Finish Door Repair

Finished the Door Repair.

It may seem like it took me a long time to finish this repair but most of the time was spent waiting for epoxi to cure or paint to dry.
I painted the door on Monday and installed it yesterday.

  Transfer Case Linkage Adjustment.

The transfer case linkage on the van has been kind of sloppy and has been hard to shift so I took it apart yesterday to see if I could find anything amiss. It mostly looked good so I put it all back together and back on the van. I added a couple of washers to where the pivot points are and bolted it down good. Everything is nice and stable now.
I spent the rest of the afternoon trying to adjust the linkage. I still haven't gotten it right so if the rain stops today, I'll try it some more.

The rest of the time we have been just goofing off.
Patti had a doctors appointment yesterday to have minor surgery on her left hand.

I am going to the cabin on Thursday (tomorrow) afternoon or Friday morning. I will be there until Monday so no posts for a while

More on the Door

The Door.

I did some more work on the van door.
I tried to braze the patch to the door skin but I didn't like the way it was going. After a coupe of inches the metal was distorting so bad that I stopped trying to braze it together.
I decided that I was going to have to some how glue the metal together. I spent a lot of time running around looking for some kind of construction adhesive for automobiles.  I wasn't sure that liquid nails would do the trick. Eventually I decided that some JB Weld would probably have the best chance of working. I had a couple of partial tubes of JB Weld so I mixed them up and slathered the epoxy on the metal and clamped the patch to the door.

The epoxy was hardened by about 8:00 last night so I removed the clamps and the patch  stayed stuck to the door.
So far, so good.

You can see the rust on the bottom edge of the door in the picture below.

I wire brushed the area and sprayed some rust stopper on it. I will seal it with epoxy putti. The putti will also seal the bottom of the patch and stick it to the door.

Okay that's it for today.

Working on Van Door

Van Door.

Yesterday I did some more work on the van door.

I cut and shaped a piece of sheet metal to fit the bottom of the door.

I will start by screwing the piece in place then probably braze it along the edge. I think I will epoxy it at the bottom since the door there is pretty rusted out.

Okay that is as far as I have gotten on this project. I'll probably do more today.

Catching Up

Catching Up.

Okay, okay, I know its been a long time since I published a post.
I guess I will have to catch you up.

The Cabin.

We went up to the cabin for five days; from Wednesday to Monday.

After spending several months in the desert coming back to all this green is a bit overwhelming.
It almost feels like your body is absorbing the greenness through every pour.

We missed the blooming of the flowers that we planted in the fall around the stump.

We took a couple of walks around the property during the week.  Here are some of the pictures Patti took.
The Wild Iris's are blooming.

The huckleberries are also in bloom.

Even their leaves are colorful.

The area has had a lot of rain so everything is very lush.

Moss.

Visitors.

Ray and Mike came up on Friday. They set their camp up down the hill, at Mat's spot.

Rendezvous.

For many years Patti and I enjoyed going to Black Powder Rendezvous. One of these Rendezvous takes place at the Mary Hill Ranch about 12 miles east of Booneville. We haven't been to any Rendezvous in several years so when we found out that there was to be a rendezvous so close to the cabin we decided to meet Joanne and Dave there on Saturday. Not to compete or camp, just to reminisce and maybe run into old friends.

Patti and I stopped at the Booneville store to buy a couple of sandwiches to take with us.
We met Joanne and Dave at the rendezvous around noon and had our lunch under the shade of a massive oak tree.

The Rendezvous was very small with only a few traders.

And very few shooters.

Back in the day when we were going to this rendezvous there could be over 25 traders and 100 or more shooters.
We talked Joanne and Dave into coming back to the cabin with us for the rest of the day and left the rendezvous around 2:00
Back at the cabin we sat around and visited with Joanne, Dave, Ray and Mike, until Joanne and Dave left around 5:00.
Ray and Mike came up to play cards Saturday evening.

Sunday. 

Sunday morning Ray and Mike took down their camp and left for home around 11:00.
Patti and I stayed until Monday afternoon.

Van door.

Tuesday morning I took one of the side doors off the van. The bottom of the door is pretty rusted out so I will have try and fix it.

Okay that's a quick catchup of the last 7 days.

A Visit With Bob, Install the Van Door, Getting Ready to Go to the Cabin.

A Visit With Bob.

On Sunday I took a ride to Guerneville to visit with my friend, Bob. It was a cold drizzly day so we just hung out around his place and bs'ed for a couple hours.
Every once in a while we would take a walk around his yard. It is to early in the spring for ripe fruit but Bob enjoys the plumbs so green that the seeds haven't hardly formed yet.
"Man that's tart"!!

The Van Door.

I got home from Bob's around 3:30 and decided to put the window regulator back in the van door.
Once that was done I had to paint a couple of spots and glue some rubber weather-stripping back in place. Now I am ready to put the door back on the van.

The van door is heavy and cumbersome so I figured I would need help putting it on the van. Patti was visiting with our friend, Loraine and was not expected home until later so I decided to wait on that project.

Patti and I installed the door on the van Monday morning. It went right on with no trouble.
"That's a little scary".

Trip to the Cabin.

We are getting ready for a few days at the cabin. This is our first trip this year so I am excited.
We will go up tomorrow and come home Monday.
Of course that means there will not be any postings for about a week.
Hopefully we will have some nice pictures to post next week.

Window Regulator and Pizza Soup

Window Regulator.

