Truck Breaks: a New and Better Caliper.

Of course Scott had to go to town first thing in the morning to get the parts for the emergency breaks because the auto parts store had only had in the new caliper we needed yesterday evening and just not putting any emergency break parts on the wheels in not going to work because I live in the fucking mountains.

Of course the previous owner lived in the fucking mountains too and figured he didn't need no fancy emergency breaks. Although he installed one hell of a motherfucking sound system. I mean this sound system had speakers so big there were first sized holes cut for them into the dashboard that we could never actually fix until we just replaced the dash during the wiring harness debacle.

Cause you know, priorities.

Of course we are attached to keeping our bodies in one working unit so we drank our motivation tea grabbed the parts and headed on over to work on the breaks for what felt like the fifty millonth time. Of course the new caliper went on with no problem which only served to highlight how Wrongity Mc Wrong the other miscast caliper was and how we probably should have realized that sooner but whatever it's on now and then got out the emergency break parts.

 This thing. So fresh. So new.

Of course we have to take off one of the pads to get this damn thing on there because ha ha of course we do let's take more springs off and put them on AGAIN ha ha hah hah ha that didn't suck at all the last time and then we shove the bar in place and then we look at the illustration and then the bar again and then we are all like, wait there is a spring that goes on here. But the package didn't contain a spring. And neither did our bag of replacement springs. Because that would have made sense.

Sooo after a few moments of scratching our heads and poking things our eyes fell upon the old springs that we had taken off that were still sitting on the ground because throwing things away is for rich people. And then I was all like, why don't we use one of the old springs? They still spring right?

So then I grabbed one of the motherfucking springs and tried to shove it over the end of the emergency break bar and it totally didn't fit. Then I was all like, well it was a good idea but then Scott was all like all we have to do is bend it into an oval, then it will totally work!

 

Pictured: Totally working.

So after we squashed it with the hammer we then bent it around with the pliers until we had the shape we needed and shoved it into the truck like champions. Of course then we had to do the same thing to the other side before we could stand back and admire our new and improved drum break assembly.

Then all we had to do was put the bolts back into the caliper. Which was a motherfucking adventure because one of them was stripped now and we had to rethread the hole and by 'we' I mean 'Scott.' Of course we had a bunch of rethreading tools but the key was finding the right one that matched the fucking bolt so Scott went on a super magical treasure hunt in the shed until he found the right one and put new threads onto the old hole and then all we had to do was put the bolt back on.

This is about how that went.

Of course it went on after that. Because you know, threatening things with knifes is a key step to any auto repair job.

Integral, really.

Or at least when you do auto repair with me.

Truck Breaks and the Joy of Missing Parts.

Today it warmed up to a balmy 50 degrees. So we decided it was time to work on the truck breaks. Since you know, we had already ran all new break lines and then discovered the bleeder valves were shot and now we have to replace a whole bunch of shit that is integral to the breaks breaking. You know so the truck won't go careening over a cliff anytime soon because my state doesn't believe in guard rails.

Of course there was the obligatory gathering of tools and safety glasses and the will to do this task and then I reflected on the fact that when it warms up the snow melts and then everything gets soggy and how that was super no fun and then we got started.

The first task was to put the break pad things onto the drum breaks. Which involves putting a shit ton of springs on them. Like, a shit ton. Like all the springs. Of course this was a pain in the ass because even though half the springs were old and rusty they were deceptively strong. I found myself grabbing them with my pliers and making sounds like ERRUUUUUGGGHHHHHHGGAAAAHHHHH and HUURRRHHHHHHHGGAAAAHHHHHH and trying not to pee a little because those springs were motherfuckers.

Of course the super extra fun bit was that the break pads and the thing-that-I-don't-know-what-it-is-called wouldn't stay in place without these springs. So as I was giving myself a hernia trying to hook the springs on to various metal bits the pads and the thing would be shifting around and trying to fall off the hub like this was a super secret dance party.

For break parts.

A break dance party, if you will.

I'll stop now. Here have a picture.

So after we got that on we felt really good about ourselves and then we went and drank the tea of getting shit done and we moved over to the other side where we discovered the bag of brand new springs we should have put on the other side, including a lock for the parking break piece that we totally had not put on.

It was also about then that we realized that we were missing a part for the emergency break. Whoops, did I say missing a part? I meant we were missing all of it. The entire emergency break assembly for the drum break was just gone. On both sides. Meaning somebody at some point looked at the emergency break hardware and was like, whelp, don't need this. Of course we would only figure this out halfway through the other side because the instructions were just so clear.

