MICHIGAN TRAVEL TIPS
FROM
THE HOLOGLOBE PRESS
(The 65th Edition)
by
Victor Edward Swanson,
Publisher
www.hologlobepress.com
RULES OF USE
The reports and stories contained on this Web page have been put together with information taken from "The Victor Swanson Fabulous Files of Places to See in Michigan and Wisconsin" and with information obtained from operators and staffers of tourist attractions and from press releases, Web sites, and other sources. The reports and stories are provided as a public service by Victor Swanson and The Hologlobe Press. Almost all persons and entities, such as staffers of radio stations, may freely use the materials; neither AAA Michigan nor any employee of AAA Michigan may use, distribute, download, transmit, copy, or duplicate any of the material presented on this page in any way or through any means.
- - - Travel Thoughts for Everyone - - -
In Michigan Travel Tips documents, I teach. For example, I have talked about places to see in Michigan, and I have taught how to paint and how to make a modern-day plaster wall, and I have had to talk a bit about politics, because the politics of Barack Obama is going to hurt the tourism industry in Michigan, as it will be in other states. (Consider this thought--When a man hurts millions of people, such as by putting them out of work from automobile-related factories or shops or by orally attacking the worth of investment people and doctors in the country or by talking down the stock markets so that the retirement investments of elderly women are devalued, the man must like to hurt people, and that man surely is insane, and that is Barack Obama). In this edition of Michigan Travel Tips, I do more teaching.
Advertisement: My commercial this time urges you to get a copy of Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto, which is a book written by Mark R. Levin, to help you. This book will help you understand better what Barack Obama is--a person who is purposely working to hurt the country, even though he is the president of the country--but the book is really about enslavers--politicians--who do not believe in the values of The U.S. Constitution and how The U.S. Constitution is designed to limit the power of the government, especially, a dictator type, over the individual (the citizen). Remember: In the United States of America, it is the individuals who own the government and not the government that owns the citizens, the latter of which is what Barack Obama wants and is pushing for.
The 2009 summer was in Michigan and in other places of the country cooler than usual, and I note some facts about the weather of the summer at some places in the country in the previous edition of Michigan Travel Tips, and although it was a cooler summer than usual, people still used air conditioning in their vehicles on at least what hot days there were, unless the air conditioning in their vehicles was not working, as it was not for a short while for a friend of mine. That friend of mine one day this summer took a drive in her 1998 Ford Ranger, and, on that day, the air conditioner was not working properly--or, really, when she tried to use the vent setting or the regular air-conditioning setting, she ended up with hot air--no matter where she set the cold-hot adjustment knob. Later that day, she told me about the problem, and I began to investigate, looking to see if there was something that I could do, which would save her money, or if the something that had to be done had to be done at a repair shop that is licensed to work with vehicle with Freon (in the 1980s, I put in a new compressor and "o"-rings and a few other air-conditionng parts in one of my vehicles after the compressor in the vehicle had gone bad, and then I took the vehicle to a place that was licensed to put Freon in air-conditioning systems of vehicles). I discovered that it seemed the air-conditioning system was working, but the vehicle had another problem that caused the cooling-heating system to put out only hot air, such as when on the vent setting; when I discovered that the cooling-heating system when set on the vent setting was always putting out hot air, I knew that trouble could not be caused by a broken air-conditioning system.
I decided to use the Internet and throw in a few keywords into a search that sort of described the problem that the vehicle was having. And I found about three Web pages that gave me an idea of what the problem might be and gave me useful information about the cooling-heating setup of the 1998 Ford Ranger. The problem was that for some reason the "blend door" was not doing what it was supposed to do (the "blend door" is like a door that opens to allow all cool air to go through the duct system (from the air conditioner, for example), all hot air (from the heat core), or a mixture of hot air and cold air). Either the blend door had a broken axle and had fallen out of position, or the unit with a motor (the actuator) that was supposed to move the blend door was not turning the blend door (because the actuator was defective), or the blend door had not fallen out of position but had a partially broken axle (probably the top axle). The actual problem could only be found by opening up the duct system.
