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Well
we are still at it. It has taken a lot longer than we expected. The delays are
many. Lets start with the run down of the last month’s work on truck two. The
cool one. J
Who’s
smart idea was it to take the body off? That must have been someone other than
mine. Mitch and my father in-law, Jim, said that it would make putting the lift
on easier if the body wasn’t in the way. So one Saturday was spent taking the
whole body off. We removed the doors, took the hood off and the rear door as
well to make it as manageable as possible. With some help from the cherry picker
and a few metal saw horses the body was off. I do not mean to make it sound
easy, 'cause it wasn’t. It’s off now though, sitting on the car trailer in my
side yard. I am waiting for the neighbors to say something now that the leaves
are falling and you can see more of our property. |
 Then
I opened my mouth. I asked Mitch, my husband, "We aren’t going to leave the
engine and transmission in the frame are we?" He says "No, we need to take that
out too, since the engine needs to be rebuilt, we might as well pull it now and
be done with it." He says "Why you want to pull it?" Now there are a lot of
things that I do not know how to do in the garage, but I know how to turn a
wrench. So I give him a funny look and say "Yeah". He starts in talkin' about
the impact and blah blah blah. I am not listening, I have wheeled the tool box
out of the garage and started diggin' thru it for tools. I know, I know,
 someone
is thinking she did not take that out with hand tools. Yep, you betcha.
Ok so I lack some sense sometimes. I grab a socket and a breaker bar , I ask
which bolts need to be taken out and start wrenchin' on the bolts. Did I mention
that it was like 90 degrees that day? I was wearing black and jeans? In the sun?
Again, proof that I don’t always use my brain. I was roasting alive and getting
ticked off because I was having a hard time of things. I couldn’t get the socket
and the ratchet on some of them because of the space constraints. So I am
working on things with an open end wrench ¼ turn at a time.
Mitch
was keeping himself busy fixing some rust spots on our old Dodge Dakota. I was
so mad I could have probably made up a new swear word. I finally gave in and had
Mitch come break one of the bolts loose for me and show me where to attach the
chains for the cherry picker. We ended up getting it out and not a moment too
soon either because I had about had it.
Now
comes the fun part. Right. Grinding the frame down to make it a good workable
surface. Mitch spent two days doing that. After the first day spent in the
garage with no hearing protection he walked around like he had cotton stuffed in
his ears. Lesson learned... he got some ear muffs, like the kind you use
if your shooting guns, and finished the job.
Jim and Mitch have been working on setting up the rear end. Really taking
their time to make sure that everything goes right. Have I said to make sure to
read all the instructions before you start digging in to putting the Rocky Road
Outfitters coil suspension on? Let me say it now. Read the directions. Read them
cover to cover. They are not meant to be a step by step manual but if you read
them you will be a lot better off than if you don’t.
Like
I said before, things have been slow for us. We work different shifts, putting
in overtime at work and family obligations have kept the time we get to work on
the tin top to a minimum lately. That has really been a bummer. We are hoping
that we get the coils on by next months update. Cross your fingers and if anyone
lives in western lower Michigan, call and come on over, we could use the company
and maybe a spare set of hands. |