Ukraine Refugee Assistance

Bill, I sent some funds your way this morning as my paycheck allowed.

I'm really glad to see that all the donors came together in a big way and raised so much money in such a short time!

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Bill, I'll get pics of the kids toys and things I've gathered so far- sadly they've been thin on the ground for earbuds/headphones but I still have several pairs, but I was able to snag lots of little art supplies and sidewalk chalks and such.

FooBag (Forum Supporter) said:

Bill, I sent some funds your way this morning as my paycheck allowed.

I'm really glad to see that all the donors came together in a big way and raised so much money in such a short time!

Got it!!!  And you're not kidding!

I just made the transfer to Kisgorbo today and what remains in our account for baby supplies is almost up to 500k!  (I thought that warranted a spreadsheet update)

I need to get back on paypal and catch up with the last couple of donations to make sure everyone gets their share of "tickets" for the drawing.

Cheers guys, and thank you!

GIRTHQUAKE said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Bill, I'll get pics of the kids toys and things I've gathered so far- sadly they've been thin on the ground for earbuds/headphones but I still have several pairs, but I was able to snag lots of little art supplies and sidewalk chalks and such.

Hey, no worries on the headphones!  What you've got so far sounds amazing!

Bill, one thing we both forgot to tell about  

Sergey got the second package 

Thanks everyone !!!

I am truly inspired that we find ways to help people despite any difficulties - it's amazing!!! 

I'm sorry I don't come here often, guys - there's a lot I'd like to tell you.

But electricity is turned off for at least 12 hours (sometimes more) every day - and i have to use all my smartness, flexibility and resilience to keep up with all obligations, work tasks and activities.

I stay by touch with families and the rehab center 

By the way - there are some updates from the rehab center - i'll try to write it as soon as possible 

All the best to everyone!!!

My wife bought an Old Farmer's Almanac the other day and was surprised to find this article inside. Ukraine is in the spotlight!

In addition to the writeup and pretty pictures, there are some recipes inside that we're going to try out.

We were happy to see Ukraine represented in something more cheerful than the usual war news and political coverage. I think when this is all over we're going to have a lot better awareness of Ukrainian culture.

DarkMonohue said:

My wife bought an Old Farmer's Almanac the other day and was surprised to find this article inside. Ukraine is in the spotlight!

 

In addition to the writeup and pretty pictures, there are some recipes inside that we're going to try out.

We were happy to see Ukraine represented in something more cheerful than the usual war news and political coverage. I think when this is all over we're going to have a lot better awareness of Ukrainian culture.

Dude, that photo of the varenyky is making me HUNGRY!

Speaking of cookbooks though, I did get a message back from the host of the Dnipro raffle.  Naturally it's a busy time of year for him as well, but he reports that the mail was sent last Friday and that the recipients should be expecting their prizes this week.

For the mother's fund, I just started the transfer process from the paypal account (this will take a couple days).  In total we raised 431,076 Hungarian forint (Just over $1100 USD) for Vikki's order of baby food and diapers!

In addition to that, I received 200,000 Hungarian forint ($540USD)  locally and that person will be placed in the drawing as well.  All will be wire transferred to Dnipro as soon as it shows "available" in the account and we'll hold the drawing for the stamps shortly afterwards.

I bet this will be enough to hold these mothers over for a bit, but we were thinking about it and Vikki and I think we would like to keep that channel open for future donations if funds are available.  We'll run it the same way we did this time where people can specify "Kisgorbo" or "Mothers" in the comments section of their donations.

And in other news, there'll be a few changes in the Hungary house as we'll be moving our place of residence to a village about 3km from where we are now.  It shouldnt affect anything with regards to what we're doing on here, but just in case someone says "where's Bill?" 

(Luckily Mrs. Hungary and I saved all our boxes from our last move.  It's almost as if we knew we'd be changing places again one day...)

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

Speaking of cookbooks though, I did get a message back from the host of the Dnipro raffle.  Naturally it's a busy time of year for him as well, but he reports that the mail was sent last Friday and that the recipients should be expecting their prizes this week.

Booyah! Look what just rocked up!

How cool is that?

This will be treasured.

Wow-wow-wooowww!!! 

It's GREAT news!!!

People you're incredibly amazing - you're making me cry - thank you all!!!

