h4nd

Oh yeah. I happen to have an excess of epsom salts.

I have 3 or so diff Ali ones if you want to try. Probs all about the phone app.

Well, your charger is no longer making progress on it. I'll gratefully try one from @ajg193, and if no joy we can try that when I come to borrow your mig for a minute (please).

You, ah, put a fuse/thermal fuse in there somewhere, right?

Speaking of battery stuff. I have a battery (was 10.8V) I'm trying to save (just for interest). My 2.2A charger wasn't doing the biz, and @RUNAMUCKhas been kind enough to loan me his 3 or 4A "Pulse charger" (MSPaint graphs coming later). It's slowly clawing the peak voltage up, which looks promising. My Q is: what happens if I invert the battery and slosh it around to try and loosen the crystals / acid-salts/whatever while it's charging. Does it short through the electrolyte and explode, or go flat real fast or some nonsense? ( @ajg193, Autosparkies?) Anyone with experience with flooded lead acid batteries from roll-overs etc? Thanks team.

Dig deeper, that join'll probably be between 2 halves of the primary, around the secondaries. Probably still want a new transformer

Often can be. Transformer might be standard or special. If standard, part number / spec may tell you. Disconnect from circuit, and measure the input resistance. if open, more clue.

Could be thermal fuse in the input to the transformer, would have that symptom. look like it's been hot?

Be careful, safer to work with item fed from an isolating transformer.

Gen 1 insights are getting spendy. https://www.trademe.co.nz/a/motors/cars/honda/insight/listing/3387292126?bof=PrIcPo52 $20k asking

Nice little vid on fixing seals in a trolley jack

Solderjoint somewhere around a switchmode PSU would make sense, maybe?

PM your addy, I'll send you the milk bottle. That was exactly it. I couldn't see it at first, just had a nagging feeling in my head. I just realised I have a bunch of videos of this, I could drop 'em in a playlist on youtube if folks want.

Of course, the next day, on the way to the xmas BBQ, my rash fit of piston cleaning caught up with me so I was down to one cylinder again, but that only took a couple of minutes to sort out. Good. So now I can go sort out that shitty carpet...

it was this: Ah, ok, some bogan had put the bolts in the wrong place, and the long one eventually wore through the water jacket. I had a think, and realised the cooling is only 15psi at ~100deg C, so, JB Weld! Tickle up the top of the piston Button up the top of the engine Then decorate the front of the Prius...

Except it wasn't So, I popped the top to have a look. HMMMMMMMMMM Yuck LHS cylinder, ooookkkkaaaay..... RHS: It took me a day to realise, but something about that RHS was just scratching my brain. (More story later, Milk bottle lolly prize if you can spot the problem already).

Then it started leaking coolant at work. I'd only just got the rad patched up, so, damn. Then I realised it was just the always wet leaky gutter at work:

Damned Posties intimidating other road users...

Set the points and check the dwell with the meter @governorsam gave me (thanks man!) running out the bonnet: Sweet, set.

Except, no. I got to pondering the battery fail. I have a phone charger with a V meter. So I plug it in, and start watching. After a start it's between 13.8 and 14.5 as it should. Then after 5 min (replacing the charge taken by the starter motor), it started climbing, the gauge started flashing at 15V (nice feature), so at 15.7V, it's pretty clear why the battery was boiling off and putting white crusty around the terminals. Ah, oops. 5 or 8 years ago, it had that problem, and I took it to an auto-sparky, but now I think about it, it's killed a couple of batteries since then. Testing, testing: I put it on a variable power supply, it makes a cute buzzy noise. OK, looking closer, he'd bent the high-V contact away (incorrect, there's a spec gap), but the switching V was also incorrect (too high). So I set the gap in the contacts at the bottom correctly, and adjusted the switching voltage by bending the tab holding the resisting spring (per online guides). It Bench tests OK now. Tossed it back in the car. It's a shade low at start when idling, but now comes up to correct V, and doesn't over-charge. Golden. I wandered down to the battery merchant who'd been a GC, and told him it was a car electrical fault that killed the battery. He wouldn't accept payment for it, just told me to let him know if I was ever selling! Cool. People can be really good, if you treat them right.

Got the Dai running 5m after this was 'sposed to begin. Even got the other cyl running 1/2h after that LoL. Thanks Karl, EJ, cookers and drinkers good to see e'ryone.

Heads-up: Marshland road is closed for part of the way. Find another way, pizza boy! https://ccc.govt.nz/transport/traffic-updates/travel-news/show/222

^A1 dad there, protecting bubs. Top marks.