Not good
Well the wife and I have had a series of unfortunate events. Its not looking good to make the trip.
First of all, she got her hand stuck in a cement mixer = two broken fingers, and another one that's not "broken", but seriously messed up. Luckily they are all still attached and the only thing she'll lose is a fingernail. Check out the pictures on my MySpace page.
http://viewmorepics.myspace.com/ind...viewPicture&friendID=150844577&albumId=866313
Yesterday, I started out with a bad bearing in the front of the Powerstroke. Well, that unfortunatley means the whole hub assembly. So $300 later, I'm at parents house with the front wheel pieces spread out across the driveway. While trying to get one of the nuts off of the old assembly, the breaker bar slipped off and I slammed my knuckle into the truck's knuckle...the truck won. So I broke my finger and my wife and I are now both wrapped in splints. (Sucks for dishes).
Anyway, so I put it all back together with the new hub assembly and started cleaning up. I went to put the wheel back on and the lug nuts are a different size! The studs on the new assembly have a different pitch than the old ones. I couldn't put the wheel on. I tried going to a few parts stores, but nobody had the right size of lug nuts. So I went home and called a few places that are open late on Saturday nights (not a lot of those). One of them said that if I could just bring it in, he could match the nuts to the studs. Well buddy, I just spent the past few hours tearing it apart and broke my finger in the process. I'm not going to take it back off to come match the nuts, but thanks. So it is still over at my parents place on jack stands waiting for lug nuts. I have to wait for the tire stores to open tomorrow before I can get lug nuts that'll fit.
So, at about 10:30 last night I headed back to my parents to clean up the the jack that I had left out. I stopped at walmart to get some cards for Mothers' Day. Bad idea. There were about 500 other people that waited til the last minute like me. So literally an hour later with nothing but 4 cards, I left Walmart and headed for my parents house. Well I got a flat tire. I have had this Explorer for 13 years and the first flat I've had on it comes on the day that I had taken the jack handle out to use on the truck's jack and was the tool I was on my way to get.
So, I was about a mile from my parents' house. They were out of town, and my wife was without a car since I had both of them broken down.
That means I was on foot to my parents. I walked there, got what I needed and took my dad's truck back to the explorer, changed the tire, drove dad's truck back, then walked back to the explorer. I got home at 1:30am and was still dirty and greasy and had to shower before crashing into bed. Not exactly the day I had planned.
Where does that leave us? Budget with a big dent for those parts. Two busted up hands (especially wife's, mine's not bad). No spare tire because I split the sidewall and am now running the spare. Lost day of getting Explorer ready, which = no cb or tranny fan.