I'd like to add another set for the prize(Bill, I wrote you about it) - a sheet of stamps, a postcard and an envelope "Kherson is Ukraine"

Let me explain why watermelons on the stamps - the most delicious and yummy watermelons are grown in Kherson region - so a watermelon is symbol of region (photo 2)

In reply to DarkMonohue :

Aaron,  congratulations 

Vareniky is so yummy  - trust me 

If you have any questions about recipes - ask me - I'll be glad to help you 

Guys,  I went on an urgent business trip, but I stay by touch I have a laptop with me  so "show(help) must go on" (are you still listening to Freddy?)

VikkiDp said:

Guys,  I went on an urgent business trip, but I stay by touch I have a laptop with me  so "show(help) must go on" (are you still listening to Freddy?)

Hope you have a great trip Vikki!  I'll add the Kherson stamps to the prize list and hold a second drawing, thank you! 

Ok guys, I'm long overdue for working on the truck.  Last weekend, Mrs. Hungary and I forced each other outside to put the cap back on the back but aside from that I haven't even stuck the bolts in to permanently install THAT (yet alone do anything that needed to be done to it...) 

In my defense though, it's been COLD and your buddy Bill is an absolute WIMP.  Normally on my day-shift months (like January), I wake up early to sneak in garage time.  Obviously that didn't happen.  February has me going to work around 1400, but we're 8-days in and I'm still finding it hard to turn a wrench.  Today, I forced myself outside.

So, how cold was it?

FREEZING!!!!!!  What the heck am I doing???

Google tells me that -7C is 19F, and I totally get that some of you guys have way worse weather but again:  Yo stoy uno wimp-o.

Here goes.  First up I've had my battery on a tender for about a week now in preparation for all this, and now it's telling me I have a dead battery cell:

The "Bad Cell" light flashes, and my potato of a phone wouldn't catch it, so you're just going to have to take my word.  This actually works out as I didn't even take this battery on my last run, but opted instead to use the Red-Top from my Mazda because this one was spilling liquid out of its vents.  I really have no interest in trying to bring this back to life, so I'm hoping to swap it out with an Optima Yellow-Top next month.  I think the deep-cycle type of battery would be beneficial for the use I put this truck through, and I haven't had any of the negative experiences with Optima that I see online yet so I'm still willing to pay the premium to purchase one.

Cool.

Now the reason I put the battery on the charger in the first place was so I could use my 12v air pump to inflate the passenger front tire that's been going flat.  Aside from running slower than usual, it did the job:

(Don't worry, there's a jack stand under there)

While that was running (it took forever) I still needed to figure out why my anti-freeze froze over on my last trip.  The shop in Africa asked, and I had requested, a 50/50 mixture of coolant when the water pump was changed.  Obviously we're all thinking that didn't happen (otherwise it wouldn't have turned to ice!).

Well...  I'd tell you what the mixture was, but the darn radiator was frosted over again (but not completely frozen solid this time, like last time).

ugh.

Well, you don't really need a tester when your radiator is frozen.  The weather outside is -7C, and there is no wind, so you can reasonably discern that your coolant freezes somewhere between 0 and -7C!

Easy enough.

I fire up the truck to melt its coolant and get things flowing.  It does the same thing it did when it was frozen over on the trip.  That is, the cold idle shoots up to nearly 3000RPMS, and then it settles down on a bouncy idle that jumps between 1000 and 1500rpms.  I watch the coolant gauge to make sure that the block doesn't overheat should all the small passages in the radiator be frozen solid, but it never does, so I let it run a bit.

Back on the tire side of the house, I do a visual inspection to see if I can find see any nails, bolts, screws, or any other hardware that might have imbedded itself where it shouldn't, but couldn't find anything...

I did see a few dinged and damaged spots, so I got out a spray bottle I have of soap and water in an attempt to spray it down and look for bubbles.  Unfortunately, the weather had gotten to that too (my garage isn't heated):

Well... not much we can do about that...

Luckily I found a bottle of windex on the shelf, and it was still liquid!  I guess ammonia lowers the freezing point of water better than dish soap does?

Anyhoo, I gave the whole thing a spray and didn't find a durn thing...

