Today Thomas and I did day two of our exercise routines. We added planking to our push-ups and walk, and we went on a much longer walk this morning. 😊
Little successes. 😊
The transmission shop that’s had my work van for several months finally called yesterday and told me that they had finished rebuilding the transmission. 🥳
My wonderful mother gave me a ride over there, stopping first to do me yet another favor. I had several hundred dollars in small bills that was far more than I would ever need to give change to people, and since I don’t have a local bank, oh wait… I do now! I totally forgot that Chase finally put a branch down in Fayetteville! 😅
Anyway, my wonderful mother stopped off on our way to pick up my work van at one of her banks, and we were able to get the money swapped out for large bills for me that are more conducive toward purchasing things. 😊
It wasn’t a complete waste for her, as she was able to get a new CD at a great rate. 🥳
From there, we went to the transmission shop, where I paid for and picked up my Ford E350. From there, I headed to the DMV in Rogers, where I submitted my new trailer for assessment as well as paid for registration for the trailer and five of my vehicles.
The lady behind the counter was super kind, superpositive, and cheerful. Was nice to have somebody like that, and I think they’re for being the way she was. 😊
After that, I headed over to harbor freight to return the torque wrench that I had purchased as an emergency purchase last week when my torque wrench stopped working.
From there, it was on to the junkyard. My crappy work van needed a pinion yoke, and I thought that just maybe I could get away with replacing just the pinion yoke and the u-joint and be able to keep driving it. My thought was that if I could find opinion yoke at the junkyard, then I would go ahead and just replace it, and if I couldn’t, then that vehicle would just turn into a parts vehicle for my long, white Twinkie.
Well, it took me probably 20 or 30 minutes of looking, and then I found an older Dodge truck that had the same pinion yoke as my van. I had forgotten that I needed the SAE tools to be able to remove the drive shaft, so I thought to try and get it off without having to go all the way back to my car, but to no avail. I ended up wheeling my wheelbarrow full of tools and parts all the way back to the front, leaving it there under their watchful eye, going out to my car and getting the additional tools I needed, and going all the way back out in the junkyard to the truck.
Hopefully, it didn’t give me any troubles getting it off once I have the right tools, so that was nice
🥳
The greater frustrations would come when I got home. As I was walking out of the junkyard, my new part fell out of the tool bag and landed on the ground. I didn’t realize it, but when it fell out, three of the needle bearings inside one of the u-joint bearing caps fell out onto the ground. I didn’t realize that until I got home.
Before getting home, though, I stopped off at the AutoZone on the way home and bought a replacement u-joint, just in case I would need it. So when I got home and found that the bearing caps were missing some needle bearings, I wasn’t too worried because I had to replacement u-joint with me.
Or so I thought.
The replacement u-joint turned out to not be the right u-joint for the van.
Ugh. 🙄
Have I ever mentioned that one of my pet peeves about American trucks is the sheer number of variations they have?
It’s so annoying. One truck, so many different possible parts. There might be three or four different transmissions, three or four different rear ends, three or four different fuel pumps, and the list just goes on and on and on. So I had the wrong u-joint, so I got back online, and ordered what I thought was the correct u-joint, but it wouldn’t work either.
I don’t know how long I spent trying to fix that stupid u-joint. It was supposed to be this easy little thing. Put it on the pinion yoke, which is just one big 32 mm nut and washer, make sure it’s lined up the way that it was when you took it off, put on two u-joint end caps, and then tighten the four bolts and two brackets the hold the u-joint on.
Easy peasy, right?
Ugh. 😒
I chose the fix because it was going to be easy peasy and not take much time.
So much for that. 😒
I spent a little time trying to get the old bushings out of my mini excavator arm, banging and banging and banging with sledgehammers, but it was to no avail. I couldn’t get the bushings to even budge. I probably need a welder to be able to get them out. I know what some people do with those is weld a piece of rebar to the bushing and then smash it out with a hammer. Maybe I can get that to work?
I might talk to my neighbor Dan to see if he’s up for helping me with that.
I was already super frustrated with my other work van, and then I just felt like I was beating my head against the wall with the mini excavator.
I took a little break and briefly helped my mom tie up some of the pepper plants that had blown over in our storm the other night. Our garden has been doing fabulously this year, which is fantastic. We’ve had multiple years where a lot of effort was expended, but very little return to show for it. Of course, it’s mostly my mom’s effort, but it’s nice to have a garden that’s doing really well this year when it was looking pretty overwhelming and daunting at one point.
