6 foot piece of plywood, a deep cycle battery that occasionally got topped up with jumper cables and a small plastic ammo box with inverter, 12 volt and USB outlets hooked up to a...

I was once trying to instruct a group of people how to drive down a steep, winding snow covered dirt road after they had turned down my suggestion to park at the bottom of the hill before the snow started.  None of them believed me when I said they could brake or steer but they couldn't do both...

Reaction ferries, with a capacity of 2 cars or 1 truck, help reduce crowding.  This is one of 5 operated by the British Columbia government and I expect to be on it next week.  This is one of two that cross the Fraser River but I'm not telling which one and I didn't invite anyone and I'm not...

I'm just getting ready to return to the road, four years after getting hit in the head with a car.  One of the things that has kept me entertained and interested is quality maps and map books.  The books I have list provincial and national parks and lots of other interesting places.  Lots of...

I think stealth is more about whether you improve the neighbourhood,  give it a bad image or nobody notices.  The only time I've had anyone notice my location it was a cop who saw my light and stopped to see if I needed help.  If I have streetlights instead of trees I often park near the...

A couple of decades ago I had a Nissan truck with a cap on it.   I found some 2x2 foot sofa cushions at a thrift store.  Therefore, I built a 2 foot wide bed that just cleared the wheel well.  Under the cushions, the slats had 2x2 foot pegboard on them to give access for storage.   The wood...

For the last quarter of the 20th century I made a lot of road trips all over Canada and into a few of the States.  At first I hitch-hiked and then I covered longer distances faster on a motorcycle.  During most of the 90s I wandered around on a bicycle.  For the most part, space dictated that...

We're all trying to find that Seven Story Mountain.

One of these things is not like the others.  This is near where I live in the urban part of southwestern British Columbia.  You should see what the rest of it looks like.

I'm not there yet but, I've been reading and thinking about refrigeration and solar power, among many other things. This obviously led me to the UNICEF website.  Actually, a teensy, tiny memory of something I heard on the radio a decade or 2 ago led me to UNICEF.  As you've probably heard...

Yeah, I've thought of a few ideas with diodes and switches and unplugging things.  These all rely on me remembering to do things.  I got hit in the head with a car a few years ago and remembering new things is difficult.  Fortunately I was already in the habit of pulling up my fly.   The...

Right,  the clock and radio get power for memory from somewhere.  I assumed that it was somewhere else.  The fuse for radio, clock (separate units) and ciggie outlet is simply labelled AUDIO. After earlier posts I do intend to check diagrams to see exactly where this comes from.  At this point...

This is a 2-door Saturn I took a lot of road trips in.  The deep cycle battery is under the head of the bead, on the floor.  This was mostly an example of pulling the seat out for travel and throwing in things that I already had.  I learned and imagined a lot from this and a Honda Civic and I'm...

Thanks for thinking this through further than I did.  When I first discovered this quirk I removed the radio fuse with the car running and didn't find anything other than the clock.  Since the outlet is only hot when the key is ON I used it as a handy way to have a radio on a separate battery...

When I consider a build that won't be tall enough to stand in I always imagine aiming for 52 inches.  That's high enough to be very comfortable in a swivel, reclining, office arm chair, with 5 casters, that is high enough to support my head.  The idea is to build any counters, windows, etc. to...

I'm currently installing a deep cycle battery and isolator in my car for road trips.  For years I've used a 7Ah gel cell in a small ammo box with lights, 12v and USB outlets.  At home it plugs into a small solar panel in a window in case of power outages. In the car I built a cord to charge it...