Now I KNOW this thing is leaking down because it's done it to me twice.  And it's no "slow leak" either.  In 24 hours, it goes completely flat...

So I decided to keep at it, and shoot the sidewalls.

Bingo.

Ok.  That's going to have to go to the tire shop...  I simply don't have the ability to de-bead and re-seat a tire in my garage right now.

Ok, moving on:  The engine is still running, but I can feel that the upper radiator hose is frozen solid.  The IACV hoses are still frozen too, but I'm able to squeeze and flex them enough that the ice passes and warm water flows.  This lets the engine settle down to a normal idle.

Now I know better, but I do it anyway because it has to be done.  I take a rag and pop that upper radiator cap.

See, the lower hose has completely collapsed, and the upper hose is still rock solid where it connects to the radiator.  Nothing is going to move.

Obviously there is still pressure in the system, so I'm careful to not burn my face off.  The engine gets shut down, off comes the radiator cap, up goes the geyser of coolant, and the crap coming out is COMPLETELY BLACK!!!!

I JUST JUST JUST flushed the entire system with a healthy mix of quality green coolant before setting off for Africa, and this stuff looks like it's been in there for YEARS!!!

About this time, I'm thinking that shop really screwed me on the coolant refill, and since the level was now too low to test with my coolant tester, I stuck my finger in some of the stuff that came out and tasted it (yeah, I know).  There was none of that sweet glycol taste...  None at all.  I'm thinking it was 100% straight water.

I had about 5-liters of cheap green coolant concentrate in the garage, so I added that in and the radiator was nowhere near full (I swear only a liter, maybe two,  came out when it geysered).  The stuff advertises a freezing point of -35c, so I add it all in and top it up with some distilled water I also had (that was mostly frozen).  Once full, I started the truck again and let things circulate before running another test.  This time, the hydrometer reported a reading of -23C, and I'm 100% happy with that (but will still schedule a coolant flush at a local garage when I can).

good times.

I only had a bit of time to kill at this pont, but since I was making a list of things to buy at the parts-store I thought now would be a good time to take care of a small fuel leak I discovered when I got back from the last run:

Yep.  That thing wasn't holding much fuel back, and probably explains why I was getting closer to 16mpg (instead of the 20mpg I'm used to).

After that, I started removing rallye stickers.  It's cool having them on the truck and all, but I want to get some proper "Humanitarian Aid" stickers made and that means these have to go

I got the passenger side, and half of the hood done.  That's good enough for one day.

Tomorrow I plan to work on the Charger (of the Dodge variety), but this was a good start to get momentum going.  I just hope it warms up a bit soon.  I was wearing 3 or 4 layers, and was still freezing my bum off

Good times, though.

DarkMonohue said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

Speaking of cookbooks though, I did get a message back from the host of the Dnipro raffle.  Naturally it's a busy time of year for him as well, but he reports that the mail was sent last Friday and that the recipients should be expecting their prizes this week.

Booyah! Look what just rocked up!

How cool is that?

This will be treasured.

Dude!  That is awesome!!!  You gotta let us know what you try and how it is.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I am happy to announce the winners of VikkiDp's stamp drawing!

For everyone who donated, an allotment of tickets were assigned numbers and your name was placed on the appropriate amount (due to the exchange rate, and the non-even dollar amounts it created, all donations were rounded up to the next highest ticket).  From there a random number generator was used, and the following names were drawn:

Foo Bag:  Crimea Bridge (BOOM!) Stamps

Don Fip: "Kherson Is Ukraine!" (Watermellon) Stamps

Please PM me your addresses and real names and I'll send them to Vikki to get them sent your way!

Cheers guys, and thank you everyone (especially Vikki) for making this happen!

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Woohoo!  Thank you RNG!  PM sent.  And thank you Bill, Vikki, and the rest of the GRM crew supporting these efforts.  

In reply to VikkiDp :

Thank you for gathering the items and always sharing info about Ukraine with us.  One day I hope to be able to take my family on holiday and have some of the famous yummy Kherson region watermelons :)

Foo Bag:  Crimea Bridge (BOOM!) Stamps

Don Fip: "Kherson Is Ukraine!" (Watermellon) Stamps

Guys, congratulations!!! Thank you for your support   

I already got your addresses from Bill and your prizes will be sent you as soon as i get home - i'm still on a business trip at my job 

The second GREAT news - i got the money for moms and kids and i already transferred them in UAH  

So i'm ready to order all stuff for the families  

We continue to do good together!!! Absolutely great!!!

