u/Left_Tip1732

My excellent MS Paint drawing probably isn't necessary, but I want to move water up a hill to fill up a water tank.

What I am wondering is, if I use an on-demand water pump with an adjustable bypass and connect the inlet to the tank from the bottom, could I in theory set the pressure equal to the head between the pump and the top of the water tank, so the pump would shut off when the tank is full?

Howdy All,

I am working on the water system for my in-laws off-grid cabin and thought this sub might have some input and suggestions.

The cabin is on the coast and has a creek running very close to it. Problem is there is a 20ft cliff between the cabin and that creek. We actually get to that area by rowing a boat from the dock over to the beach where the creek meets the ocean.

Until recently, there was a dam (ok, technically a weir) a few hundred feet up the creek. This had a pipe that ran down parallel to the creek and then up and over the cliffs to a set of tanks that provided storage and pressure for the cabin. All of that pipe and the storage tanks were at a lower elevation than the source, so no problemo with flow.

Recently summers have been drier (I wonder why) so we put a new dam and some water tanks at the bottom of the creek because there is enough flow lower down to capture some water in the drier months. We let the water tanks slowly fill and then row over with a trash pump and empty them up to the main storage tanks. It's a pain to row over with the pump and the noise and hassle has got me wondering about other solutions.

I recently upgraded the solar system so we have a serious excess of power for a water pump but of course physics is working against me. I think that even if I found a pump capable of pulling water from that far, the poly pipe would collapse under the negative pressure. Placing the electric pump at the creek would be an expensive and probably dangerous idea so I was stuck.

My idea was to move the water from those lower tanks closer to the cabin by putting a new tank at a lower elevation than the ones at the creek, siphoning the water into it, and then pumping it up the hill to the storage tanks. Would use the electric pump to back pump water to the creek, then turn it off and water should start flowing the opposite direction.

The 2 attached photos show the current setup and my idea for a solution. I didn't label the cliff on the map but you can see the bare patch running N/S in the upper left corner and that runs right to the water. I think I explained everything that the pictures should make sense. I have a tendency to over explain.

Also, I know that adding the new tank by the cabin is technically unnecessary, but I want to put a float switch in it that will turn the pump off when it is near empty - meaning the tanks by the creek are also empty and the pump should turn off before it runs dry.

I needed to crimp lugs onto a 3/0 cable and decided to get one of those inexpensive hammer crimpers from Amazon.

The crimps didn’t feel great but I realized I got the wrong size lug after crimping it so I decided to take a hacksaw and see how it looked inside.

Definitely not as good a hydraulic crimper that basically fuses all the copper into a solid mass, but this seems perfectly acceptable and importantly, with only a tiny ring still crimped on the cable, I wasn’t able to get it to slide off even with a couple pairs of vice grips.

Just thought people might appreciate this.

Hello Volvo enthusiasts.

I have spent many years looking at weird, old cars that would be "interesting" to own, work on, and drive on a regular (maybe not daily) basis. And this 1980 245 just came up for $3,000 CAD.

I have looked at 240's before, but almost always late models and it seemed like a lot of improvements happened to the series over its life. I am usually super meticulous about what I buy, making sure its exactly what I want and I know what I am getting into, but I have a feeling this listing wont last long.

I was hoping to get some opinions on what to look for (rust, blower motor) and if there is anything that will for sure turn it into a money pit. I'd like to restore something like this and am well aware it will never be worth the amount of time/money I put into it, but I'd like to have SOME idea of what I am in for. I am going to look at it either this evening or tomorrow so any responses are greatly appreciated.

Edit:

Just got back from looking at it. It's in rough shape (probably should have taken some photos) but its mostly small things that could be left alone or I could probably fix myself.

The rust is the only real worry. It has plenty, including a couple holes straight through, but for this price I'm not surprised. I'm just a hobbyist mechanic but it looked like the parts of the frame/unibody that were structural and where things like suspension were mounted, seemed ok, it was the rocker panels/fenders/doors/floor that had the worst of it.

My wife says I should just do it. We have the money and this would be my first "weird old car" but hopefully not the last. Once I have it I can decide how much work I want to put in and if it becomes apparent that the rust is too far gone, I can just keep it going as-is and let it continue to age until it eventually is no longer safe to drive (or sell it to somebody who could do the same).