gogmorgo

Well what with all the crap going down and not being able to go anywhere, and with the weather improving it’s time for more work on this thing. I got that tow hook set installed last night. For anyone who found their way here through google, you’ll have to do more googling to get install photos unfortunately. My phone died... it was nice and sunny but only 3°C which doesn’t do much for battery life. Here’s the finished product: Rolling back up to the initial commentary on the factory setup, no, part #15 wasn’t there. The “toe eye”. I’m thinking that’s supposed to be an attachment point for a flat-tow setup, if you wanted to tow it behind an RV or whatever. But not positive. Looks to be a direct replacement for the tow hook bracket without the wing that goes around to the front of the rad support. I’d expect you’d know you have it from the eye sticking through the bumper cover, and if present you’d have the #1 reinforcement plate. But this is pure speculation. As to part #1, the reinforcing plate, the biggest advantage during the install is that funky tongue thing, which allows you to hang onto the plate, instead of having to fish fasteners down into the frame. There’s debate online as to whether it provides actual reinforcement or not, whether just using washers and nuts like the aftermarket kits would be enough. Well the plate does hold the nuts together, that’s for sure. But unlike part #3 that holds the studs together with a strip of 14(ish) gauge steel, the reinforcement plate is closer to 3/16” thick (I didn’t actually measure). So take what you will from that.

Now imagine you’re hunting around for them outside in the dark at -40 so you can disconnect the frozen battery before you set the thing on fire boosting it.

One of cruiser’s tips is relocating the fuel pump ground. I’d look at that one first.

We always rolled it out into a big long snake and wrapped that in a spiral around a stick to cook it over the fire. Goes great with a big pot of moose stew.

No Brembo paint. Didn’t think it was worth it. I ended up having to redo the paint, didn’t prep properly and put it on too thick to compensate, didn’t work out. I don’t really paint things very often, haha. Finally got it installed the other day. It’s like wearing lingerie at the office.

Cause I’m currently making it now, pea soup from the cookbook my mom uses. Comfort food.

That’s the Dodge Ram 50. It’s a badge engineered variant of the Mitsubishi Triton/Mighty Max. Not much in common with the Comanche.

I had a calliper seize on me the other day on the Littlest Comanche. So I did what any sensible person would do, buy another. But the new one was black, and the one I put on the other side a year ago isn’t. So instead of suffering with mismatched callipers, I painted the black one red. Maybe I’ll get around to painting the other one, or maybe I won’t.

Not much elm firewood around any more thanks to DED. I remember taking out a row of infected trees with my dad back in the early 2000s. They weren’t much fun to cut, but the wood seemed to burn forever.

Definitely not something any sane person would say, no. I split about a cord and a third of wood by hand last spring. Tedious for sure. Don’t remember how long it took but it was spread out over a few sessions, and my body wasn’t too excited about it. Fortunately it was standing dead pine, so it split easy, and I didn’t need to swing a maul around, just a 4-lb axe. I wouldn't want to repeat that with a hardwood.

https://medium.com/@tomaspueyo/coronavirus-act-today-or-people-will-die-f4d3d9cd99ca Here’s a good read, if a little data-heavy. There’s a lag between actual cases and the official numbers. There’s a lag between transmission and showing symptoms. Some people will be infected and transmit without showing much in the way of symptoms. South Korea pretty well had a handle on it until one person refused to stay home and spread it to several thousand people. Italy is running out of crematorium capacity. China had cities on full lockdown with far fewer official cases than many US states, and they’re only just managing to get ahead of their own curve several months later. The time to act on this pandemic was weeks ago. This is not government overreach. This is acting to prevent hundreds of thousands of deaths. Your freedoms only extend as far as they start interfering with the freedoms of others, and right now your freedoms are unfortunately killing people.

List price on the BJP1 master set is ~$620 US, although I’ve only got access to the Canadian catalogue.

No downtime for me either. The plow trucks won’t get much of a break till at least the end of April, so unfortunately neither will I. We got told this morning we’ve been upgraded from “essential” to “critical” service. Got to keep the roads open and truck traffic moving down the highway, even if there’s not many tourists rolling through any more. But I’ve picked up another project that I’ll be occupying weekends with. Another Lada, cause apparently I’m a masochist. It’s not in awful shape considering it’s been off the road for ten years.

