Retreat Owner Profiles

…old tire weights and discard car batteries are considered. Fuel: 25 gallons in 5 gallon Scepter [current US mil-spec] gas cans, roughly 30 gallons of propane in various tank sizes. This is about as large of a supply as I can store, rotate, and do a permanent change of station (PCS) with. I have printed plans for a portable 12 volt DC fuel pump and will have parts when this year’s snow melts off the local junk yards. Water: On the grid but we have a two week emergency supply (90 gallons stored in 15 gallon water barrels) and a Big Berkey water filter with buckets for carrying water from a local source to filter if needed. Property tax: $0/year (one positive aspect of living in military housing) Gardens: Allowed on military installations with restrictions. In the past I had been skeptical about planting a garden because the yard had…




EMP And The Modern Computer-Controlled Car, by Oldgeezer

…what were just wear and tear situations. Some of the problems were because the highway patrol stripped the car of all law enforcement stuff and was done in a haphazard manner. The non-EMP items were probably based more on age/mileage than anything else. An “O” ring here, a broken wire there, it was stuff like that. As a precaution, we replaced all four ABS wheel sensors because the Taurus has a known problem with the detectors. Dirt gets built up in the brake rotors and cause errors in the system. We were also lucky that the engine/transmission suffered no mechanical damage of any sort. Also, the actual wiring suffered no damage. With all those problems taken care of, we moved on to the more complex things. Diagnostics We downloaded the FORSCAN diagnostics software (a clone of Ford’s diagnostic system). With a ODB II cable, we were able to access the…