So, so clear.

So once we bled and swore and wept all over side two we went back to side one to repeat the process all over again, this time with new springs and the bit that keeps the parking break piece from falling out of the hub and destroying something important like my sanity.

Since we could do no more to the drum breaks because the previous owner thought emergency breaks were optional pieces we decided to return to our old friend the drivers side caliper. Which was in retrospect a bad idea. Our previous attempts to attach the caliper had failed magnificently due to the metal plate the caliper went on being bent. So we attempted to unbend it. With anger.

Needless to say it didn't really work. What followed next was a montage of swearing and prying things and beating on the caliper with hammers. None of it worked. Finally one of us had the bright idea to compare it to the caliper that we had already installed and make sure it was the same part.

It totally wasn't the same part.

Which is incidentally where we gave up for the day.

So Scott went to town to buy auto parts and then by the time he got back it was dark because winter is an asshole like that so tomorrow we will continue on our noble quest to put that motherfucking caliper on the damn hub which I would like to accomplish sometime in my lifetime.

You know, just to set a loose goal there.

Kill me.

The Gravel Truck Got Stuck in Our Driveway AGAIN.

Sooooo guess how getting that second load of gravel turned out? Ha ha right. I know that many of you will not recall the FIRST time this happened, but lets just say it sucked ass and the driver had to call two separate people and get two separate pieces of equipment to pull him out and then he refused to take the driveway ever again.

And of course it was the same driver.

Because when you combine his shitty luck and my shitty luck terrible things happen.

Except this time we just pulled him out with the goddamned backhoe so he could totally pretend that he hadn't gotten stuck this time if he wanted to. Of course this was still happening back when the front bucket hoses were still shot so we had to move the gravel by hand for a bit like a peasant because, and I don't know if I have made this clear enough, we have to be able to get the septic guy down the road THIS YEAR or we are all fucked.

And I mean like, super duper fucked. Not just regular fucked.

Which was then that Scott revealed that he kinda thought this might happen because we hadn't packed the gravel down and I was all like you have to pack gravel down? And he was all like yes. And I was all like WHY DOES NO ONE TELL ME THESE THINGS!? And Scott was all like, large gravel was your idea and this is how you told me to fix this AND YOU DON'T EVEN KNOW WE HAVE TO PACK IT DOWN!? And then I was all like, WE AREN'T COMBINING OUR POWERS WELL HERE!

And then I yelled WITH OUR POWERS COMBINED and thrust my hand into the sky just like motherfucking Capitan Planet and then Scott just looked at me like I was crazy and then I was all like, WITH THE POWER OF HEART and he just looked at me and I was like you never really had a childhood did you? And he was all like, lets just start shoveling gravel okay?

And then I vowed that one night after he went to bed I was going to sneak a Capitan Planet poster into his office.

Of course this would all be happening right after I did a monster job at work and my back was all like, really, you're kidding me with this? And I was all like, no. And then it shot shooting pains down one leg or the other until I was ready to kill it with fire because I am still pretending that I didn't injure any of the disks this spring even though it's getting really hard to lie to myself like that which is why I have been playing a lot of point and click adventure games in the evening.

Anyway.

After my back was all like, ha ha no I wasn't kidding and I had to sit down after every wheelbarrow load because exhaustion is a thing that can happen and it's a goddamned bitch we got the backhoe running and then we proceeded to kick some ass.

Moving gravel with the backhoe was like going at light speed after trying to get to the nearest star by paddling your arms. So we moved a crap ton of gravel around with the bucket, although it was kind of annoying because it kept shoving some of the gravel off the road so we had to rake it back on. Which was a motherfucking adventure. Remember how I told you that shoveling large gravel was a pain in the ass because trying to push your shovel into it was like hitting a wall made of large chunks of rock? Well the same thing happens when you rake it. So I would get the rake and try to pull the gravel towards me and it would roll maybe five pieces forward and then one of the hunks would wedge itself into the tines and I would have to beat the damn thing on the ground to knock it loose. While meanwhile Scott would have raked like ten feet of driveway and would be moving on to something else because he is the rake whisperer or someshit.

Large chunk gravel hates me, is what I am saying.

But in the end we got the gravel where it fucking needed to go and scraped the edges of the road, which are supposed to be LOWER then the road surface. And then we stood back to admire it and I resisted the urge to start singing the Captain Planet theme song.

 It's a driveway again! Kinda. Mostly.