Let me give notes, here, on some documents that I found on the Internet. The really important piece that I found on the Internet was called "Ford Blend Door Fixes," which is attributed to a writer named " brokenford," and this piece had photographs and text, and one section of the document was entitled "THE LAST RESORT BLEND DOOR FIX," which I would not have to use because I would not have to repair the blend door (since the blend door, I would discover, was not out of position, but it was broken), and the Web page was related to www.conceptualege.com. Another useful Web page was "FORD BLEND DOOR FIX (Explorer, Ranger, Expedition)," which had photographs and text, and I believe it was put together by a man identified as "Katzen" (I looked over Katzen's material, and I would not follow it, which, for one, had information about how to make a good actuator work with a blend door that had the top axle partially broken, by putting a small nail in the actuator "pin," the nail making sort of the cross of a "t" (the nail was put through the side of the pin), and I would not use it because I did not like the pin idea and I would invent my own fix, using a small "cap" (brass) made for water pipe, which was about a half inch in diameter, and a stainless-steel screw (a 6-32)). One Web page was "1998 Ford Ranger Erratic-inconsistent.jpg" which had a diagram of the cooling-heating system.
Several bits of information were useful from my Internet search. I found out where the "blend door" was located and how to get to it, and I found where the actuator for the blend door was located. A nd I learned what portion of duct work that I might have to remove to get to the blend door.
Armed with knowledge, I began to work on the vehicle. I opened up the glove compartment and removed everything within it and got the glove compartment out of the way (the glove compartment can be dropped out of the way by pressing in on the sides a bit and dropping it down, and it is not necessary to remove the glove compartment). When the glove compartment was out of the way, I could see duct work (made of black plastic), and, on top of the duct work--to the left--was the actuator unit, which was white. I had the ignition off, and the key out of the steering column. I removed the electronic connector from the actuator, and, to remove the actuator, I used a flat-bladed screw driver to pop it up and off the plastic pegs that hold it in position. Next, I reconnected the electronic connector, put the key in the ignition, turned on the engine, and operated the cool-heat adjusting knob (selector), and I saw that the actuator was working or turning (turning one way and then the other, depending on how I turned the knob), and I put the actuator in the cold position and made marks on the actuator and pin. There had to be something wrong with the "blend door." I reached up to where the pin for the actuator set in to operate the blend door. The end of the blend door or axle of the blend door was supposed to be like a rod that had a square-like opening in the center (in to which the pin of the actuator was supposed to go). When I felt the end of the blend door, something did not feel right. It seemed part of the blend door was missing. I had a small mirror on a long handle, and I used it with a flashlight to see the end of the blend door. The axle was broken.
My first thought was to take the blend door out of the vehicle and repair it. Using information that I had learned about in one of the documents that dealt with cutting way duct work and using a Dremel tool with a small metal cutting wheel, I opened up the duct work right behind where the glove compartment was. I cut, in essence, a rectangular opening, which was about eight inches and a half across by four inches high (measured up from the seam). I cut neatly because I wanted to put the piece that I removed--what I thought of as an "access panel"--back in position later (and I would make pieces that would hold it securely in position again). It only took a few minutes to make three main cuts so that I could remove a portion of duct work (the bottom only had to be pried up). When the piece of duct work--my new access panel--was removed, I could see the heater core, which was on the right, and I found an open area on the left, and when I reached inside the open area and to the back, I could touch the blend door. I tried to remove the blend door, but since it had not fallen out, I found I could not remove it easily, and, anyway, while I was trying to remove the blend door, I was thinking about how I might do an adaptation to the actuator so that it could operate a broken blend door.
In essence, the top axle of the blend door only had half the necessary material remaining, so the actuator was, in essence, not able to be grasped by the blend door, which would allow the actuator to turn the blend door when the actuator was moving--the actuator when in the broken end of the blend door could spin and spin and spin and not affect the position of the blend door.
