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RowdyRebel

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Everything posted by RowdyRebel

  1. I enjoy getting up to speed good & quick, and I REALLY don't like having to slow down for every little curve in the road....
  2. Screw that...plastic grilles are weak. Swap it out for a metal one like mine....ain't got no letters on mine, but it does a fine job killing birds without exploding upon impact. ...and as for the "Certified Clean Idle" sticker and the enviro-freaks....I couldn't care less if I made one mad. Hell, I ENJOY pissing them off. If I bought a new truck, I'd have to get one of these to put over that stupid sticker rather than removing it.... Or perhaps one of these stickers just above it to the left.....
  3. I've always been a Ford guy....got 3 Ford pickups, an old Ford tractor, and even the first semi truck I went to look at was a '97 LTL9000...... ....however, I'm not thrilled with their idea that we should all be forced to drive automatics. In 2004, manual transmissions were no longer an option in the F150, and in 2011, the F250 & larger lost that option as well. You can no longer buy a brand new Ford full size truck with a manual transmission. I've been to all of the local dealers, as well as sent an e-mail to corporate, letting them know that I've been a die-hard Ford guy for as long as I have been driving....that I could literally count the number of NON-Ford vehicles I've driven in my life on one hand.....but it would be a cold day in HELL before I buy a truck with an automatic transmission. I would rather drive a Dodge with a manual transmission than a Ford with an automatic. ...and no, Chevy isn't an option. The few Chevy's I've had experience with...while the power train was solid, the interior was utter CRAP! Shortest length of time my dad has EVER owned a vehicle was 3 years...a 1997 Chevy Express 2500....and basically as soon as the warranty was up and he had to start paying for the interior crap that kept breaking, he traded it in for another Ford.
  4. The axle-forward Granite is the only "aero" truck I care for....if I had to buy a new truck, I'm not sure if I'd opt for another CH or the Granite. The new CH wouldn't look much different from the truck I've got now, 'cept for the doors which would have those weak-ass mirrors which explode upon impact (mine have been hit 3 times on narrow roads & ain't lost a fight yet) and the lack of a wing window (which I wouldn't be happy with). Hell, I'm still pissed my door doesn't have that little vent in the bottom (especially since I don't have AC)...so I'm not about to "upgrade" to a truck with a door I'm even less enthused with. ...so I guess my '01 will have to last me a while.
  5. I'd rather have a quiet bike with some real git-up-n-go and handles well as opposed to a bike that sounds bad-ass but is all bark & no bite.
  6. I like watching Hee Haw on RFDTV....
  7. Took me 7 to put the ring on her finger....and it's been 3 years and counting since then and we still haven't made it to the alter. I keep teasing her that our engagement has outlasted a lot of marriages. Maybe its just me, but if a person feels the need to draw up a prenup, they shouldn't be getting married. Marriage is SUPPOSED to be a life-long commitment, and if you have ANY doubts at all, you shouldn't pledge to stick with that other person "until death do us part".
  8. A coworker was placed OOS by a cop who pulled him over for a random. During the walk-around, cop heard hissing from a nail the guy had just run over a few miles back (tire pressure wasn't any different from any of the other tires yet). He had to have a guy from a local tire shop come out and patch the tire before he could go anywhere. ...so I bought a patch kit that had some radial patches and rubber cement. I also bought a rounded grinding wheel to scuff up the inside of the tire to prep it for the patch. I already had an air-powered drill to put the grinding wheel into, and carried a pair of 30" tire spoons, a 20 ton bottle jack, a 40" breaker bar with a 36" cheater pipe, and all of the necessary sockets and valve stem tools in my side box to remove any tire that needs to be fixed. I figure if that ever happens to me, I can REALLY piss off the cop when I start digging out my tools to patch the tire myself right there on the side of the road. If he insists that I call a "professional tire guy" to come out and fix the tire, I'll tell him straight up that I'm not about to get raped on price by his buddy at the tire shop up the road just so that HE (the officer) can get his kickback from the tire shop for sending them business. I've got the tools and know how to use 'em, and I'm going to fix the damn tire myself. Luckily, it hasn't come down to that because the day anyone tells me that I cannot work on my own damn truck...that I HAVE to pay someone else WAY too much to do work that I'm more than capable of doing myself....is the day I probably will end up in jail after sending someone to the ER choking on their own teeth.
  9. The only time I've actually put the chains on my tires was for extra traction to get out of the mud hole in my back yard. I know you know what mud is.
  10. While I'm at a point in my life where I'm rather against borrowing money, a lot of people seem to think this excessive government spending & debt will send interest rates through the roof while inflation and the world getting away from using the dollar as the reserve currency knocks the bottom out of the value of a dollar.....in which case, you'd be sitting pretty with a fixed interest rate on that loan. If you've got work for the truck, go for it. If not, buy a truck you can pay cash for. No sense in buying something you can't pay for, right? I buy the filter kit from Mack....has 2 oil filters, 2 fuel filters, the centrimax filter, and the coolant additive packets (or spin-on, if your truck uses the spin-on coolant additives). I do my own oil changes, because I want the Mack filters on my truck and have yet to find a place willing to knock the cost of the filters off their price. When I first bought the truck, T/A wanted the same outrageous price whether they use their filters or the ones you supply, so I told 'em to go back to sleep, I'd do the oil change myself (it was 3AM and their shop was D-E-A-D!) Shouldda seen the look on counter-boy's face when he saw a truck driver choose to work on his own truck vs. run it through their shop at their ridiculous rates.....probably doesn't see that very often. Anyway, back to the OP....congrats and good luck. Been a long 4-day weekend for me (back to work tomorrow) because I've been too broke to work. Paid my truck off last month and it feels real good....hope you too can enjoy that feeling someday.
