Boogered Up Electrics

 The wiring in this truck is 46 years old.  46 years.  Wow.  I still can't get my head around it.  Well, to be clear, the thing I can't get my head around is that this truck runs at all.  Every time I look under the back end all I see is the loose end of another cut wire or the patented 'redneck splice' (the bare ends of two wires loosely twisted together and hanging on by a just a single strand). Another of my goals is to get the wiring replaced and updated and to do it right.  Wiring and electrical stuff is a challenge but I know that if I take my time and find good vendors I can make this truck work better than it did brand new.  Full wiring harness replacement from Chevy Duty is around $450.  In addition to this I found a really solid looking splicing technology that encases but joints in plastic for bomber, waterproof splices. I also found reference to a guy in SoCal that has developed a modification for many old vehicles that improves the performance of the ignition/charging system for not much money and after two months of calling (I even wrote a letter) I got Mark from MAD Electrical on the phone and ordered a 'New System' package.  Once I get all the pieces of the system I can start replacing it section by section.  

Things that beep.

I am a nurse in a hospital. There are a lot of things that beep. Call lights, IV pumps, tube feed pumps, ... even the refrigerator beeps when someone leaves the door open. Since I have become a nurse I have become 'sensitized' to things that beep to the point where I get really annoyed in my car when I leave the door open with the keys in the ignition. I want to disable all the alarms. Somehow a bird chirping repetitively outside the window is fine but a very similar and not necessarily shrill or loud beep from something electronic is maddening. Go figure.

In the eighties I had a girlfriend Heather Drewes who's grandmother had a convertible K-car that talked. I was in my twenties but in spite of my open minded age the car drove me bonkers. If the keys were in the ignition and the door was open a mild (and therefore maddening) voice said 'Your door is ajar.' I always heard it as 'Your door is a jar' which makes no sense ... I don't like cars telling me what to do. I always wear my seatbelt except when I don't and when I don't I have a good reason and hate the dinging reminder that the seatbelt is not fastened.

Another erstwhile friend of mine: Laurel Saville, had a great line that fit this sort of thing; 'It's like being beaten to death by moths.' Perfect.