I found these the other day. No idea what it’s like yet, but the name was too good to pass up. But you’d need to have been following Canadian politics through the ‘90’s to comperstand. But there’s too much talk about IPAs in here. Recently my new favourite is Snake Lake’s Maple Imperial Stout, which is a collaboration with a local brewery. Said local brewery, Folding Mountain, also makes a decent porter, as does the Three Ranges brewery just across the divide. For a lighter “every day” sort of beer my go-to lately has been Big Rock’s Traditional Ale, which is a mass market “craft” take on a brown ale. And then of course there’s always a case of Pilsner kicking around if you’re putting a few back with the boys.

My brother’s wedding reception was cancelled. The ceremony is still happening, but they’re asking people who need to fly not to come. I think only my sister and parents are still planning to attend. I was told today by work that I’m an essential service so they weren’t going to let me get onto an airplane and come back without quarantine, and they don’t want to risk running short on staff so they can’t let me do that. Schools in Alberta have been closed for the rest of the school year, and locally most public facilities have been shut down as well.

My brother’s getting married next weekend on the opposite end of the country from where most of our family lives. I’ll be flying in of course. As will most of my family. There’s TP on the shelves everywhere in town, but not much. Hand sanitizer, Lysol wipes, nada. I’ve got half an airplane-legal bottle of hand sanitizer in my camping gear but was hoping to find something to fill it up the rest of the way. To be clear, I’m not concerned about my own health. I’m under 30 with a healthy immune system, I’ll be fine. What I’m concerned about is I’ll be passing through a few major international airports where the virus has already been confirmed to have entered the country, and I would absolutely hate to find out I carried it to my parents or grandparents, or some of my soon-to-be sister-in-law’s family who may not be so fine. It would be nice to know I have the option of sanitizing any time I need to touch a door handle or any other surface everyone else touches. Otherwise yes, events in town have been cancelled. Probably overcautious for how far away we are from major airports, but it is a resort town that handles a lot of travellers, and the front-line service staff who make up a lot of our workforce don’t necessarily have the luxury of paid sick days for minor cold symptoms, and this can be an expensive town to live in. Personally I think the recommendation to sit tight for a little bit is a good choice, just to slow down the spread and allow ressources to be put it place to manage it. As of right now there aren’t many facilities with the ability to test, and the capacity may not be there to deal with a hundred-fold increase in pneumonia cases. The mass panic definitely isn’t helping anything, but I do think this is something worth taking at least a little seriously.

Yeah that was also a bit of a concern. I'd rather have the sled loaded nose down than up with skis on the wheelwell, so I'll definitely have a tape measure with me while shopping. The inner enginerd needed some whiteboard time. Two feet for bed height is approximate, a little lower than where it sits I think but tough to say without loading up a sled, 10' overall length is also approximate. But the 30° ramp angle that results isn't terrible, and a slide-out ramp extension would be easy and just make the angle better. Also it would mean you aren't just slamming the back of the track down once it finally tips down. I'm guessing break over point wouldn't have the sled more than a foot or two behind the loaded position. Probably a dumb idea and I haven't even looked at them yet but how bad would it wreck the tailgate hinges using them as a pivot point? I should go do something practical before having more dumb ideas.

Hmm... And if you could pull a pin or something and have it drop down into a ramp, that's getting two birds stoned at once cause you wouldn't need to worry about the ramp taking off on you.

Yeah that's my thinking. Definitely much easier to pick up the back end than the front of any sled I've messed around with. It'll be a couple weeks before I start looking at them, so I'll have to let you all know how it turns out.

Just sitting on the tailgate, eh? I guess a longer track wouldn't be all that much extra weight hanging off the end, either.

Well it depends on the sled. You would be looking at over 10 feet for the bigger models. One of my coworkers hauls his around with a deck on his 6.5' bed Tundra, although he's got a lot more cab length and weight balancing that out. And there's a lot of it hanging off the back end of the truck; that photo really doesn't do it justice, but I don't have a side shot on my phone.

Yes, but the seals don't necessarily appreciate brake cleaner any more than the grease does.

The long bed is not registered or in any condition to become that way any time soon unfortunately. Major rust repairs are currently underway but my landlord has been reprioritizing my projects and because it's not on the property right now it's been pushed to the bottom of the stack.