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.