I thought a while. One of the documents from the Internet noted that I could adapt the actuator pin by putting a small nail through it (perpendicular to it). But I did not like drilling a hole in it. The pin of the actuator had a hole down the middle of it, and I noted that in my mind.
Hold it! By the way, the blend door is made of plastic. The axles should have been made of something other than plastic so that they would not become brittle over the years. Oh, well! For decades, the federal government has been pushing auto makers to make cars that could get better gas mileage, so auto makers have made more parts out of plastic, which does not last. Thank you, nitwit government people (and now we have the useless and insane Barack Obama, who is pushing such defective thoughts as "cap-and-trade" and "manmade global warming" bills, which will affect vehicles even more).
I needed to make a piece that could be attached to the pin of the actuator and could touch what was left of the axle of the blend door, and when the actuator turned (rotated) in either direction, the piece that I made could move the blend door. Using the flashlight and the mirror, I determined that half of the end of the axle remained, and I used a wad of sash putty, lacking any modeling clay, to see how much of the axle remained; I took the wad of sash putty and sort of pushed the putty into the hole for the axle to get an impression in the putty (clay would have worked better). I determined that indeed half of the axle was gone. In essence, the piece that I would make would have to fill half the hole.
I thought of a prototype piece, and, really, I was thinking about two events at once. I found a small screw (which was about a half-inch long and was not stainless steel), and I ran a tap (related to the screw) down the hole of the pin of the actuator (I did not need to drill the hole any bigger in diameter). The screw would secure the piece that I had yet to make. I took a thin piece of sheet aluminum, which was about a half inch by a one inch (it would be trimmed later), and I bent it in half (sort of) to make what is like a little piece of angle iron (with a ninty-degree angle between the two sides), and, in the end, it was about one inch long and had two sides that were a quarter inch in width. Next, using a sheet metal sheers, I cut one end of the piece--cutting at the hinge and cutting a line of about one-quarter inch (I am making a tab of sorts). I then cut off one of the sides related to the just-made cut, or I cut off the one quarter-inch by one-quarter inch square of one end (now one of the sides was about three-quarter inches long and the other was one-inch long). I had a tab to make. I drilled a little hole in what was like the quarter-inch-by-quarter-inch end, and I bent the end to make a tab, and I sort of had a piece made up of two sides and what could be called a bottom (two sides were missing).
I went back to the Ranger. I put my hand in the duct work--in the left side--and I made sure the blend door was in the cold position). I attached the electronic connection to the actuator, and I ran the engine, and I turned the cold-hot knob to the full cold position to be sure that the actuator was set in the cold position. I did some examining and determined where my just-made piece must be positioned on the pin of the actuator so that the just-made piece would slip in to the hole where a portion of the axle of the blend door once existed. When I made my determination, I attached the just-made piece on to the pin of the actuator and screwed the screw through the hole in the tab and into the hole in the pin, and I tighten the screw down. I bent the sides out a bit so that they fanned out a bit, because I wanted the edges (the long edges) to be able to push against what was left of the axle of the blend door. I placed the actuator sort of in position on the top of the duct work, putting the pin of the actuator in the hole for the axle of the blend door. It seemed to slip in properly, and I then pressed the actuator into position.
Now, I made a test. I turned on the engine, and I set the selector for vent, and I worked the temperature knob. (Remember: The duct work yet had an opening, where the access panel would later be put.) I found out that the piece worked, and the blend door responded to the temperature knob.
But the system did not work when I held the access panel in place, because the air pressure in the duct work caused my aluminum piece to bend out of shape.
So, what should I do? I wondered.
I thought a bit, thinking about finding something that would be stronger than the piece of then sheet aluminum, and I got an idea. I thought about using a small brass cap for potable water pipe. I had to get one that slipped over the pin and had an outside diameter of about the same diameter as the axle of the blend door. I thought more. I could drill a hole in the end so that my screw could go through it and hold it on the pin. And I thought about how I would have to cut away and file away a portion of the cap--about half of the cap (not cutting off any of the base).
