Oh joy...NOT

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Dusterdude72

Dusterdude72

IN MOPAR MUSCLE MAGAZINE
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Location
MI 49203
My wife went to go to work last night and of course with all the snow we had,ever door was frozen shut....so finally after screwing with it for 20 minutes I got a door open.

she went to work....I told her to take my coat (she dosent have one right now)...she says "nah I don't spend enough time outside"...I said ok fine.

well, it comes time for her to get out of work again and her doors are froze shut again. in the process of trying to get it open.....the alarm (which we never knew it had) decided to go off.

as soon as she opened the rear hatch and crawled over the seats the siren shut off but the security light kept flashing. She went to start it and it wouldnt start.

I have no vehicle and was 20 minuites away.....it was finally almost 2 hours before we could get someone over there to help her out that could unhook that battery for her to try to disarm the alarm and to charge up the battery.....FINALLY got it started and she came home.

she went to take off again today and of course, not the battery is dead.

oh joy oh joy, the fun of messing around with stupid electrical BS...and what better time than in -temperatures with gusts of 40 mph winds,when I have a bad cold and right before the holidays when I am already strapped on cash.

sorry for the rant everyone...just a little bummed out.

I am going to see if I can get the battery charged up and see if maybe I can remove the fuses to the alarm/remote start to stop it from happening again...not sure yet though.
 
I feel for you, brother. 2 weeks ago I went out to warm my car up to go to work, door was frozen shut. Ok, I got it open, Battery dead. Bad enough, right? Now the door would not latch! I just kept slamming it and it would bounce back open. I propped the door shut with a window squeegee-thing I use to get the frost off my windows and forgot about it. It's dark when I get home, so I didn't screw with it for the rest of the week (drove the wife's mini van). Saturday when I get home from work it's still light enough to see that the door has swung open and both of my dogs decided that the front seat of my car was a better place to spend their outdoor hours than the woods.

I've got some new electrical gremlin that eats batteries, my dash is disasembled to the point that SOMETHING is never going to work again, and my car smells like dog. I hate winter.
 
Put some vaseline on the door seal
 
Hang in there buddy at least you dont work side by side with your boss like me who turns in SCROUNGE this time of year,F%^$&*( wreaks the Christmas spirit for me. I am so close to quieting my job.Sorry I turned this into my bad news.Good luck.Wish I could send ya some cash to help out.I too is poor but rich with love.
 
Yup some silicone spray will work too. Get all the door seals and may as well do the truck seal as well.

Dear God bundle up my friend and stay warm!! Frost bite sucks..
 
Cover your car with a tarp man, keep a small propane torch in her purse, blankets in the car.

You northerners should know better by now!

Old man winter don't cut no slack! LOL
 
Dude, you live in Michigan and your wife doesn't have a coat?? What size does she wear, I'll see if I can raid my wife's closest for her. I was just giving someone (? maybe my daughter) hell for not at least having a coat in the car in case something like this happened.


edit...I just remembered that is was the guy that worked for me that I was giving hell to..he called me Monday morning broken down along the road. I asked him if he had a coat with him and he didn't...
 
GTGrinly said:
Dude, you live in Michigan and your wife doesn't have a coat?? What size does she wear, I'll see if I can raid my wife's closest for her. I was just giving someone (? maybe my daughter) hell for not at least having a coat in the car in case something like this happened.


edit...I just remembered that is was the guy that worked for me that I was giving hell to..he called me Monday morning broken down along the road. I asked him if he had a coat with him and he didn't...
Click to expand...

I bought her a coat last month but money has been tight lately and she decided to return it without telling me so we could do a little extra on christmas for our little guy.

thats not going to fly...so I will do my best to get her a coat real soon...just because of crap like what happened last night.

thank you for the offer....we hate to take anything though. We will manage, just got to sell a few extra sticker deals to help pick up the slack.
 
d5667 said:
Put some vaseline on the door seal
Click to expand...

needsaresto said:
Yup some silicone spray will work too. Get all the door seals and may as well do the truck seal as well.

Dear God bundle up my friend and stay warm!! Frost bite sucks..
Click to expand...

4spdragtop said:
I agree, that or I think there is a silcone spray that works too!! Allmy buddies are wondering why I am selling the sled....well where the heck are ya when they break down??
Click to expand...

thanks guys!, I didnt even think about that.

now I just have to scrounge and see if I have any!!! ....I don't think I have any vasoline or silcone spray or lithium grease or anything.

I may have some cooking spray or some brake fluid or something sitting around.

anyhow....for an update.....I pulled the battery out of my duster and swapped it into the durango because it looks newer.....and of course when tightening down the battery hold down (cheap platic) in this cold it just snapped in half....so for the time being, the hold down is fashioned out of zip ties LOL.