I didn't have much luck repairing the window regulator on the drivers door of the van.
I built up the warn out teeth on the rack with weld then filed them back into shape.
The regulator works in one direction (against the spring) but when the crank is turned the other direction (the spring helping) the pinyon skips over some of the teeth and gets stuck on others.
The problem seems to be with the pinyon. I have decided that I won't take the pinion cage off the regulator because it is riveted in place and is under tension from the spring. I don't think I can get it back together once I drill out the rivets to get it apart.
The regulator works better than before I started messing with it so I think I'll just put it back in the door before I destroy it; that way I will have something to roll the window up and down with.

Pizza Soup.

Yesterday I made a big batch of Pizza Soup. We had Joanne and Dave come by for soup and cards.
We played Rummy For Dummy's.
The soup was good and the cards were fun.

Recipe.

Pizza Soup

Serve's six.

6 Bavarian Sausage or Brats or Italian Sausage, Sliced.

6 Pepperoni sticks sliced.

1 Medium onion chopped

6 slices of bacon chopped

1tbls chopped garlic.

Fry all the above ingredients, drain excess fat and put ingredients in crock pot.

ADD.

2 cans tomato soup.

2 cans sliced mushrooms

1 bunch green onions (chopped).

½ cup pf Ketchup

1tbls Basil

1tbls Oregano.

2-3 cans water

Basically you just put anything you like on your Pizza in the soup. Maybe not Pineapple.

When bubbling in crock pot, cook for 40 minutes, turn down to low and cook for another hour or until you are ready to eat.

Serve in bowls topped with finely grated mozzarella cheese.

 

Okay, that's all I have for you today.

 

 

 

 



 

 

 

 

 

Finished Bracket on the Jeep and started working on the Drivers door of the Van.

The Bracket.

I got the bracket installed in the jeep that will keep the cargo area in place.

I bolted it to the rear seat mounts. Now it should stay put.

The Van Drivers Door.

The window guide at the rear of the door broke when I was camping in Nevada last year. I tried to remove it when I was camping but stripped out the screw head.

On Tuesday I removed the door and took it into my shop.

I ended up having to cut the screw head off to get the bracket off.
I kind of screwed up and cut the bottom of the door up a bit trying to cut the screw. I had to weld up the cuts and weld in a washer. It looks kind of crappy as I haven't done any gas welding in several years so I have to learn all over agine .

The Tab.

A tab that holds the top end of the bracket to the door broke off so that is what I had to weld back on.
This weld is a lot better than the one on the bottom of the door.

The Window Regulator.

Once I got the window guide repaired and installed I found that the gear on the window regulator had a few teeth stripped out.

I will have to weld them up and then file them into shape. That should be an interesting project.


Okay That's it so far. We will see if I can get this fixed in the next post.

The Last Few Days

Not Doing Much.

Okay, we got home safe and sound on Friday.
We haven't been doing much of anything exciting.
Joanne and Dave came by Saturday afternoon and we went to Mary's Pizza Shack for dinner.
The rest of the time we have been just slowly unloading the RV.
Yesterday we took the RV to storage and put it away.

I have been working on a couple small things on the jeep.
I think I have the tire carrier rattle fixed.
Now, I am making a bracket to keep the storage box's in the back of the jeep from moving around.

I am going to need to take a trip to the cabin soon but I'm not sure when.

Okay, that's it for now.

No Room at the Inn, Home Safe.

On the Road Again.

We left Bakersfield around 11:00 (later than usual) and drove to Buttonwillow where we gassed up for the run to Santa Rosa. After just paying $1.75 in Bullhead City and as low as $1.29 last month in Coolidge, it was a shock to see the price at $2.89. Oh well, at least it was easy in, easy out.

We got on I-5, set the cruise control on 60, turned the radio up and headed north.
This was Friday and the traffic was a little heaver than we normally have to deal with.
Fortunately everyone stayed in their lane most of the time and those that didn't got lucky and didn't cause a wreck.

No Room at the Inn.

Around 2:00 we came to a rest stop just about 18 miles south of Highway 152. It was time to stop for lunch so we pulled in. We ate a couple sandwiches and I took a good nap.
Our original plan was to drive from Buttonwillow to Santa Nella and stop for the day so Patti called the RV park there to see if they had a spot. Unfortunately they didn't have any spaces available.
Fortunately I just had a two hour nap so I was ready for the second half of the trip.

Home Safe.

We got back on the road.  Me made it through the worst part of the traffic which is around the Tracy / Stockton area which was 5 PM on a Friday!!
We only had a couple of close calls.
One time an 18 wheeler came within inches of clipping the front of our motor home with the back of his trailer.

Eventually we made it to Lodi where we got on Highway 12 and headed west toward Fairfield and the intersection with I-80. It was a fairly easy run along 12 except that the highway is getting pretty rough.
We connected with I-80 and drove the 4 miles to where 12 continues west. Here we got back on 12 and stayed on it to Santa Rosa. Got home at 7:30 PM.
Safe!!!!

Bullhead city to Bakersfield.

7-1/2 hours from Bullhead City to Bakersfield.

We left Bullhead City at 9:30. We drove to I-40 just west of Needles and headed across the Mojave Desert toward Bakersfield.

As we drove along we saw a very long train crossing in front of us.

We passed Edwards AFB

And the windmill blight approaching the Tehachapi Mountains.

We got to Bakersfield around 5:00.

We pulled into the River Run RV Park just intime to get registered. After getting set up, we went to The Black Angus for dinner.
Patti had the filet mignon and I had a half rack of lamb. The dinner was excellent although a little pricy.

Allergies.

Since we have gotten away from the Palo Verde's, my allergies have slowed down some. By the time we get home I should be back to normal. Or as normal as I ever am.

Last leg?

Today will be the final leg of our drive. At least it usually is but this time we may stop halfway home  at a place called Santa Nella, depending on how I feel and what time we get there.
As usual we will play it by ear.