Later, I was off to the hardware store. I got a brass cap (I took the actuator with me so that I could test caps on the pin, and I knew the diameter of the hole for the axle of the blend door, which was about nine-sixteenths of an inch). And I got a stainless-steel screw to replace the screw, which was not stainless steel, that I had been using in my test session. (Remember: The cooling-heating system had air with moisture, and I did not want the screw to rust.) In addition, I got sixteen screws so be used to close up the duct work, and these screws were stainless-steel sheet-metal screws of about a half inch in length.
When I returned to the vehicle, I began to rework the brass cap. I drilled a small hole in the top of the cap. I cut away and filed away some of the side material (three faces), leaving only about half (three faces). I also filed the outside of the remaining side material till the side material was more rounded and not like three well-defined flat faces. I understood that the top of the cap had a thickness, and that amount of thickness was the amount that I removed from the end of the pin of the actuator before I attached the reworked cap on to the pin, placing it where it should be to be able to slip into the hole that once was filled with the missing axle part of the blend door, and I attached the cap, using the proper stainless-steel screw, to the pin of the actuator. Now, I took the actuator, which now had the just-made piece attached to the pin, and put the actuator into position, pressed it in place (in essence, it fits down on plastic posts), and held the piece of removed duct in place, and I ran the engine and tested the cooling-heating system, and I ran the car and cooling-heating system until I knew the engine was at full heat and until I was sure there would be no immediate breakdown.
It worked well.
Now, I had to close up the duct work. I got some sheet aluminum (I had scrap, as I had of strap steel). I made four strips. Each was about one inch and a quarter wide. The lengths would end up to be (1) three inches, (2) three inches and an eighth, (3) four inches and three quarters, and (4) five inches and one quarter (your pieces might be put in place differently than the ones that I made so the lengths of yours could be different). One strip I bent like a piece of angle iron (with a ninety-degree angle), since it was to be used for one of the across-the-top pieces--the left side--and one piece was for across the top at the right, and the two other pieces were for sides (to cover up the vertical cuts). I drilled holes in the pieces--a couple near the edge of each side of each piece (the long edges). I took one of the side pieces and overlapped the cut dividing the untouched duct work and the access panel, and I then drilled smaller holes at the places where the holes in the strip of aluminum were so that I could use stainless-steel sheet metal screws to secure the duct work (the access panel and the nearby duct work) and strip together. I did the same type of work with the other three pieces of aluminum strip to cover up the cuts (or joints). When I was done, the access panel was secure, and now I had an access panel that I could easily take off in the future, if the blend door were to break more and fall out of position (and then I would have to repair the blend door in some way).
I was done!
So, you now have a way in which to get a "blend door" system working properly, if you have a Ford vehicle, such as a Ford Ranger, that has a defective "blend door" system (other models of Ford vehicles can develop the problem), and, yes, you have more than Barack Obama, who can fix nothing, will ever give you. Maybe, you have a vehicle with a defective cooling-heating system related to the "blend door" system, and you want to be more comfortable on a trip to the Copper Harbor area (of the Upper Peninsula) during a color-tour trip this fall or on a trip to Baraga State Park (which is at Baraga of Baraga County of the Upper Peninsula) to go camping. Maybe, you have a friend with a defective cooling-heating system related to the "blend door" system, and that friend wants to take a trip to the Lewis E. Wint Nature Center of Independence Oaks County Park, which is at Clarkston of Oakland County in the Lower Peninsula, or the Curwood Castle, which is at Owosso of Shiawassee County (in the Lower Peninsula), and maybe you can tell that friend how to make the trip better by showing the friend how to make a repair.
Incidentally, one of the documents that I found on the Internet about the "blend door" indicated that it would cost about $1,000 to fix a broken "blend door" by taking the dash board and associated equipment apart at a dealership (I am uncertain of the true cost, but I spent less than $25.00 to make my repair).
