Fixin', cleanin', and solvin'.

Wow. What a productive weekend. I fixed. I cleaned. I solved.

I set my alarm to get up early Sat. morning and fix my stereo issue once and for all. Well, it went off..and I slammed it and went back to sleep. I really wanted to get out there and get it done before it got hot. No dice. I finally went out and got started at around noon. DOH! For those of you unfamiliar with my stereo problems, go back a few days and read on. One thing I considered when the problem started happening was that I needed to put a relay on the amp turn-on lead. So, I had purchased one a few days ago from Circuit City. Installing the relay was also the only advice the installer there gave me. So, I figured I'd install that and it would solve the problem. Nope. Installed the relay...no change. So, I went back to Circuit City and returned the relay and asked another installer what he thought. "Man, I have no idea....sorry." Thanks, genius-boy.

Back to the drawing board. I called Crutchfield tech support to ask their opinion. The guy suggested buying a multimeter to measure the amp turn-on lead to see what the voltage looked like when I turned the stereo on with the engine running. He suggested that it might be a ground loop, since the two amps are grounded on opposite sides of the truck. So, I went and bought a $30 digital volt meter from Auto Zone. Then, I measured the turn-on lead with the engine off: approx. 12 volts. Ok. Start the truck. Turn on the stereo. .5 volts..(1 second passes)...0.0 volts. Dead. Hmmm. I connected the grounds from both amps together. No change.

3:00 PM. I called back to Crutchfield tech support. The guy suggested buying a diode to seperate the two amp turn-on leads and prevent any kind of line resistance from the HiFonics amp. He also suggested wiring the amp turn-on lead to the accessory switch on the truck, just to see if it solved anything. I think somebody suggested that on here a few days ago, but I never tried it. So, I went back out and tried that..and it worked. So after 4 hours of messing with it, I was tired, sweaty, and stinky..again. So, I just left it wired that way. I'm just glad it's all fixed now..and it sounds great!

Saturday's other activities included washing Olivia's car and my truck, both of which needed it badly. After washing the truck, I also started pulling the factory emblems off of my truck. After getting the two SR5 emblems off the Xtracab posts, I noticed that my fingernails were bleeding, so I figured I'd better stop.

And finally, today I finished pulling the emblems off the truck (using a credit card-type card) and cleaned up the apartment before Mom and Dad stopped by for a visit this evening.