So in the end nature couldn't keep us down. Though we still need to add another ditch and put in a cement grate to funnel water off the road so that we can stop the water from using our tire tracks as a stream. But at least we got back on track, even if I had to do it by repairing the track by hand with a wheelbarrow and swearing a whole lot.

Captain Planet would be so proud.

The Backhoe Repair Guy Reappears. Fixes Backhoe. Nobody Dies.

So a few of you may remember the reason we were shoveling gravel around by hand like peasants was because a hydraulic line on King the backhoe was leaking and we realized we were going to have to fix it. Or more correctly call someone to fix it for us. So we (and by we I mean Scott) called Mr. I-don't-talk-much-and-have-all-the-right-knowledge-tools-and-equipment. Whom you might remember as the guy who put the inner tube in the tire for us after we failed like the goddamned kings of failure town.

So Mr. Quiet Bitter Backhoe Guy shows up this afternoon and he did his magic less talking more working trick and took the hose lines off. We had debated doing this ourselves, but we didn't really know how to depressurize the system and we were afraid of having hydraulic fluid spraying out of the machine and doing that double whammy where it cuts you open at the same time as forcing hydraulic fluid into your tissues like a poisoned dagger made of pressure and your own stupidity. So we paid him to do it.

Since he was least likely to die in the driveway from fucking this up.

Then he of course filled us in about a few other things that we may need to fix and then he told us how much it was going to cost to get more two foot long hydraulic hoses and then I blacked out into a world where everything was open and empty and clean and then I came to and Scott was all like, lets replace all four lines and I though “oh boy nothing like eating peanut butter sandwiches for lunch everyday for forever. Awesome.”

Also I have to point out that a backhoe has like, a shitton way more hoses then four, these were just the worst four. Because ha ha we don't need money to live ha ha no. So then he caps off the lines with these nifty screw on caps but then he didn't have enough and he just plugged the lines with clean rags that looked like the clothes his kids had out grown cut into squares. Then he got back into his truck and told us he would be back to install the hoses later today when he got them made and left us standing in the driveway looking at King the backhoe with is new bright fabric plugs in every color that made him look like the most festive non-working backhoe ever.

I should also point out that we were both splattered with black paint because we had been painting the solar kiln black and I was dressed in pants two sizes too big for me and a neon green tank top I got at the good will. Since you know, dressing up to paint things with enamel paint is stupid and of course Mr. Backhoe was dressed in a reasonably tight fitting T-shirt and some nice jeans because of course when attractive men in my age group come to my house I always look like a colorblind hobo.

Every. Damn. Time.

Anywho. Moving on, Mr. Backhoe Guy showed back up after a while and put the hoses back on and tried to walk Scott how to fix the leak in the boom arm while Scott got more progressively alarmed as the instructions got more and more technical and then I watched his eyes glaze when Mr. Backhoe got to the part about pulling the chrome rod out of the arm and replacing the seals in the cylinder and then Scott was all like, I'll have you do that. In the future. Yes. Not me. You. And Mr. Backhoe didn't say anything because he doesn't really talk except to transmit important information. You know, like you do. Well he got the hoses back on and they did black magic things and tested the air and got the air out of the lines somehow. Possibly with voodoo.

Backhoe voodoo. 

So then it came time to pay him and then, in a fit of inspiration Scott asks if he wants my dad's old welder that we don't have the power to run. And then they go look at it and then he says he could use it and then they load it up into his truck and then he knocks 75$ off the bill and then Scott pays him with his credit card using that app for smart phones because WE ARE TRULY LIVING IN THE FUTURE. Which is not something I would ever expect to see from someone in Buttfucksnowheresville WV but whatever.

Shine on you crazy backhoe fixing diamond is what I am trying to say.

So then he drove away and then we walked back to the house and Scott's phone binged and it was his electronic receipt and then I called my robot butler to bring me some tea and then I realized that we weren't that far in the future. Really though, even if we were I would never be able to afford one because I am kinda poor. Although this is probably lucky because then the robot butler couldn't kill us in our sleep all Skynet style.

Which made me feel better about my life. You know, the lack of robot murder.

Although that robo-butler would have been pretty damn sweet.

Probably wouldn't be able to move gravel worth a shit though.

Eh, I'll stick with the backhoe.

Finishing the Bridge or Gravel Time.

So today we finished the bridge. This involved putting a backhoe bucket load of gravel on each side to make a ramp. But not the cool kind of ramp that you can use to jump a van over a row of flaming school buses. No, the kind of ramp that allows one to drive up onto the bridge because we didn't inset that bitch into the earth.

