Betty's "I want to be a mule" progress log thread

[Dono]

Awesome!
Few little things to fix up are expected. The motor swap couldn't have gone better.
A new place to wheel. Perfect. I'm not sure what its like in your neck of the woods, but around here there are extremely few placed left that are legal to go play around in.
Sounds like it was a super fun day. Sorry about your continued back pain, lets hope it does start to heal its self and the pain settles down.

 

[Turdle]

AWESOME!!! Is this going to be a friends and family kind of place or more open to the public? I wouldn't mind taking my quads down and follow everyone around if that's okay. Also, it's 25 miles what direction from Humboldt?

The 4 wheelers are ok there

This is friends and family use at your own risk only. Pack out what you bring in. We'll have to sign waivers of course. This will also need to happen at scheduled times, as he will want to be there. I'll get some pictures of the terrain when I go out there during daylight.

25 miles SW of here, south of Buffalo lake ( wilson county lake). In fact the runoff from the lake goes through this property.

Google earth coordinates for the stone house are

37° 39' 24.43" N
95° 40' 56.61" W



The main stuff will be back to the east and south of the stone house, however his property does go a bit west also, you might be able o make out property lines.

Zoom in from there to see the terrain. The creek near the stone house is dry now, as this is a 2013 image. Most of the creeks are dry at this time.

 

[gmanpaint]

Hmm...
Barrel racing course, timed lap races thru the creeks, and 100 yard dirt drags.

Sounds like fun to me!

 

[Dan Whitaker]

So Betty's anniversary gift was a thrashing?

 

[Turdle]

So Betty's anniversary gift was a thrashing?

And a couple of slaps for what she has put me ( and others) through this year.

 

[Rick]

That sounds like a great shake down cruise. I am glad everything is going well. The property sounds very cool!

 

[traveler]

Sounds awesome Jon. You'll have to show this place to us after we get a 4WD conversion on the Eddie Bauer. (More on that later).

Sent from my H866C using Forum Runner

 

[Turdle]

I found out something today. If you leave your windows open during a monsoon it might make your horn go off. Looks like I have to pull off the steering wheel air bag and dry off the stuff inside. For now I just pulled the horn relay.

On the bright side the interior is good and clean now. Got all of the last few days dust out of there.

 

[TekMan05]

Good to hear things are going well with Betty! That wheeling area sounds very intriguing as well And my oh my are those Powder coated parts look awesome. When I get my finances back in order I may have to find a new set of Valve Covers sent to you and done again

 

[Turdle]

So, yeah. Those 5/8" u bolts don't like to come back off.

 

[Turdle]

Anywhoooo

I got the new 5/8" x 3.25" x 10" u bolts from Ruff Stuff Specialties yesterday. I had something going on but managed to get them cut down to 8" today which is the length needed for the [MENTION=1644]Brian1[/MENTION] made heavy duty U- bolt skid plates.

I threaded the nut down all the way, cut them down by 2 3/4" and rounded the thread's new ends with a grinding wheel. Then run the bolts back and forth over that. Now they will start and thread on cleanly. This time I will use anti seize when I install them. In my defense, nobody told me 'bout that before. One thing is for certain, you don't need any loc tite on them.

 

[gmanpaint]

If it makes you feel any better, I haven't cut down my U-bolts yet. Mine are 1/2" too long.

But..... I did use Anti-seize.

 

[Turdle]

Well, what an eventful day.

To sum it up, my buddy came by and threw the rear axle back into my truck for me while we were at artist alley. Problem, he put the old axle back in.

He is such s good friend, he was trying to surprise me. We got back home and he was all smiles. I felt bad breaking the bad news to him. It wasn't all that bad though, s it was just sitting on the leaf pins and not bolted in yet.


We got the newer one situated under the truck and he took off. I puttered around getting everything buttoned up, new gear lube in, all the good stuff.

It was still daylight when I put the tires on. Big ooopsies!!

One stud thread on the new axle shaft was all buggrred up beyond filing repair.

Crap, you know what this means. drain the oil so the shaft can slide out to deal with the stud.

Hold up. Come to find out is is possible to replace a stud with the axle in place.

To get the old one out, I cut it off as close to flush as I could without touching the hub with my angle grinder, then drove the remainder out with a blunt air chisel. Piece of cake actually.

There is just enough room to snake it in through all the e brake crap, I then drew it in tight with a larger nut slid over it, and used a factory lug nut with lots of anti seize on the nut and in the hole the stud slides into. Working slowly I torqued the nut down and It popped right in place. Phew!

Tires are on the ground now. I need to clean up before the test drive.

 

[gmanpaint]

That was awesome of him to do that for you.

Congrats on not having to pull the C clip for that lug stud.

Glad to hear it's back on the ground and ready for a test run.

 

[Turdle]

That was awesome of him to do that for you.

Congrats on not having to pull the C clip for that lug stud.

Glad to hear it's back on the ground and ready for a test run.

So, the big u bolts are recess cut, torqued to 80 ft lbs and anti seize used liberally. good?

 

[Rick]

Sounds like it's good to me

 

[Turdle]

I got a small package from Colorado.

Thanks [MENTION=14229]Hokie[/MENTION] for the cup holder inserts!

 

[CDW6212R]

Hey Jon, have you run across anyone with a nice condition 95/96 console piece, with the ashtray in it? I bought one from eBay, and it's not quite what I was hoping for. Most are very nasty by now, and/or the ashtray doesn't work well, but hopefully there's still a very nice one I can find yet.

 

[Turdle]

Hey Jon, have you run across anyone with a nice condition 95/96 console piece, with the ashtray in it? I bought one from eBay, and it's not quite what I was hoping for. Most are very nasty by now, and/or the ashtray doesn't work well, but hopefully there's still a very nice one I can find yet.

Don, being of sound mind and weak spine I try to avoid the pick and pull places if I can. Sorry, but i haven't been to one looking for car parts in quite a while. I will keep my eyes open for you though.

 

[CDW6212R]

I asked in the hopes that someone reads this and might have one, you get a lot of traffic here.