Need to look to be certain, but apparently Vger, the Horizon, and Stripez do not have block heaters. Hard to believe. I think that Vger might have a heater but no cord, but the heater goes on the rear side of the engine in the center frost plug, which means that it is very difficult to reach. We will need to check that tonight when we get home. Tonight’s low is supposed to be -14°F, which is a lot better. The Horizon may still have trouble starting though.
I went shopping for block heaters. Apparently, by noon today everyone was out of stock. NAPA, Car Quest, O’Reilly’s, L&M are all out. No frost plug heaters, no magnetic heaters. There are a couple of tank heaters out there. O’Reilly’s has ordered 3 frost plug heaters, but my parts guy says they will be lucky to get 1. I’m going to try to get there when the doors open and grab one, $20. Won’t get to install it until Saturday, if then. Not sure which car will get it. Vger is going to be retired when Stripez is complete, but right now Stripez is buried in a snow drift. Probably, the heater will go in the Horizon. As long as we have at least one car that will start at -30° it will be OK, we can work around that.
With the school closings Monday and the generally very poor road conditions, work was pretty quiet. But today things were jumping, and when I tried to dial in the best I could get was an occasional 19.2 Kbps working between mostly 17 Kbps. Was very glad to get Vger running and get to my desk.
To get an idea how cold it was, here is a picture of the inside of the front door this morning. Yes, that is frost on the screws, striker plate, and lock knob. In the heated (68F) entry way.
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