Well, everything in our house must have purpose. As I am perpetually saying, I NEED THE BARN FINISHED!!!!!!!!!! So the boss didn’t have to haul horse poop and hay tonight during a sudden snow fall, the Disco was put to use.

Plenty of room back there for hay and grain.



It was slippy enough heading back up the hill, I used the CDL.





I started cleaning up the dash as well. I’m excited to get that in.





And NO, we’re not Green Bay fans, but I’m sure you can figure out who was. We absolutely hate that room (it’s used as the gym) but have so much time and $$$ tied up in the property, we’ve only done a couple quick renovations to the house itself. In the next year or 2, the inside of the house will start to be gutted.

 

More cool (literally) stuff for the Disco. With the storm of the century (seemingly) coming, and my perpetual whining about the barn not being finished, we decided the horses should have some proper cover beyond the run in shed we are currently using. A neighbor had some space thankfully, so we loaded up the girls and the Disco was on tow pig duty. Although only a short drive, I was amazed at how well it did with 5k+ lbs behind it.





We made the right choice as it was proper cold this morning.





It was so cold, the suspension dumped. It turned very slowly, but did fire right up. The above pics were after about 10 minutes of idling. Not too shabby for a ~20 year old vehicle with 175k miles on the clock. We only got about 6” of snow at the house, but last night it got to lower than -30F, with a real feel lower than -40F. Again, I’m really impressed at the durability.

Something I need to research and never thought about was if it has heated mirrors. I’ve seen on failbook a couple folks mention it as an option, but I never knew it was. Well, this morning, it sure seemed like the snow was melted after a while.

I’m excited to get the heated windshield in as well. I have to say, the Disco is really doing exceptionally well at this point.

 

Thought if it had heated windshield...it also has heated mirrors. I'll have to check tomorrow, colds coming our way next.

 

Doing a scoshe of research, looks like they are and are connected to the rear screen. Lucky me! I just didn’t think my first 2 D2s actually had them, or don’t recall them working and I never thought they did. From the Electrical library:

Mirror heater
The LH and RH door mirror heaters are connected from the heated rear screen relay in the passenger compartment fusebox on an NP wire via splice joints A19/A167.
When the heated rear window switch is operated an earth path is completed from the switch on a B wire, via header C0760, to earth header C0017 LHD/C0018 RHD. The switch is connected on an NB wire to pin C0663-5 on the BCU.
On vehicles with Air Temperature Control (ATC), when the demist function is selected the ATC ECU provides an earth path on an NB wire through splice joint A249, to pin C0663-5 on the BCU.
The completed earth path is interpreted by the BCU as a signal for heated rear screen operation. The BCU is connected from pin C0661-1 on an SK wire to the the IDM in the passenger compartment fusebox. The SK wire is the serial data bus between the BCU and the IDM. The BCU passes a signal to the IDM which in turn provides an earth path, on a B wire to earth header C0551, for the coil of the heated rear screen relay in the passenger compartment fusebox.

 

So the cold was real deal for a few days. When I first started it the coolant temp was -4F. It turned REALLY slow, but fired right up.



We were able to bring them back after a couple days- and they were very happy to be home.





It is simply amazing how well those horses load and unload on that trailer. I mean it’s basically the Bugatti of horse trailers, but still. It makes things significantly less stressful. And that we now know the Disco can easily tow both of them in there (~5k lbs) very easily makes it all the better.

Santa also has a good sense of humor.



I will actually put this on the Alveston as it has had the CEL on more often than not (although we are currently in a stint of it off).

And more positive news: I pulled the parking sensor module from the Giverny and swapped it to the Alveston and voila! I have parking sensors! Also, now that the temps have gotten back to above arctic levels, the suspension isn’t dumping any longer.

 

More fun little fixes- in case you didn’t see my thread on it. When I put in the new door lock actuator I completely forgot about the rod that goes from the door handle and key, and inserting that into the actuator itself. I’d been using the newly programmed key exclusively until I forgot and left it on my key ring when I drove a different car to work one day. When the boss tried to open it, it was rather obvious I’d forgotten this part. The rod wasn’t broken, it just wasn’t installed.

So in 10 minutes I pulled the handle off, used a pick, and lined it up and am all done! Didn’t even need to pull the door card, but I was VERY careful and gentle in getting things lined up and no worries.

You can barely see the end of the rod that goes into the key tumbler here.



And you can see through the handle screw hole the light grey part which is the rod.



Easy peasy and now on to the next thing. I’m leaning to getting the windshield done and just need to order the A Pilar trim.

After that will probably be the dash and then just drive it until the weather clears up and I start on the wheels.

 

And the hits just keep on coming (in a good way for once). I had a few minutes and thought I remembered the Giverny had LED headlight bulbs. Sure enough, it did so I swapped them. A little blue for me, but better than the originals.

I also completely tested the parking sensors and sure enough, they work perfect. Things are FINALLY moving along nicely as I’m starting to hit my stride on the Alveston.

 

We got somewhere around 10” last night. My goodness it is so gorgeous here.





It was great and I can 100% confirm the heated mirrors work as both the side mirrors were covered in snow and ice and in just a couple minutes, they were both clear. They were activated when I turned on the main defrost button, which turns on the rear defroster. Once I get the new heated windshield in and programmed, all that will happen automatically (at least it did when it was at certain temps in the blue one).

I put it in 4 low and turned the CDL on to make sure I’d get back up the hill (the Jeep is still down, so I have no recovery machine right now, so I can’t take any chances) and it did absolutely perfect.

It’s close, but this one is getting as special to me as the blue one was. Once I get the ladder on and some other stuff and do a couple small trips, I bet the kids will like this one as much too. Even the boss is falling for it, which is amazing as she let me get another just to placate me…

 

let me know when you want to retrofid HID projector headlights into it...such a simple and huge upgrade.

 

I thought of you the other night when I put them in and had to get gas with the near white out up here.

Both housings in the Giverny are in pretty sad shape (the driver’s one really isn’t saveable). So I was debating on this long term. Do I:

- Find a used set of housings and do the conversion to projectors

- Pay the man and get a new set ($$$) and just do hotrod bulbs. (No way I’m going to pay over $1k for new housings and open them up)

I’m not sure which is best, but if we keep the Giverny, I might go with option A. But if I keep the Alveston long term, I want to try to keep it fairly close to stock. I dunno…