  11. Yeah, but for as often as I need 'em, it wouldn't be worth it. I'll only hang 'em on the side of the truck on the slick nasty days....maybe 5-6 days per year....and don't ever plan to actually need to put 'em on the tires, now that I've got 'em and all....that's usually how it works. However, if I ever end up moving out west (the fiance wants to end up in Montana...which is fine by me, since my brother's in Great Falls, got an aunt & uncle in Deer Lodge, a cousin in Bozeman, and friends in Big Timber & Reed Point), I might need to figure out how ta carry all 8....but for now, 2-4 chains will more than suffice.
  12. Well aware of that....I was doing my welding outside in the driveway, and it was a fairly windy day. All in all, the welds are ugly as sin but should hold. It was my first time actually playing with the stick welder I bought a while back. I could have used the wire feed and made MUCH nicer looking welds, but what fun would that have been?
  13. I had a situation a couple winters ago where having 'em would've saved me 3 hours and I wouldn't have lost out on the loads which would have had me paid going back towards the house. I was delivering up just off 255, and the sign said "Road Closed .9 Miles ahead"....the place I was going was about a mile up the road, so I figured I'd have to go around the block. So as I'm ALMOST there, I start down this hill & realize that it ain't been cleared. I slid down the hill to a stop within an arms length of crashing through the road closed sign with a huge drop off where they had ripped up the road. So I backed up as far as I could go before I broke traction and the wheels started spinning. I set the brakes, got my shovel out and started clearing the snow & ice from in front of the drives, between the drives, and about 10-15 feet behind the drives. Then I'd roll up to where I'd cleared the ice so I could chop the snow & ice away from where the drives had been sitting. Then I'd back up as far as I could go again before I broke traction and started spinning again......repeat several times for a little over 3 hours. If I had even 2 chains that I could have put on the outside drives on the rear axle (easiest ones to chain up with the 1/2 fenders over the front axle), I could have put 'em on, backed up the hill, taken 'em off again and only lost 20-30 minutes. So the following summer when a company driver who USED to be an O/O leased to the pumpkin fleet said he had chains for 11R24.5 tires collecting dust in his shed and he wanted to get rid of 'em.......4 brand new still in the bag, 4 used........said $100 would take all 8 chains, I couldn't pass it up. Been carrying the 4 used chains in a milk crate on the back of the tank on the really nasty days "just in case"...but didn't have anyplace to keep 'em when pulling a dump. Now I do.
  14. Since the old bracket cracked, the fender on the driver's side has been flopping around. It was made out of such thin metal I'd probably just blow holes through it if I tried welding on it, so, rather than spend some unthinkable amount of money I don't really have on a new replacement bracket, I bought a few simple items from the hardware store: 5/8" grade 8 bolt, 2" long some scrap flat steel of sufficient thickness a 1-1/4" pipe flange a 6" piece of 1-1/4" pipe an 8" piece of 1-1/4" pipe a 12" piece of 1-1/4" pipe a pair of 45 degree bend 1-1/4" pipe fittings and a 1-1/4" pipe end cap. Cut the flat steel to as long as the pipe flange is wide. Drill a hole smack dab in the middle of it big enough for the 5/8" bolt to go through. Put a nut on the backside of the steel to hold the bolt good & tight and weld the head of the bolt to the flat steel...then remove the nut. Then weld the pipe flange onto the flat steel over the head of the bolt. Thread the 6" piece into the flange...then a 45 degree fitting....then the 8" piece...then another 45 degree fitting....then the 12" long piece...and cap the end. Snug everything together real good, then slide it in place to make sure everything is twisted just right to line it all up. Pull it out and tack all the pipe joints together to keep 'em from twisting anymore. Bolt the bracket to the frame, and secure the fenders to it.
  15. Finished them snow chain brackets....u-bolts was only big enough to hold 2 chains, though, so I'll have to buy a couple more to weld on a little farther down the angle iron to hold the other 2.
  16. Nah...poison ivy really doesn't taste like much of anything, so it probably wouldn't make a very good tea. I was trying to boil some water to drop a coffee packet or two in to make some quick coffee without having to take the time to clean the coffee maker. It hadn't quite got to boiling yet when the water exploded up out of the pan, sending hot water all over the stove top, counter, and floor. Even after it popped like that, it still wasn't boiling, so I have no friggin clue WHAT happened....just that water in a pot with a little heat under it shouldn't do that. Unfortunately, most of the water that WAS in the pan was no longer in the pan, so I had to refill the pan and start over.
  17. I actually screwed up boiling water the other day. I have no business being anywhere NEAR a kitchen.
  18. Yeah, but you're still a Super Trucker. Without my Redneck Engineering award, I'm nothing.
  19. I like Craftsman....lifetime warranty w/ no questions asked in store exchange. I've heard Kobalt (Lowes) and Husky (Home Depot) are the same way with their lifetime warranties, but those have never been as convenient to buy/exchange as the Sears/Craftsman due to store location. Some tools, though, I buy the brand name the tool is generally called by. Crescent adjustable wrenches, Vice Grips locking pliers, Channel Locks.....I figure the names stuck for a reason, and I've never been disappointed with the quality or performance of those tools.
  20. How much would a set-up like that cost? This fix took less than a minute and didn't cost a dime....and thems the kinda fixes I like.
  21. Problem solved....
  22. Yeah....and I lost my "Redneck Engineering" award, too...
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