Nice!  I received mine today as well, posed it next to my Ghost of Kiev kit I bought from Cobi when they were doing some fundraising:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

GIRTHQUAKE said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Bill, I'll get pics of the kids toys and things I've gathered so far- sadly they've been thin on the ground for earbuds/headphones but I still have several pairs, but I was able to snag lots of little art supplies and sidewalk chalks and such.

Hey, no worries on the headphones!  What you've got so far sounds amazing!

Okay bill, I've got tons of paint supplies and lots of little headphones and headsets. Just say where to send it to and it'll be on its way!

GIRTHQUAKE said:

Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) said:

GIRTHQUAKE said:

In reply to Hungary Bill (Forum Supporter) :

Bill, I'll get pics of the kids toys and things I've gathered so far- sadly they've been thin on the ground for earbuds/headphones but I still have several pairs, but I was able to snag lots of little art supplies and sidewalk chalks and such.

Hey, no worries on the headphones!  What you've got so far sounds amazing!

Okay bill, I've got tons of paint supplies and lots of little headphones and headsets. Just say where to send it to and it'll be on its way!

Beautiful and thank you!!!!!  I'll send you a PM right away!

Oof.  I think this has been the roughest month yet!  In 4 days we'll be rounding the 1-year anniversary of the invasion.  I still cant believe it, and I promise we haven't been slacking.

Ok, first (and as always) we have our spreadsheet:

Last month, in addition to our usual donation of 500,000 forint to the Kisgorbo shelter, we raised and delivered $1800 for the purchase of baby food and diapers for refugees in Dnipro!

VikkiDp was away on a work trip, but still managed to get the deliveries started.  She even asked if we would mind if she sent a bit of chocolate to the mothers (of course not!).

Here's what she sent back:

And speaking of deliveries, I got a GRM New Years Game box from fellow member HoserRacing who sent some needed items for the Toyota!

In it was the cap to my power steering resivoir, a new PCV hose (with clamps!), and a tube of Toyota FIPG (always needed).

I can tell he's been watching the thread because he also sent a set of mirrors and amber marker lights as well!

Since the weather has been warmer, I used the opportunity to get some work done on the truck:

I also picked up some fuel line from our local parts store to patch up the fuel leak I think I mentioned earlier.  Unfortunately I didn't check it when I was at the counter, and just paid and left.

The stuff I bought, aside from being fabric covered (which I'm not a fan of), looks too thin to be rated for fuel injection pressures.  So it was scrapped:

Luckily I keep some properly rated line in the truck for just such an occasion, so all I had to do was tap that supply, and all was good.

In the end, it looks like it'll hold but I have yet to start the truck to test it:

I tried to double clamp it (as shown in the picture) but that clamp I'm working on stripped itself loose before I could get it anywhere NEAR remotely tight.  No worries though because the one above it is brand new and cranked down to spec (good'n'tight).

Other than that, my bead leak on my tire was solved at the local tire shop (free of charge)

That poor truck....  I swear.

Anyhoo:  The shop kept it overnight for a leakdown test and got it back to me in the morning.  This means the ol girl is back on all fours and is that much closer to being ready to go!
 

I'm hoping to get back out there again tomorrow and finish bolting the cap back on.  That's the main reason why the tarp is still covering things (I don't want water leaking in because stuff isn't tightened down).

Other than that, I've been removing more stickers.  It takes more time than you think!

(If you look close, you can see the clean spots where the stickers were)

I'm really hoping to have this back on the road this week.  I can get a lot more done when I have this thing around me all the time (because then I can duck out for a few minutes each chance I get to do a bunch of small stuff that really adds up)

But of course, not even the garage is safe from the move:

2-weeks until we move into the new place, but with twice the garage room, twice the house, and half the yard I'm hoping it'll be a long term gain as far as productivity goes.

Good times.

Good news everyone!

VikkiDp just contacted me and let me know that the stamps are on their way to their respective recipients!

She sent me tracking numbers as well, but I'll hold on to those in case something happens and we thing we need them.

Good times!