I put a screw driver on the cone of my karosene ready heater and then stuck the screw driver in all the door locks and deiced them.

walked around and got all the doors unstuck.

I noticed after I put the battery in that the dome light was on and wasnt going off.......so I don't know if the door didnt close all the way this morning when my wife got home and thats why the battery died, or if maybe I didnt close the door all the way when I first went out to try to crank the engine over.

so right now I am just crossing my fingers that swapping that battery and getting all the doors opening and closing good and deicing the locks will be good enough and do the trick.

I tossed some tools in the back and made sure the jumper cables were in there and everything and she IS taking my coat tonight.

thanks for the ideas again guys, I appreciate it.
 
Just a tip. Spray the silicone lube on a rag first and then wipe down the door seals etc. This way it won't get all over the place. It also helps to spray the latch in the door with WD-40. It will help keep ice from the mechanism so you can lock and unlock the door.
I also spray the lock itself with lock deicer right after I finish washing the car.
 
cudadriver said:
Just a tip. Spray the silicone lube on a rag first and then wipe down the door seals etc. This way it won't get all over the place. It also helps to spray the latch in the door with WD-40. It will help keep ice from the mechanism so you can lock and unlock the door.
I also spray the lock itself with lock deicer right after I finish washing the car.
Click to expand...

thanks for the tip.

as of right now, no silicone spray or vasoline or wd-40 (just ran out not long ago and forgot to get more) and no de icer spray.
 
DusterDude72 said:
I bought her a coat last month but money has been tight lately and she decided to return it without telling me so we could do a little extra on christmas for our little guy.

thats not going to fly...so I will do my best to get her a coat real soon...just because of crap like what happened last night.

thank you for the offer....we hate to take anything though. We will manage, just got to sell a few extra sticker deals to help pick up the slack.
Click to expand...

I know you sell stickers but I can't find a list of what you sell ,is there a link for them? 8)

edit,edit,edit, I just found the thread. :bootysha:
 
Or you could move here to San Diego.....it was 83 here yesterday....I went to the beach! :wave: Sorry, I couldn't resist! But really, no coat or weather gear in the car? It rarely ever gets below freezing here and I have a coat and blanket in the car at all times.....along with jumper cables and a small tool box with the essentials. When I DID live in your kind of weather, I would use a lighter on the key to heat it enough to get it in the lock and thaw out the cylinder. Of course if it's blowing sideways at 50MPH nothing is going to work too well. I left one car out in an ice storm once. Looked like one of those joke ice cubes you can buy with the bug inside.....anyway.....the only way I could even think about getting inside was to hit it with the garden hose until everything thawed out and then wiped down the door jams with a towel so they wouldn't refreeze later on. Stay warm! :angry4:
 
If it was a GM and the security light stayed on and was blinking you can put the key in the ignition and turn the key to the "on" position, wait for 10 minutes the security light will keep flashing and after about 10 mins it will stay lit solid without flashing. At that point you can turn off the key switch and then turn the key to the "on" position and the light should stay lit and then you can start the car. Not sure if Mopars work this way as well. How do I know this? My mother in law has a 2002 Chevrolet and this has happened to her a couple times. After showing her what to do she is now able to do this and reset the security feature on her car.
 
not sure if that trick would work or not because I don't think this is a factory install....someone probably had it installed some time ago.

anyhow, went and got some de icing spray and sprayed down all the lock cylinders and I got some lithium grease and sprayed down all of the door seals....so hopfully that will do the trick!

had a close call on the way back from getting that stuff too!!! was driving down the road and 3 cars in front of me spiked the brakes and I tried using my brakes on the durango and it wasnt slowing down at all so I made a last ditch effort and spike the brakes, kicked it sideways ,turned the wheel and punched the gas and slingshoted myself off the side of the road over a snow bank and then pulled back on the road.

anyhow.......packed the wifes purse with the can of de icer for the locks and a pry bar so she can wrap it in cloth and try using it to assist in opening the door if it happens to freeze shut again.

find out if the battery holds a charge after tonight and I will let you guys know!
 
We had a blizzard this weekend, my sisters car won't start(acts like neutral safety or something, good battery but not even a click from the starter)so thought I would lend her my Dakota for a while and drive the Omni, go out Sunday(10 degrees)the drivers door handle broke off(that nice 80's Chrysler pot metal)all the other doors frozen shut, finally get in and it wouldn't start.

Thanks for the reminder: I need to pack a winter emergency kit(extra clothes and a blanket)
 
Forgot to post an update to this thread.

WELL......fingers crossed, but everything seems to be fine now!

the lithium grease stopped the doors from freezing shut, the de icer has kept the locks thawed.

and the truck seems to be holding a charge now .

so hopefully everything stays working good!

thanks again to those of you who gave me some tips ...I appreciate it:cheers:
 
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