Sunday, April 22, 2012

Baked penguin

It got *hot* here in the Silly Cone Valley this weekend. It got up to around 95 yesterday, around 85 today. And I was baking out in the sun, because my new rock rails got here and I needed to install them. And after I installed them, I re-installed my Tuffy Security Deck. And when I wasn't happy with how they mounted, I drilled more holes in my body to give more mounting points. And when things electrical didn't work, I discovered I'd drilled into a wiring bundle. Meaning I had to pull out the carpet and the plastics in the back and pull the wiring bundle loose from where it's secreted and solder the cut wires back together. At least *that* was inside the Jeep, under the shade of the soft top. And then I put my hi-lift jack mount onto the back of the Jeep.

So I'm baked, *and* pooped. G'nite.

- Badtux the Tired Penguin

6 comments:

  1. I'm starting to take a liking to global warming.

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  2. That's what I'm talking about. A measure of ones skills should include how good they are when things don't go according to plan.

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  3. One Fly, *nothing* goes according to plan when you're installing accessories on a Jeep. Everything needs some modification or "tweak" to fit, like one mounting hole I had to bore out a little towards the inside of the Jeep 'cause my frame was thicker than the Jeep they test-fit their rails on, and the "directions" are more like suggestions, they never seem to work as written, like there was a couple of spacers in the rock rail kit that weren't mentioned at all in the directions, well, when one of the rear mounting points didn't match up, I had to figure out that I needed to put one of these spacers (not mentioned in the directions) between the frame and the rock rail to make it work. They knew this was possible otherwise they wouldn't have included the spacer, but did they bother mentioning the spacer in their directions? Nooooo! Then there was the mounting for the security deck. It was clear, looking at the thing, that it needed more holes drilled into the body to be securely mounted. But there were no additional holes mentioned in the directions. So there we go.

    That said, I was seriously pissed when I hit my button to lock my tailgate, and the thing didn't work. So then I tested out turn signals and tail lights, nope, tail light was out too, and Mr. Voltmeter said it was 'cause it was gettin' no voltage. At which point I was like, "Crap." Cuz I knew what had to have happened. Then it was pull the friggin' plastics and carpet and find the wiring bundle. Ended up with three cut wires at one hole, four cut wires at the other hole, and two holes in the rear washer line to patch with vacuum couplers. Yes, I counted the goddamn things as I was cursing and soldering them back together and heat-gunning the heat shrink tubing, heh! There was a couple others with nicked insulation but no broken wire, I just taped those. Then it was re-tape the bundle and zip-tie it back to its christmas tree pins, and put the carpet and plastics back in, sigh... and there's still one little piece of the plastic where I don't know where the damn little thing went, I'll probably have to go to the Stealership and buy the goddamn thing, 'cause my Jeep's too new to be in junkyards yet (Jeep completely re-did the interior in 2011 so nothing from earlier years will work).

    - Badtux the Wrenchin' Penguin

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  4. Now that hurt even me and that sucks. In a little bit I will attempt the removal of the generator on the back of my camper and install a modified hitch carrier that will be modified back to carry my new electric two wheel conveyance. It looks pretty straight forward but it's hard to fabricate much with metal without a welder. It appears I may get lucky but I really expect the pain in the ass stuff to start pretty much right out of the box.

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  5. Sometimes things go pretty good and they did. Sometimes!

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  6. Always use a stop on a drill bit so it doesn't go deeper than you need it to.

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