Announcement: In T.H.A.T. #59 (published on March 10, 2009), I noted that the national-health-care system in the United Kingdom, which is a socialist system, is a failure and a disaster, and again, I note you should see T.H.A.T. #59, which can be reached by using this T.H.A.T. #59 link, and you should see the numerous articles about the failure of the national-health-care system of the United Kingdom, which note, for instance, the lack of care for the elderly and the lack of dentists, by seeing Liberty-page.com, which can be reached by hitting this link: Liberty-page.com).
While I was traveling on that trip in Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa this summer, I heard that Barack Obama had set up a Web site---www.flag@whitehouse.gov--at which people could pass on information about persons who through the Internet were sending out material that showed up Barack Obama's health-care plan as a deception and dangerous for the country. When I heard about it, I first thought of how the Adolph Hitler in the 1930s and 1940s had children spy on their parents, and if the parents said anything wrong against Adolph Hitler and the Nazi party, the children reported them to authorities, and things happened to the parents. Second, I remembered how Barack Obama has set up at least 44 czars positions in the federal government, and the czars are not beholden to the Legislative Branch of government, and Barack Obama is probably gathering information about Web sites and people who soon could be closed down or made to shut up (around the start of the first week in August, people were hearing reports about thugs showing up at "town meetings" at which citizens were protesting against U.S. Congressmen pushing the Barack Obama health-care plan and how, at least at first, protesters were being intimidated and kept out of such town meetings).
Warning: When I took the forementioned trip, I did not have children in the vehicle with me. I am a person who would not let children play with hand-held electronic games or watch DVDs while traveling, and that is done so that children can see what is around them while they travel and how big the country is and how small they are in the world. I would talk to them, and one topic that I would talk to them about is Barack Obama's enemies list idea (you know, the "flag@whitehouse.gov"). Look what I would tell them. The federal government has some evil people in it, such as communists, one of whom is Barack Obama, who has shown through his policies and actions that he likes to hurt people. If a national health-care system is set up, a person who is on the enemies list could be denied at least some types of medical treatment, which might lead to the person's early death or the person would have unnecessary suffering for a long time. The Internal Revenue Service could be instructed by an agency set up by Barack Obama to do special tax audits of any person who is on the enemies list. The federal government could shut down any Web site that the person runs or block surfers from getting to it, saying that the Web site is a national security threat. The federal government has been taking control of banks in the country, and if the federal government has control of banks and credit unions and other financial institutions, the federal government could deny a person a loan for a car or a home or a home-improvement loan. Of course, a person on the list who wants to become an employee with the government, such as as a postal employee, the person could be denied a job with the federal government. I would have to say that the National Education Association, which is a union of teachers across the country, supports Barack Obama and his policies, and a person who is going to school could end up with worse grades that what should be rightfully given if that person is on the enemies list. The federal government is providing money to students--college loans--so that they can attend college, and the federal government could deny loans to people who want loans. I would teach the child or children that there are evil persons in the country and that the evil persons when in government jobs, as Barack Obama is, can hurt people. By the way, I say to scoffers of this thought--If you create such a list, you must have intention to use such a list in some way, and it will not be for good and righteous reasons.
Promotional announcement: The Landmark Legal Foundation is made up of lawyers, such as Mark R. Levin (of The Mark Levin Show, a nationally syndicated radio show), who fight in court cases against those who do not uphold The U.S. Constitution and the rule of law for the country, and the Landmark Legal Foundation fights for the rights of the individual and against Marxists, communists, and the like. In this day and age when Barack Obama, who I am convinced has a truly highly ill mind, is going against the rules of the country while pursuing a goal--I believe--to hurt the country and remake it or destroy it, I believe the Landmark Legal Foundation needs your help desperately; for example, retired lawyers who want to protect the country should consider donating time to helping the Landmark Legal Foundation. I urge you to avoid making any donations to entities to promote manmade global warming or climate change and make a donation to the Landmark Legal Foundation instead (by the way, you should look into supporting the Heritage Foundation).
