Finally...my Truck Passed Inspection!!!!

I have been devoutly avoiding and or procrastinating on getting my truck power steering pump changed out ...though I have had the pump and pully for about three months now....and the truck has been sitting around unrepaired for over a year.

Talk about the P Word......I can be a very very devout Procrastinator....very devout.

Good thing for me is that I have my scooters....and can ride them year round..

However...I finally decided I needed to get out of my Lazy Boy recliner...and get her done!!!

I went to get her inspected and needed to get one new tire which was done today to complete the inspection.


Having passed the inspection I brought her home and installed the long and also short range ham radio antennas...four of them and low and behold.....I needed to catch up on how to work that Yaesu FT 100 d radio...it had been that long since I have operated it.

I will figure it out by and by.


This is now my primary bug out vehicle because of the extensive communications set up and I should never have procrastinated on it for that long.

My car only has short range radios in it.




On the other hand...I learned something new on U Tube today. I did not know that authentic "Texas Red Chili" was made with no beans. That is a new one to me. Reckon I need to get out more!!!

My Lady Friend likes to watch a lot of those cooking videos on U Tube...and some of them can get you to salivating....drooling!!!

I also learned on those Cooking Channels on U Tube...how much one can spend on good cookware. That too was a new one for me to learn.


My non Ishmaelite .02,
Watcherchris

 

Have other repairs to do on both my car and truck...but nothing which will cause it to not pass inspection.

I want to have both vehicles ready to go...and need to get a case of water to put in my truck..

I want to always have a case of water.....pre staged in both vehicles.....just thinking ahead.....


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

What is a good vehicle for preppers is an older vehicle that doesn't have any electronics. For instance, it still has the old wiper/points-type distributor. Keep spare hoses and wiring cables for these old performers; seal rubber spare parts in air-tight containers.

The military did some testing and were surprised that many electronic-wired vehicles survived an EMP. One wouldn't think so, me I don't. Yet, some vehicles' body types functioned as Faraday cage. Go figure.
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I don't like my fuel tanks to get lower than half empty ....when I fill them back up. It is my way ...even on my scooters.


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

Picked up two cases of bottled water today . One case went into the back of my truck bed and the other into this house.

I have also a case of bottled water under a blanket in the back of my car.

Just made sense to me to so do...as a prep.


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

In the rear-wheel drive trucks I've owned, during winter, I would put cinder blocks to have weight over the rear wheels. I'd make a wooden cradle that extended side to side, wheel well to wheel well into which the cinder blocks would fit. When the weather began heading down towards freezing, I put studded snow tires on it (steel studs to bite into the ice).

The wife had bought herself a Ford Pinto back in the early 70s. In winter, I'd put studded rear tires on that and also put cinder cap-blocks.

We'd go in the snow and it would still be nice on the ice.
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Most folk would think me some sort of crazy-man if they saw all the tools and prep crap I keep in the back of our SUV. Got chains, heavy rope, saw, wench, axes, lord knows how many tools, a tire pump that runs off the engine. In forests, BIG things can get in your way, so you gotta get them out of your way. Don't ever get trapped at altitude. Keep space blankets and wool blankets, soft drinks, fire-starters, all that ... .

There is a very scary amount of dead limbs and trees in the mountains around here -- this due to the bad ice storms we've been getting. We are going to get some forest fires from hell one day. There's too much wood in there for people's wood fire needs and the Forestry Service hasn't the manpower to get all that out'a there. I see all these rich people who have built mansions in the forests. Come forest-fire time, they are going to be roast potatoes.

My mom's kin had to live in the mountains -- they couldn't afford the valley land that has the best soil. You have to clear a flattish garden here, then another one way over there ... Mountain dirt can be loamy but you have to place your gardens in areas that are not horribly steep, else they will erode away. You'll silt the creeks.



