For a little while now I've been focusing my energy on spreading gravel over the midway of the compound, that area that goes between the house and the garden, stretching all the way from West to East. A large section of this area is soupy due to runoff saturating the ground and creating some erosion conditions that are contributing to the washing away of soil from under the house. That is another animal we need to corral in the near future as well. But for right now, I'm trying to get gravel over all of the midway grounds so as to create a solid surface with which to be able to drive vehicles back and forth over with no hassles and no bogging down. The good thing about this particular gravel mission is the idea that I can just back the F250 right up to the edge of the graveled up ground and open the tailgate to shovel out gravel directly on to the ground. There's no need to shovel gravel into the wheelbarrow then cart it off to a remote site for dumping. This obviously makes my gravel runs go by pretty fast as I can get the bed emptied out in 30 min give or take. The farther back East I get into the midway, the more I'm able to dump gravel on the section of ground that is blocked by the porch, right next to the house. Getting this area covered is important as well since in the near future we will be installing a ductless AC unit and part of the unit is the compressor/heat pump unit that goes outside on a slab or other solid surface. It would be nice to have a graveled surface for the slab to rest on for the AC unit. Plus by getting gravel over all of this area, that will be that much less ground we have to worry about landscaping since any grass or weeds that do pop up can be sprayed with weed killer to knock them back. Another little project I had to take on by necessity was the replacement of the HVAC blower motor in the Tracker. This thing had been making noises for a while but was still running fairly well. One day the thing decided to just start making some obnoxious noises and not run all too well. After a couple of days of not even having the option to turn the fan on to defog the windshield much less run the heat or AC, we ended up hunting down a used unit from a salvage yard. At least we didn't have to worry about pulling the motor ourselves, they pulled it for us. At the same time I also needed the speed control resistor since the motor had only been running on high for a while. With that I was able to take on the replacement of this unit. At first I was nervous because I was hoping I wouldn't have to tear the dash apart to replace this thing since most newer vehicles are made where the whole HVAC box has to be removed to replace these critical components. After doing some fast research I found that the blower motor was located at the bottom of the HVAC box right at the front, just behind the glovebox. Everyone said that it can be removed easily without pulling apart the dash, alrighty, game on. After pulling the glove box out I had to remove the bolts that secure the ECU to the internal framework behind the dash. This wasn't that big of a deal as I was able to get the box down without having to unplug anything. I never want to play around with unplugging ECU's from these newer cars since it could flake out things like the security system that'll have you hunting around for the procedure to re-teach the system to recognize the ignition switch and all that crap. So the ECU stayed hooked up, just dangling out of the way. A couple of these bolts were a pain to reach but with the correct combo of extensions and short sockets and U-joints I was able to get the bolts out and be able to open up the area for the blower motor. This same procedure also had to be done with the blower motor since a couple of the bolts were in awkward spots that caused be to curse the engineers of this vehicle. Needless to say I did get the blower motor down. But there was another small hassle. The firewall insulation was very thick at this spot. Right in the path where the blower had to travel down and out there was a thick layer of insulation that no matter what I tried, I wasn't going to easily get this thing out without flexing and stressing something that if it broke, I'd be screwed. I ended up doing the most logical thing anyone could do-get a knife and cut out that section of insulation from the firewall, exposing the bare metal panel and giving me the clearance necessary to pull the blower motor free from the HVAC box. After removing the old motor, I found that the squirrel cage was full of crap, insulation, most likely from varmints that were nesting in this truck when it was parked for an undermined amount of time before I bought it. The squirrel cage was also a little off kilter, explaining the noise I heard - it was scraping against the walls of the HVAC box while running. Of course reinstalling the fresh unit was the reverse of removing it, including using the extensions and U joints with the socket to get those problematic bolts back in place. With the new unit in though, I was able to move right on to the resistor, which was rather easy to replace as the unit was right on the top of the HVAC box above where the blower motor was mounted, making the rest a piece o' cake. Lastly I reinstalled the ECU in its cradle under the HVAC box so I could replace the glove box and turn this crap on to see how it works. Of course with the new used stuff installed, turning the blower on was a pleasant experience. Everything was nice and quiet and smooth. In fact the unit blew harder than it ever blew, plus I had my speed control restored once again too. At least now we can ride in this thing without another obnoxious sound driving us nuts and be able to stay warm or cool as we desire.
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