(written on the 18th)
Gratefully, I didn’t get disturbed during the night at my new Maverick camping spot. 🎉
After getting up, I drove right back up to the Bridalveil Falls overlook parking lot pretty much first thing.
Spent some time trying to figure out Rover’s solar panel situation, measuring things, planning, etc. I put the solar panels on the roof to try and see if I could map out where I wanted the panels to go.
There’s not really going to be any easy way of attaching everything, I don’t think. The interior roof headliner thing makes it hard to access where the bolts would come through.
Definitely a challenge.
I reached out to my friend Cory and asked if it would be ok if I headed over and tried to fix Rover with parts from his broken down work van.
He gave me the go ahead, so I drove from Provo Canyon back up to Mill Creek, drove my van up onto the curb a bit to make access easier, removed the running board from his van because he was wanting to put it on his current work van. Then I started the challenging project of removing the exhaust from his van.
From the outside, it looked like it was going to be just about as challenging as it was to take it off rover. The connection with the catalytic converter to the upper portion of the exhaust pipes was arrested on so badly that the bolts holding the exhaust pieces together were fairly significantly disintegrated on one, maybe two of the three bolts.
So I got my grinder and I cut off two of the bolts, just like I did last time. I tried to get my grinder in place to cut off the third bolt, but I couldn’t get it to fit inside, which was odd because I thought I had done that with Rover without any problems.
🤷
Gratefully, amazingly, the nut actually broke free without breaking the bolt on that third bolt. 🎉
The next decision I had to make was how to get the exhaust off. I thought about trying to get it apart like I had to do the other night, when I spent an hour or two cutting it all apart after it started dragging on the ground.
Without putting the vehicle up on a lift, there isn’t any way to get the front end of the vehicle off the ground high enough to tilt the significantly curved exhaust system down sufficiently to get it over the rear axle, and there’s not enough space fit the muffler between the rear axle and the floorboards of the vehicle, so the decision I ended up making was to cut off the exhaust pipe just about where the pipe went over the rear axle, so it would still blow the exhaust behind the rear axle.
So I cut it apart, dragged the rear section of the exhaust that was left over to Rover, including some mounting bracket stuff that I had removed, and then bolted it onto Rover.
It didn’t go smoothly at all, but it did go, and eventually I was able to connect two out of the three bolts and snug the exhaust together with those two. I’ll need to find a nut that fits the third one, as the nut that I took off when I took it apart is absolutely worthless, I think. I don’t think I even found it? If I did, it was mutilated.
After getting everything put together, I put the old exhaust parts for my van next to his van so that he could get metal scrap value for them if he wanted, and then I had it over to the Home Depot that’s just down the road from his place.
At home depot, I spent quite a long time trying to find bolts and nuts and washers and whatnot to be able to assemble the solar panels onto Rover’s roof.
I was shocked at the checkout line when buying only enough bolts and screws for 16 separate bolt washer washer nut combinations was over $50.
Chinese stainless steel, so hopefully that’s the cost after the tariffs have been put in place and not before. 😅
Going to be pretty gnarly if those prices don’t yet reflect the massive tariffs.
Anyway, headed over to Cory’s place after that, thinking that I was going to spend a good chunk of the evening installing the solar panels on my roof, and Corey started helping me with that, but I realized that the bolts that I had purchased were a quarter inch too long. I had purchased the longer bolts on purpose because I wasn’t 100% sure how long I needed. I thought I needed an inch and a quarter, but I wasn’t sure, so I bought an inch and a half, which there would have been plenty of room for, but I failed to check to see if I could even fit the one and a half inch bolts into the tight area on the solar panels because they would need to go through the solar panel down, but the part on the solar panel where the hole goes through is underneath the solar panel itself, so there’s only a set amount of space.
Anyway, that’s a lot of commas without a full stop. 🙃
Realizing I wasn’t going to be able to work on the solar panel installation, and totally not in the mood to go back to Home Depot to exchange bolts and try again, I gave up, put the solar panels back in their box, and spent the rest of the night chatting with Cory while helping him sift through rocks on the parking strip area just off the street in front of his mom’s house.
We’re trying to get all the dirt and tree leftovers out to make it much harder for the weeds to grow. There’s weed cloth below the rocks, but so much dirt from, I assume, years of leaves decomposing and falling between the rocks.
Anyway, so we sat and talked about life and things, about me trying to figure out where I’m going to live, about the decisions that need to be made.
Cory offered to let me camp out in the driveway in front of his mom’s house, and I gratefully accepted and bid him good evening.
Gratitude:
- I’m grateful that though the exhaust setup that I got from Cory’s van lacks even a spot for the downstream O2 sensor, at least I have the catalytic converter attached, the exhaust bolted together, and no more awful noises when I’m driving through people’s neighborhoods and whatnot.
- I’m grateful that I realized that I could use the whole exhaust system and not just the part that was bad, which saved a massive amount of time and stress, as I would have had to figure out a way to decouple The rusted catalytic converter from the rest of the exhaust, something that turned out to be a challenge greater than I was able to meet successfully the other night, as I ended up beating the snot out of the two pieces just to get them separated.
- I’m grateful for my friend Cory who has been such an amazing person and friend to me in my life.
- I’m grateful to be able to be warm in Rover. The night called for rain to start out with and then snow, and I was awake for the rain and the snow, and I was warm and dry.
- Speaking of dry, I do believe I was successful in sealing off the leak in the front above the windshield that was sometimes, if not all the time, leaking when it rained. I don’t recall seeing any water at all come in during the rain and tad bit of snow 🎉
Success:
- I can’t think of any successes today in my efforts to be a better person. 😕
Improvement:
- Lost my temper at the Home Depot trying to find the bolts and then being shocked at the crazy prices. 😕 I didn’t make a scene or anything, but I was certainly unhappy and had a decreased vocabulary under my breath. Well… hopefully no one heard me. 😅
Loves and hugs.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 