RAY:This puzzler came in from a fellow who is some kind of a builder. He writes, "I was hired to build a cabin in the woods 20 miles from civilization, so I set off early one morning before sunrise. And because there was no electricity at the site I brought along my generator, radio, etc. I also packed an extension cord, my electric drill and the bits, and my socket and wrench set. When I was finished for the day, I tried to leave but my battery was dead. I had left my lights on all day."
TOM: Oh no.
RAY: "And here I am 20 miles from anywhere and I figure I'm done for. Anyway, I look behind the driver's seat and I find the following items: jumper cables, a roll of duct tape and a quart of Fillipo Berio Extra Virgin Olive Oil. By this time it's getting dark, the coyotes are howling and the buzzards are circling. Now, if only there was a way to get power from that generator which is making 110 volts. And get that into my dead battery, which is 12 volts, of course it's 110 volts AC, and my battery is 12 volts DC. The question is: how can I do it with only the items at my disposal."
TOM: Oomph, this was good.
RAY: I'm sure we've got plenty of people who said, you're going to have to do something with the jumper cables and it seemed so logical, right?
TOM: Yeah.
RAY: And the generator.
TOM: That was my first thought.
RAY: Yeah, and you would have been dead. The coyotes would have gotten you. What he did was very cute. With his tool kit he slips the belt off the alternator. He then takes the electric drill and the duct tape, and duct tapes the chuck of the drill to the pulley of the alternator, so when he squeezes the trigger on the drill it turns the alternator. Now putting the drill into the generator, he sits there for 15 minutes, holds the trigger. In fact if he was really lazy he could duct tape the trigger. And as the alternator spins --
TOM: It's making electricity.
RAY: It makes electricity to charge the dead battery. A few minutes later he puts the belt back on, starts the thing, and off he goes, leaving the generator and the drill and tools behind. All right, so who's our winner, man?
TOM: Well, the winner is Don Helfer from Corvalis, Oregon. And for having his answer selected at random from all the other answers that we got, Don is going to get a $25 gift certificate to the Shameless Commerce Division at the Car Talk section of Cars.com. Don, you lucky guy. OK.
[ Car Talk Puzzler ]