For garden equip and bug-out purposes, I keep something approaching 10 gal of fuel in the back yard workshop. We also keep 15 gallon clean water tanks. Fifteen gallons weighs 120 lb.

It is not my goal to bug-out, but then who knows what can go wrong.

If you put together families of blood kin to bug out, you can form a convoy with one beater truck being the mule truck that carries spare fuel. When the storage fuel runs out, then you abandon the beater truck and keep on going with what fuel you can carry in the trunks of the other cars. With spare gas cans, my little car will go around 1, 000 miles.

There's safety in a convoy. With everybody pooling their guns and ammunition, you have a fighting platoon.

Too, you can push abandoned vehicles off the road. The bug-out routes I've planned-for all go through rural areas. If you get into trouble they'll help you out ... so long as you have their Southern accent, a lot of humility, and goods to barter. Ammo and silver come first to mind; at gun shows, there's always silver for sale, but at rip-off prices. Silver weighs a whole lot less than wooden crates of ammo and people know which coins are valuable and which are junk; I keep junk. I'll leave collector coins to others. There's lots of coin collectors around here and people have metal detectors to find coins and bullets from our Civil War battlefields. Where I live, tens of thousands of men were killed. It's a very, very short drive to where the killing fields were.

If I pay attention to keeping my speed low, I can get over 40 miles/gallon in our rice-rocket. Made some trips over the holidays -- all told, I put around 1,400 miles (2250 klicks) on that little car. I wasn't saving gas and was going too fast too often. It's easy to do 90 mph (145 kph) in it ("sports package"), I averaged 75 to 80mph (over 120kph). That little car purrs.
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Planning mostly to stay put as I have most of my gear and supplies here.

But........

One never knows ...and best to have a back up plan and this truck is a part of that...Particularly due to it having the advanced communications set up.

I need to work on the water storage aspect of things. Been looking at those 15 gallon containers....plan to keep several in my garage...ready when needed.

LOL LOL LOL....Ford Pinto.....Wow!! I had one and verily liked it. 2000 cc engine and a four speed.

I knew exactly how fast I was going in my Pinto by how much noise it made. When I got a Honda Accord....I instinctively waited till it made noise....and found I was going 90 miles per hours...and still waiting for the Pinto noise level.

A lot of memories in that olde Pinto.

Thanks for reminding me...down memory lane.!!!


Watcherchris
Not an Ishmaelite.

 

The Pinto was also called the "rolling Molotov cocktail" due to its gas tank being right behind the rear bumper. In rear-end collisions, the tank would rupture resulting in a major fire hazard. In one such wreck, 4 teenage girls burned to death. Reports of them screaming to death was the final straw. This was way past anything Ralf Nader could have ever accomplish. The Ford recall repair was to put a baffle inside the tank to reduce the risk of rupture.

My wife was driving to he dad's house and got hit from behind (no explosion). When I got the call (no cellphones back then) about the wreck, I almost sh*t a squealing worm.

"Engine sound" -- YES!

Sound but low power. Wouldn't pull a greased string out of a cat's @$$. But that was fine for winter weather. Powerful engines just spin tires in ice and snow. In icy conditions, you gotta stay in the lower gears. My current rice-rocket has an automatic xmission, but has a manual override. I love that.

One job I had while at university was delivering truck parts in a van with a manual transmission. I'd be carrying way too much weight in it, but could put it in lower gears to get the job done. This was in a mountainous region spanning E.Tennessee, S.W. Virginia, and Western N.Carolina = deep in the mountains of Appalachia = manual transmission is just the ticket. When heading back down a mountain on the steep roads, you MUST down-gear else you'll be smelling your brake shoes going oven hot. Asbestos has its limits. On large highways in the mountains, they have truck run-offs. These are gravel-pits for a trucker who has burned his breaks to run off into, "runaway truck ramps". These ramps are located in both the Rocky mtns and the Appalachian mtns.

Here's a graphic for those who do not live in the mountains:









Four people killed






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