cross country trip to pick up the car trailer - part 1

There was no room for error to prepare Brunnhilde for a cross country trip to pick up the Trailex open car trailer. I planned my trip to also visit my family in Toronto.

mini love - part 46

This was the second time I remove the supercharger from Desire for inspection. Last time I remove it the power take off gear housing as bone dry without oil. Surprisingly the gears showed no sign of premature wear. I fill up the SC with GM SC oil and had since driven on track many times. To my surprise somewhat, the high pitch noise did not subside with the replenished lubricant. Fearing the PTO housing seal may be leaking and all the oil got sucked into the SC compressor housing I remove the SC for the second time to investigate.

trailer prep of brunnhilde - part 6

This is one of many catch up posts, so it is foto heavy with little text. The fotos should tell most of the the story. This post pretty well wrap up the trailer preparation of the brake system for the open car Trailex tailer that I would pick up in Ohio in late August.

trailer prep of brunnhilde - part 5

As a part of preparing for a Trailex open car trailer I had to install an electric trailer brake controller. As Mercedes Benz didn't provide the wire for the trailer electric brake I needed to retrofit a wire with adequate current carrying capacity all the way from the cockpit to the trailer hitch connector. I wanted to retain the existing connector. This requires finding the right crimp contact for this Delphi type connector that is a part of the interconnect between the harness and the trailer connector.

energy bank for brunnhilde - part 1

I have not post for months and have a lot of catch up posts to write. I have hundreds of photos that I want blog posts to document them, for posterity.

The coach batteries in Brunnhilde has been losing capacities steadily noticeably since a couple of years ago. Recently they have gotten to the point of threatening the ability to support the DC refrigerator during an overnight stop transiting interstate highways in a trip to Iowa to pick up the open car trailer. It happen after I used the audio system quite loud for hours and then went to sleep. I estimate that must used up extra 25 Ah of energy. When I woke up I noticed the voltage had drop below 12.0 V.

mini at HPDE - part 3

Mini has been a victim of prejudice at HPDE events. The corner workers are the nicest people but best people makes mistake too. They are so accustomed to seeing slow Mini's that when they see a high power car somewhat near the tail of Desire they tend to give us the give-point-by flag. This happen countless times this Friday. Also when Desire was short of climbing up the arse of the higher power car ahead, one corner worker consistently not give flag to that car that have been holding us back in turns leading up to the straight.

mini at HPDE - part 2

I took Mini to PIR this past week partaking HPDE for 2 days. These are four videos taken that day on all four 20-minute sessions.

bbc proms 2018 is now on

BBC Proms is back for 2018 for this years 2-month long performances. Here in the US we are lucky to have the excellent Symphony Cast that we can stream on demand on some selected performance. Symphony Cast has been my favorite classical music for its coverage of performance from all over the world, and more so the diverse works that often include the lesser known.

mini love - part 44

This is actually a draft that I started from over 4 months ago. 4 months is a very long time with the Mini. I actually have been posting on a Mini forum in the last few months instead of my blog. I want to have everything on my blog as I don't trust the longevity of forums given how the world has gone "social".

trailer prep of brunnhilde - part 4

To prepare for the new car trailer I went and found my one and only trailer ball hitch that I bought very long ago. I was hoping that I can use it without buying a new one. For my use up to now the height of the trailer hitch is not as critical unless I am hauling very heavy payload like gravel or asphalt roofing. But when you are towing a car and that the payload approaching the limits of the tow weight as well as the tongue weight of Brunnhilde you want to specify just the right ball hitch.

brunnhilde's air conditioner broke down

In German the title may read "Brunnhilde Klimaanlage ist kaputt". LOL It is like the one for our planet that is now funktioniert nicht.

