Saturday, February 19, 2011

Whataweek

Friday a week ago after working late I went out to the wife's truck to drive over and pick her up. Why the wife's truck you ask? That would be because my truck was parked in teh driveway waiting for the temps to get out of the teens so I could get under it and replace the drive shaft carrier bearing that had shelled out on it and taken the transfer case rear output shaft seal with it. Well, the truck started OK but would not move at all. There was a trail leading to the parking space and when it was running there was a stream of transmission fluid pouring out of the bell housing. So, much gymnastics later we were finally on our way home but her truck was sitting in the parking lot pissing ATF all over the ground. We got home and I climbed under my truck and went to work on pulling the drive shaft. I figured while it was cold out it was not as cold as the morning would be. Saturday morning I put the front half of my drive shaft in a hydraulic press trying to get what was left of the carrier bearing off. Well that was a dismal failure. I ended up having to cut the inner race off the drive shaft and then polish up the surface that the bearing mounted on before pressing the new bearing on. Of course the part listed for the rear output shaft seal was wrong and I had to go to the dealer for that not cheap part. Chimera gave me a ride home so I could put my truck back together and he pointed out a down tree near our south property line on the way home. I got my truck fixed and when Chimera left he stopped and had a closer look at the tree down. Well, it had fallen along the fence line and taken out some forty feet or so of fence behind the south tank. Sunday we went out to work on the fence and had to cut the pieces of the tree and vines to get to the fence and rebuild it. Unfortunately, misbeHaven got into some serious poison ivy or sumac and a week later she is still paying for it. Prednisone helps but it has gone so systemic that her elbow is swollen and she is running a fever.
So the official week started with some regular customers who I commented about earlier and me trying to get a shop that can work on Allison transmissions and getting a hook to pick the wife's truck up and haul it to the shop. Thursday I had an out of town trip that went pretty well and I have a geek post about it but after picking the wife up and getting take out dinner, my body decided that food was the enemy. Two exits, no waiting. Spent Thursday night up getting rid of everything in my body. That led to not going to work Friday. I hadn't slept and had no energy. At least there were deer in the yard when I went out to get some tea.
Late Friday the shop called and the wifes truck was ready. $65 for the seal, $16 to put the seal in and a little over $1000 to get the transmission out of the truck and put it back in.

So, it's been a long week and it is far from over. Friday was supposed to be the arrival of Twilight, not the movie or series but misbeHavens horse. Unfortunately, he is under quarantine at the moment at the ranch where he is currently located. Something about a rabid skunk, feral cat and ranch dog. The skunk and cat bodies are at TAMU for necropsy, the dog is under quarantine, ranch mom is having to undergo rabies shots and all the animals at the ranch are on lock down. Nothing in or out.

misbeHaven is also still fighting the itches. I'm eating again and the deer were out in force, like a herd of 8 of them in the west pasture. Not very conductive to much fence building getting done around here.

3 comments:

  1. Greetings from Falls County,
    Coming out of Sams Club a few days ago the S-10 "chose not to run" in the words of Ernest Gann. We ended up having to trailer it to our son's house where we thought the problem would be a fuse or wiring.

    The computer died and had to be replaced. I have fantasys of hunting down the bastard that put computers in vehicles and killing he, she or it - very slowly. The new computer did not completly fix the problem. Still chasing 'ghost in the machine'.

    We havn't forgotten about getting with you folks for lunch sometime.

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  2. Art, I can remember pulling the transmission from my suburban in years past. TurboHydramatic350. No computer and the ignition had points. I could actually climb into the engine compartment if the weather was bad when I was working on it. Now the engine compartment is so full of crap that there is no room for anything else. You know it's not good when the first step of instructions in the service manual for replacing the water pump is to remove the left fender then radiator and intercooler.
    Looking forward to lunch IRL.

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  3. good grief that is one heck of a week! I hope this one goes better!

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