Orange4boy's Rescue and Revival of a 2003 Prius

[Christ]

Originally Posted by orange4boy

Great minds think alike. I was just toying with that idea today and now I think I have the design. It's a pan heater sandwich: heat sink, gasket, hole in pan, gasket, 1/8 aluminium, heat sink grease, element, steel cover. (optional: appliance insulation, stainless cover) Two bolts through the whole assembly except the heat sink which would be blind tapped.

It sounds complicated but I think I could easily throw this together in a couple of hours, minus the stainless cover.

I can steal the pan off the old tranny. Engine oil heater could be done later.

I sure wish I had a little milling machine.



Yeah, scary. Having the heat sink would eliminate spot overheating of the oil as long as the wattage is low enough.

I wonder if my local plastic shop sells high temperature plastic. That stuff would come in handy for these kinds of applications.

Can't wait to see what you come up with!

[orange4boy]

Well ecomodding will be delayed for a while...

We had a torrential rainstorm last night and when we were getting ready to leave for work, My father who lives up the hill from us, came over to tell us the bridge was out. The creek had risen so much our bridge had been acting like a dam. It's a log bridge with fill on top and the water undermined one side partially collapsing the bridge and washing the fill off the middle.

We just got in from dragging 2, 24 foot 6x12s from the upper property down to the creek for a temporary crossing. We are hoping to get some 8x16 glue lams from our neighbour to lay down for a permanent fix later today. Looks like the ElecTrak will be called in for duty again.

The new winch I attached came in very handy to pull the beams out of the bush and to push them across the gap. We put down a 2 x 12 and pushed them across with each beam held up under the front of the ET by the winch. No back breaking work required.

Bridge has been there for 30 years. Two winters of massive rainfalls have done her in. Last year must have done some damage and last night finished the job.

Looks like we need more ecomodders quick!

[Christ]

Originally Posted by orange4boy

Well ecomodding will be delayed for a while...

We had a torrential rainstorm last night and when we were getting ready to leave for work, My father who lives up the hill from us, came over to tell us the bridge was out. The creek had risen so much our bridge had been acting like a dam. It's a log bridge with fill on top and the water undermined one side partially collapsing the bridge and washing the fill off the middle.

We just got in from dragging 2, 24 foot 6x12s from the upper property down to the creek for a temporary crossing. We are hoping to get some 8x16 glue lams from our neighbour to lay down for a permanent fix later today. Looks like the ElecTrak will be called in for duty again.

The new winch I attached came in very handy to pull the beams out of the bush and to push them across the gap. We put down a 2 x 12 and pushed them across with each beam held up under the front of the ET by the winch. No back breaking work required.

Bridge has been there for 30 years. Two winters of massive rainfalls have done her in. Last year must have done some damage and last night finished the job.

Looks like we need more ecomodders quick!

I hope everyone is OK!

Jeez, hate to see stuff like that happen. Is that bridge something that's only maintained by you and your family?

[MetroMPG]

Living on the frontier, eh? Good luck with the reconstruction efforts. Don't forget to put in for some infrastructure funding when you get back!

[orange4boy]

Holy crap! What a week! You thought the bridge collapse was exciting...

Thanks for the concern. It happened at night luckily, not while we were crossing. Today we had a small excavator in and he brought over some old girders salvaged from an Expo 86 building which will be great as a bridge. 75 bucks plus an hour of machine time. We will put some temporary decking on so we can get back and forth easily for now. But that' not the big news...

Unfortunately poor Robotrak took a tumble today. I was driving it up to help with collecting the decking and a branch got caught under my canopy and was going for my head. I ducked and jumped out instinctively but Robotrak kept going and I didn't have time to stop it. It was quite horrible and spectacular to watch it tumble down the embankment through the trees about 40 feet down, bits and pieces flying. It was seriously like a bad episode of CHiPs. The end of a high speed lawn tractor chase. It was stopped by a big alder and a boulder. The excavator driver helped us retrieve it later with a chain and his boom.

Poor Robotrack has a suffered a fractured control panel casting and the canopy and hood are a mangled mess. My ego is slightly bruised but everything else seems fine, miraculously. We will rebuild her... We have the technology. Not the 6 million but maybe like 60 bucks? As you can see, I'm trying to maintain a sense of humour about the whole thing but it is a serious bummer.

I'm very happy to have been a spectator and I now have some safety ideas in mind like a seat switch and a really strong roll cage. I guess lawn tractor safety would have been the moral of the story at the end of the episode.

[Christ]

Wow. Another exciting day!

[dcb]

Originally Posted by orange4boy

I'm very happy to have been a spectator

probably both in not being a participant, and witnessing any such spectacle probably returned some intangible value

been there, well not THERE specifically, but I can imagine.

[orange4boy]

OK, engineers. I need a structural analysis of our temporary bridge. Or at least a point in the right direction for load tables for 5" x 3" x 0.2" wall welded steel tube.

I will add more strength if needed. There are some serious I-beams also available if we need them and some trusses for the sides. Basic parameters are 19 foot span and two beams per wheel track, so 4 in total.. My father thinks they will be fine but I'm not as "seat of the pants" as he is.

I can take some pictures if needed.

[Christ]

Pics or it didn't happen.

Well, you know what I mean.

[bwilson4web]

Originally Posted by orange4boy

OK, engineers. I need a structural analysis of our temporary bridge. Or at least a point in the right direction for load tables for 5" x 3" x 0.2" wall welded steel tube.

"Temporary" is how long? What is the expected worst case load? What are the footings on each end?

If these four spars are with the 5" vertical, I would agree with your Dad. But I would recommend a cap on each end to keep them from 'crushing' and losing the web strength. You would have ~0.8", 5" spars with a combined, 12", 0.2" cap. As long as the footers share the load across all four spars, it should be a pretty strong structure ... if you can keep it fairly rust free. I'll try to hack out some numbers later this evening. Do you know the steel grade?

Originally Posted by orange4boy

. . . I will add more strength if needed. There are some serious I-beams also available if we need them and some trusses for the sides.

Trusses? Engineers love trusses! Just keep them out of flowing water.

Originally Posted by orange4boy

. . . Basic parameters are 19 foot span and two beams per wheel track, so 4 in total.. My father thinks they will be fine but I'm not as "seat of the pants" as he is.

If I understand correctly, the last bridge failed due to 'high water?' I would probably want to see if something can be done to 'deepen' the channel and/or raise the footings. Water being ~800 times denser than air, it is really hard to build a water proof, stationary structure.

I don't know much about Canadian government structure but is there a 'county engineer' or 'buildings department' that might be able to render an opinion? Whoever handles bridge and road safety in your area might be able to render an opinion or suggest someone to see about the bridge.

Bob Wilson