Since I installed the Coleman Mach 8 cub in Brunnhilde a few years ago I only used it rarely. Yesterday with the heat spell I let the air conditioning ran most of the day unattended as a shakeout test. It was hot sunny day which ambient was near 90F. All was well but by the late afternoon when the van was in the shade I went and checked. To my surprise the AC stopped. My immediately thought is may be the evaporator got too cold and froze, and overloaded the compressor leading to tripping of a overload device somewhere; or worst burnt up the compressor.

mini at HPDE

Of over 30 days of summer heat and 10 consecutive of 90+ F days, today is the first cool day, which happen to be a full burrito day at PIR that I signed up over a month ago. Only 2 R53 Mini's. It was overcast all day starting at circa 65F with very light drizzle. The day never exceed 70F but I managed to boil Motul 600 again. I am going to put in the SS caliper pistons.

how I like this series

I added to my watch list, Babylon Berlin the day Netflix started streaming it. I sampled a short (a couple of minutes) segment in a later episode then to determine if I want to watch it at all. I was immediately attracted to the time period and subject matter, and I knew I would want to watch it in the original language. I have not started watching it until now because watching in German takes effort as well as attention. I started watching it last night, and I have to say, it is one of the best TV series in recent decade. I will put it right up there with Endeavour, Game of Thrones, Westworld, Boardwalk Empire, Deadwood, and The Sopranos.

Zu Asche, Zu Staub is so striking, catchy, and haunting (in season 1 ep 2)

trailer prep of brunnhilde - part 3

In the previous post I couldn't finish the electrical wiring of the trailer brake controller. While I safely powered it up and did some simple tests I used a temporary blade type fuse. I didn't have the self-resetting breaker at the time to finish the wiring.

trailer prep of brunnhilde - part 2

This is a follow on post to "trailer prep of brunnhilde". Installing a trailer brake controller as well as retrofitting the electric brake wiring from the cockpit to the 7-pin trailer turns out to be an involving project. I didn't want to do a hack job so it is like as if I was designing this aspect of the James Cook trailer prep design and execution. Tens of hours has gone into this.

pan seared mahi mahi

For me one of the easiest ways to prepare fish is to sear it in a cast iron skillet. Mahi mahi steak is one. It can get quite dry so I devised a rich and savory sauce to help it along.

trailer prep of brunnhilde

I want to tow a car trailer with Brunnhilde. Driving a car on the track it can become not road worthy as anything can happen. I don't feel comfortable exploring distant tracks until I acquire a trailer. For the heavily laden Sprinter T1N I searched for the lightest aluminum open trailer with tandem axles for security/redundancy as well as low tongue weight. My research resulted in the Trailex 8045EB.

mini love - part 43

I waited for the winter to be over to install the Wilwood big brake kit for the front wheels on the Mini. Last summer I wanted to try out the stock brake as a baseline driving on tracks. I wanted to experience each step of change, from all stock brake, then to racing front brake pads with the stock calipers. I also wanted to use up the stock brake so I feel better they are not going to waste.

formula 1 technologies

I was searching for manual gearbox articles concerning dog box and sequential gearbox. I came across this excellent article about F1 sequential gearbox on this site called Technical F1 Dictionary. It has the most in depth, but easy to understand, coverage of all technical things Formula 1. I could not stop reading them.

Just one simple example. I had tried to find out more about MGU-H and most sites just fall flat with a bit of hand waving. Here is the link to his excellent article on the entire new F1 Power Unit. Gone are the ICE which once was the sole power unit. It is now a system including the ICE.

just this single photo of MGH-H answers just about all my questions of how it recovers the so-called heat energy; it is quite misleading for a applied science major as it is really more kinetic than thermal (H)

I had on and off visited other sites of this nature but all fall very far short. This truly is a gem. A lot of fascinating reading for weeks to come.

home made char siu 叉燒 pizza - part 3

I didn't know about San Marzano tomatoes until I bought this can of Italian can tomatoes at Trader Joe's. Up until now I have been using domestic canned plum tomatoes also bought at Trader Joe's. I thought I would give the pricey Italian one a try.