CWO4Mann

I know about that watch building thing ... there is a saying in the Army that goes like this "... Ask a Warrant Officer what time it is and he will build you a clock ... "

When I worked for a guy at the 8th ID who was a colonel at the time and later was a four star general famous in the first gulf war, we would be in the staff conference with some young lieutenant trying to explain somehting and the colonel would turn to me and say "Hey Chief, build me a clock will ya?" and sit back and light his cigar while I, well, built the clock .... that's why the army has warrant officers, I guess, to fill in the technical details.

A bit of trivia ... we are referred to as "Chief" regardless of being a guy or a gal. The various branches of the Army have their own most senior warrant officer technical expert .. in the Artillery, there is a "Chief of Smoke"; Transportation Corps is "Chief of the Road" for transporters and "Chief Wrench" for the motor pool maintenance head; Ordnance Corps is "Chief Boomer"; the Finance Corps is "Mister Money"; the senior food technician (head of the mess halls) is "Chief Hotel"; the senior flight instructor is "Chief Pilot" and the military intelligence guy is "Chief Spook". With the exception of pilots, who go into flight school at entry to the service, all other warrants are appointed by the Secretary of the Army from the enlisted ranks. Enlisted men and women who know their trade, have a college education, and who can cut through the fog so to speak, are examined by a board, go through various schools and are appointed as a Warrant Officer 1. the WO1 is mentored for at least 1 year, usually 2, by a senior warrant officer and after that 2 years either goes back to enlisted or is recommended for retention and promotion to W2. At four or five year intervals thereafter the warrant officer rises to the rank of Master Warrant Officer CW5 -- a rank they did not have when I retired when CW4 was the top grade. There are warrant officers with technical skills in almost every field of the Army. Some career fields, such as the one I was in had very few and I was one of only 37 CWO4's in the entire Army with my specialty. Other fields such as Aviation Branch have thousands of Warrants who are pilots, safety and maintenance officers and so forth. There have been warrant officers since before World War One, and they were originally the US Army Mine Planter Service -- technical experts in planting mines at the entrance to seaports supporting the Coast Artillery. We have had one Chief Warrant Officer 4 travel into space as an Astronaut -- he was Chief Spook with the National Reconaissance Office and presumably went up there with the shuttle to fine tune some kind of Spookish gadget in orbit. We had a warrant officer pilot in world war two who was a double ace flying the P38 and another "Flying Chief" receive a postumous Medal of Honor after staying with his burning B24 so the rest of his crew could bail out to safety - he was actually on fire himself when he waved the last man out the escape hatch above the flight deck. In the past 10 years a Special Operations Warrant Officer specialty has been created for those Special Forces and Ranger NCO's who are so highly technically qualified that they epitomize the already incredible abilities of the Rangers and Special Ops people. I can't imagine how totally awesome they are -- they are the ones who went into the desert months before the various Iraqi wars began and got everything read for the shock and awe events.

Dang, I sure do go on ...

Cheers,

Dave

CWO4Mann

Check the PDO yard at Ft Hood .. bet they got some .. try finding a set for the AN/PSQ-25 system they will work fine!

Cheers,

Dave

1981 Shark

G Man (or other battery maintainer users)

Never used a battery mainainter. Can it be wired up so that the car (hatch) doesn't have to be left open for access/plugging into the battery while parked? My ultimate goal is to jump in, crank and go, but my drain has kep me from doing this. Thanks.

John Speake

Maybe there is a solar panel charger that can be used ?

1981 Shark

Won't work for me, I keep it parked out of the weather. Thanks.

bigs

You might find a battery minder that has a small enough cord you can actually close and latch the rear hatch over it. Or run it through a window, then crank the window up to the top until it just pinches the cord - the window will be cracked open a fraction of a centimeter, but I'll bet the overhang of the door sill trim will keep water from getting into the interior. (Unless you have one of those Louisiana horizontal storms.)

If it's actually garaged, that won't be an issue anyway.

Dennis Wilson

Some battery minders can be plugged into the cigarette lighter but you may want to check to see if yours is active without the ignition switch being on. It could also be wired directly into one of the #30 (large red wires) at the bottom center of the fuse panel.

Dennis

1981 Shark

Any recommendations on specific makes/models of mainainers/minders? Plugging into the cigarette lighter sounds easiest, but again, I don't want to fry anything - anyone have experience with this type?

Otherwise, I the option of closing the rear hatch/window while in use would work. I back her into the carport, so the only thing that gets wet in a BAD sideways storm is the nose, so either entry point would work. I have PO sound system mods (that I'd like to keep "as is") making access to the battery more difficult than ususal, so I'd like to have a set up not requiring every-time battery access. Thanks.

Dennis Wilson

Why not wire it directly to the jump post under the hood? That way no door or hatch could be compromised. Permaent mounting may take a little ingenuity.

Dennis

worf928

YES! And guess how many times I've done this? (if you guessed three your right )

www.carcareonline.com (and Griots, and...) has a battery maintainer that allows installation so that you don't need to open the hatch ever. The BM has a modular plug that accepts either a cable with normal alligator clips or a cable with ring terminals. So, you fasten the ring terminals to the battery terminal bolts, run the rest of the cord down through one of the holes in the battery box and zip-tip the end of the terminal to the bottom of the box so that its flat up against the box. The ring terminal cable connector has a plastic plug to cover the ends of the connector to protect it when the BM isn't plugged in.

To hook up a BM now, I just reach under the rear bumper - usually I just hop on my creeper - pull out the terminal plug (it's securely fastened to the cable so you won't lose it), plug in the BM, and then plug the BM into an outlet or extension cord.

You can also buy extra ring terminal cables and round-robin the BM around your fleet.

Here's a link to the BM from Car Care..

SteveG

I have a Schumacher, I think it was $29.95.

Normy

Hmm. I've spent as long as 6 weeks away from my car, and on only one occasion did it have trouble starting.

I've never jumpstarted this car, or jumpstarted another car with my 928. I once drove home, got into my '66 Ford truck, and drove back to the hardware store to help this guy start his Cadillac.

The manual is kind of negative about jumpstarting; I won't do it.

N!

John Struthers

Out of curiosity..
And of course, more negative waves -sorry, its in my nature-.
What happens to a 'permanently' installed maintainer when/if you do jumpstart the car?

SharkSkin

BOOM!

j/k

Dennis Wilson

John,

Jump starting shouldn't be much different than running the car with a charger installed but unplugged. Hasn't affected my charger....yet.

Dennis