Of course it would be like, 91 degrees today, meaning that we had to finish all of this before noon or else our faces would melt off from the heat like that one dude from Raiders of the Lost Arc. So after I did some other work around here, like feeding all the pets and working on the logs and doing laundry and hanging it out on the line and getting the tools we would need we were ready to began!

First off, with a backhoe, you would think you can do that cool thing where you ram the front bucket into the gravel pile and it will fill itself up and then you can high five. Except that it doesn't really work unless the pile is, like, full. When you are getting low on gravel all that will happen is you bunch the ground cover up and get a light coating of gravel in the bucket. Which of course meant that we had to shovel all the gravel into the bucket by hand.

Did I mention it was like, shit balls humid?

It was shit balls humid.

Anyway we get the first load in the bucket and then we head on down to the back acres to dump it. On this side of the bridge. Also known as the easy part. So we dump it and rake it out and give the frogs minor cardiac events because they think the backhoe is the god of destruction now. Or possibly they think the backhoe is the bringer of the deeper pool. It's hard to tell with frogs, really.

So after raking it smooth we head on back up to do load number two. Load number two effectively killed my enthusiasm. Mainly because the day heats up as it goes along. Now of course we faced the tricky part. The tricky part was that, in order to dump the gravel on the far side, Scott has to drive the backhoe partway onto the bridge. What's so bad about that? You might ask. You designed the bridge to driven over. That is why you built the damn thing in the first place, right?

The answer is that yes, we built this to drive over, but that doesn't mean it's going to work.

So we loaded up and then Scott and my worked out a signal for the bridge is going to collapse and the backhoe- also known as the most expensive thing I have ever bought- will end up in the ditch. I settled on the double back up motion, but Scott was all in favor of my screaming as loud as I could.

Once got down to the back I positioned myself on the far side of the creek and watched. Scott carefully eased the front tires onto the bridge. A few of the top boards creaked and groaned, but then they stopped and everything was still. It held.

And somewhere in my mind I heard that opening song from 2001 a Space Odyssey start up.

As the bridge held and Scott dumped our load of gravel on the far side the crescendo hit and I felt pretty damn good about our bridge making skills. Then we took the backhoe up to the house, grabbed some wood sealer/preserver and treated the top boards like the motherfucking champions that we were.

So all in all, I'd say this went pretty well.

I know. I'm surprised too.

Tamping and the Electric Pole.

(Okay I kinda wrote this post before the backhoe tire was fixed, but then I forgot about it, and then I was all like, shit, I never posted that!? So here you go. A story from when we didn't have 20in of snow.) 

So today, we reached the dizzying high crest of 42 degrees. Shocking I know. So we decided it was finally time to finish tamping the dirt down around the electric pole we put in so that we could get electric service to the house.

Because you kinda need electricity.

Unless you are one of them back to the land hippie backwoods type folks that shun our modern convinces like plumbing and electricity because jobs are for squares man. Except I can't live like that because I want to enjoy Internet and pooping from within the comfort and safety of my own house. That's just what houses are for right? I mean, that's what separates the noble house from the proud yet scary looking cabin.

Anyway.

So we get our giant metal pry bars with the blunt ends that we use for tamping and go at. Since you know, the backhoe has a flat tire, and also the ground is so wet that we couldn't even ride I bicycle over there without sinking like a doomed ship. So we grabbed our pry bars a shovel, and our foolish optimism and started in.

Everything seemed great at first, but it quickly dawned on us that we just spearing glory holes* in the earth, which is the consistency of burnt pudding. So then I come up with the super brilliant idea of using a board to even out the force. So I found a board and threw it into the mud and wailed on it.

Which promptly broke the board in half.

So then Scott comes up the idea to use a better board. Which worked great. All we did was pivot the board around the pole in the circle while we lifted our huge heavy ass pry bars and brought them down over and over again onto the board.

Which we only had to do, oh twice all the way around and then again by going across so that the area didn't look like a giant pie tin after all the pie pieces had been taken out.

But we did it!

Except now my arms feel like noodles and I am really aware that I am resting my wrists on the keyboard and that makes me keep missing certain letters because my arms have given up on life man.

So I think I am going to take some pain killers and go to bed drink alcohol and surf the Internet like a mindless worker bee until it's late enough to go to bed and not feel like a boring person.

So, good night dear readers, even though I shall not post till morning, never doubt that I love you. (In a totally platonic way of course.**)

*Yes I know what this means. Yes I went there. If you do not know what this means, for the love of all that is holy, DO NOT Google it. No. Don't. Trust me.

** Please don't stalk and murder me.