Oh, I have to say that I put together a document entitled Enemies of the United States of America: Politicians Who Have Hurt You and Your Family by Voting "Yes" on Bad Federal Bills, which can be reached by using the Enemies link, and the document shows which politicians voted for federal acts that are hurting the United States of America and future generations in the country, whatever it becomes, if allowed to become something else by Barack Obama.
So, I am back for regular duty again, and I am back to regularly gathering information about things, from places to see to the name called Barack Obama, a man with a defective mind who, I believe, is already on the way to hurting tourism in Michigan because of the policies that he has signed into law or has authorized (and, on Saturday, August 8, 2009, Barack Obama's racist candidate for the U.S. Supreme Court officially became a justice, and that means more crap is on the way for Michiganians and others).
P.S. #1: Remember: Teach your children or grandchild that they should never pledge to be a "servant to Obama" or a servant to any politician, which was a subject that I first passed along in the publication entitled T.H.A.T. #58, which can be reached through this link: T.H.A.T. #58.
P.S. #2: A "cash-for-clunkers" program of the federal government was a mess, and people who bought vehicles in association with the program had to pay tax on the money that they got from the federal government and they had to start paying higher insurance, especially if they did not pay the entire cost of the vehicle (lenders require a person to buy collision insurance tied to outstanding loans), and some good used vehicles got destroyed (which hurt the used-car market), and it seems the soon-to-come Volt will get 230 miles to the gallon, but people forget that to move some amount of mass, it takes a certain amount of energy, and that means it will take a lot of electric-based energy to move a Volt (if gasoline-based energy is not used) a long distance--it is a trade-off but no savings will really be had. (Where are the vast amounts electricity going to come from to run millions of electric vehicles since the federal government, such as Barack Obama, is blocking the creation of nuclear-power plants in the country and the advancement of coal-based electric systems in the country?).
Your travel tips of Michigan in this edition of Michigan Travel Tips are:
Baraga State Park, Baraga, Baraga County, the Upper Peninsula.
The Curwood Castle, Owosso, Shiawassee County, the Lower Peninsula.
The Lewis E. Wint Nature Center of Independence Oaks County Park, Clarkston, Oakland County, the Lower Peninsula.
- - - Public Service Copy for Broadcasters (four pieces) - - -
Number One:
[Canceled for this edition.]
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Number Two:
[Canceled for this edition.]
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Number Three:
[Canceled for this edition.]
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Number Four:
[Canceled for this edition.]
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The United States of Americacopyright c. 2009
File date: 10 September 2009To see the next edition of Michigan Travel Tips,
click on: Travel #66.
To see the previous edition of Michigan Travel Tips,
click on: Travel #64.
To see the catalog page for Michigan Travel Tips,
click on: Travel.
To go to the main page of The Hologlobe Press,
click on: www.hologlobepress.com.For further reading, you should see THOUGHTS
AND PIECES OF LOGIC for the individual
woman and the individual man, which can be
reached by hitting this link: Logic.
For further reading, you should see THOUGHTS
AND STATEMENTS ABOUT THE UNITED
STATES OF AMERICA for the individual
woman and the individual man, which can be
reached by hitting this link: Thoughts.
For further reading, you should see Political Lessons
for the Individual Woman and the Individual
Man in the United States of America, which can
be reached by hitting this link: Lessons.
For further reading, you should see my document
entitled Nonsense Statements and Quotations
of Barack Obama, which can be reached through
this link: Quotes.
For further reading, you should see my document
entitled Madness in a President and Other
Matters of a Defective Mind, which can be
reached through this link: Madness.
For further reading, you should see T.H.A.T. #55,
which has important television information and
which can be reached through this link: T.H.A.T. #55.
For further reading, you should see the monthly
publications known as T.H.A.T., the catalog to
which can be reached through this link: T.H.A.T..
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