🥳
We have squash coming out our squash, and zucchinis are starting to go, and the eggplants are starting to explode, and we have more cherry tomatoes and we can eat as well, I think.
🥳 yay!!!
I checked to see if the local AutoZone near me had the part that I needed, and I thought maybe they did, but I drove into Pea Ridge, and they didn’t. In fact, the app says that I need a particular part number if mine has the aluminum drive shaft, and it gives the part number, so I went to the store to see about getting it, and they can even look up the part number in their system because it doesn’t really exist.
Right.
So I went over to O’Reilly’s, and again was shut down.
I didn’t want to replace the whole u-joint, because when the drive shaft came flying off my car when I had the whole issue the other day, it dented the end of the drive shaft pretty badly because it was just aluminum. I didn’t want to take the whole u-joint out, because I was afraid that I wouldn’t be able to put another u-joint back in.
Well, it was either hope that I could find a matching u-joint online, or risk just slapping a whole new u-joint setup in the drive shaft.
I didn’t have the right u-joint, but it was at least the right size even if it wasn’t the right type, so I went ahead and removed the u-joint from the drive shaft, pieces of aluminum crumbling off as I removed it by force passed dented and damaged metal.
😬
The new one, though not exactly the right one for the van, did fit in. It’s just not designed for aluminum drive shafts. It doesn’t have the protective coating on it, which means that most likely it will eventually corrode and make itself one with the steel. By that time, though, I’ll be done with the van. It’s a junker’s junker that just happens to keep on going. 😆
I ran it with low oil pressure, I don’t know, a month ago? And it damaged the bearings, metal shavings in the oil. But I changed out the oil, and I’ve just kept driving it, figuring I’ll drive it until the engine blows. And it hasn’t put a foot wrong since, as my mother would say.
The transmission shifts hard sometimes, but it still goes where I want it to go.
The power steering pump sometimes winds like an angry child, but most of the time it’s okay, and it does leak on the ground, but I top it off periodically.
It burns oil, but I try and keep that dropped off.
The fluid that came out of the rear end was chock full of metal.
so yeah, It’s on its last leg. 😆
I had thought maybe this drive shaft issue would be its demise, but it didn’t turn out to be as big of an issue as It could have been. So here we are.
I got it put together, and tested it, and it moved on its own. 🥳
It needs a bunch of gear oil for the rear differential, as that poured out when I removed the pinion yoke. And it needs a whole bunch of transmission fluid because that all poured out when the dump truck tilted the bed down and dragged it up.
I put in three quarts of tranny fluid, not knowing how much it’s going to need, and not having a flat surface to properly test it on yet.
I don’t have any of the right kind of gear oil to put it yet, but I’m guessing it lost at least a quart, and more likely two.
Anyway, that one is kind of fixed. 😅 I guess I’m almost back to having three functional-ish vans again. 🤷
After that, I went inside, ate some dinner, and crashed. Friday’s supposed to be a busy busy day. 🤞
Health update If you’re interested…
- My joints have stabilized somewhat. They hurt periodically, but they’re sort of back to what they were pre New Zealand hiking.
- I’ve been doing really well and haven’t really had migraine issues for a while now.. periodically, I get close, but I’m doing pretty well.
- Somehow using my computer for 3 days in a row for good chunks of the day strained the connective tissue in my elbow, and now I have a very severe case of tennis elbow, as best I can tell anyway, caused by using my mouse on my laptop too much. 🙃 I can’t even lift my cell phone up with my arm in a certain position and not have pain. Pretty nutty. Makes it super hard to fix cars. 😅 … or do most of the things I normally do. 🙃
- Add to that that my left thumb ligament that connects the tip of my thumb to the first knuckle has been damaged somehow. If I put pressure on it in a certain way it gives me a sharp little hello.
- My stomach issues have pretty much stabilized because I know how to avoid the worst of it–don’t bend over forward, so I don’t acid into my throat. I try not to eat spicy things or acidic things because nothing is stopping what’s in my stomach from bubbling back up. I still sleeping sitting up because of the stomach acid just pours out. …Gosh, what I wouldn’t give to be able to lie down without stomach acid pouring into my esophagus. I just want to be able to lie down and go to sleep. 🥺 I go to the specialist on the 10th, and he’ll probably schedule me for endoscopy or whatever. 🤞
Those are the goings on!
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 