RowdyRebel

...so I'm driving down the road when my "check engine" light comes on, so I pull over and pop the hood. "Oh crap! NO ENGINE!"

Jegs had it...just a hair over $2K. Summit was a few bucks cheaper, but not after they added a core charge.

Long block 350 (VIN R) for 1995-2000 Chevy/GMC 3/4 to 1 ton trucks. VORTEC heads (and bought the intake that my 1990 throttle body will bolt up to)...going to do the swap tomorrow. Prep-work tonight. Should bump the power up by about 50% from where it was with that VIN K engine. Block was the same from '86-early 2000's, so it shouldn't give us TOO much trouble...

...is voiding the warranty!

Holy CRAP it's good to be home! I swear someone put a hex on that load. The truck that was supposed to run it burned up on its way to pick it up...so they called me. An hour away from delivering, my short shaft comes apart, taking the leveling valve and 2 air bags with it. Knicked some wires, too, but I can fix them this weekend. Anyway, Mack dealer couldn't get me in 'til the end of the week if I went there with it, and recommended a tow company that might know a shop that could get me in. Called them, and they suggested a road service company that would be cheaper than having it towed. So I called them & left a message. Took 30 minutes to get back to me and another hour to show up. 6 hours on the side of the road getting things figured out (including a parts run to Mack for a leveling valve and an air bag). Of course he's already back when he notices the OTHER air bag is also torn. So I call Mack to have them leave that one outside for him to pick up after we limp it to his shop. They don't...so he calls me all pissed off because he made a 10 mile trip out there for nothing. Overnight, a storm rolled through, so at 8 when I showed up (shop was about 2 miles from my brother's house...opened up @ 7), they were all just standing around not doing anything. So, I had my brother run me to Mack to get that other airbag. Get back @ 9 and nobody is in sight...so I get my tools out and start wrenchin. 10:30 rolls around, and they FINALLY make their way out to the shop. By this point, I've already got the bracket holding the air valve for the brakes straightened out, both airbags removed, and the leveler bracket pulled out. The right side bag was just about in...just snugging up the bolts. They give me the whole "Either you can keep working on it, or you can let my guy do the work...but I can't have you working along side him". I don't care WHO does the work, as long as it gets done QUICKLY. I figure if they are ready to get to work on it, they can have at it...but 30 minutes later, they still haven't made their way back to start in on it...so I picked up my wrenches and kept working. Just about had it together...all I needed was a 1/4" street elbow to connect the line to the dump switch, and they said "We don't have one. You can pay us to go get one for you, or you can go get it" before disappearing again. So, I pulled out my phone and there was a pipe supply company about 3/4 miles away...mile and a half following the road, but on foot you can cut a few corners. So, I hoofed it over there and when they heard my story, they GAVE me the fitting. I bought a couple Mountain Dews from their vending machine and headed back. Put it together, and just had to FIND them in order to pay my tab. The parts from Mack, I had put on my charge card over the phone...so all I was willing to pay for was the 6 or 7 hours they spent WORKING on the truck on the side of the road...not for anything they did (more like DIDN'T) do at their shop. $668. Fine. Here. Now time to get the F out of there. Make it over to where the load was going...31 hours after I had PLANNED to be there. Backhaul was taken from us, so it's a bounce home. Drop the loaded trailer, hook to the empty...NO BRAKE LIGHTS! Not even getting power to that wire at the junction block under the hood by the overflow tank, so it's definitely a truck issue. Screw it...it's late, won't be much traffic anyway. I'm going home! This morning, I ran a wire from a pin on the 6-round I have to run side dumps and aux lights on trailers that is on a switch on the dash up and spliced into the brake light line by the junction block. Throw the switch, brake lights come on. I think the problem is in that fuse/relay panel under the hood on the firewall, because I've got issues with the cab marker lights, too...need a jumper wire where the relay ought to be to light those up, but then they are on whether the dash switch is on or not...gotta pull the jumper to shut 'em off. I tried opening it up once before to check for a loose wire, but I guess you need a special tool or something to do that. All I know is I need a damn vacation. What's worse, I get to wrench on this thing this weekend when I had planned on swapping out the motor in the wife's Suburban to get it back on the road with about 50% more power. Most of what this still needs isn't too tough...yolk & seal on the rear of the front drive axle, yolk on the front of the rear drive axle, and a whole new shaft. Picked the old one up off the road, so I can drop it off at Napa and they can make another one just like it (minus the dings). Anyway, until I get that new shaft, I get to listen to the damn power divider buzzer screaming at me. That and it's like driving a single screw/dead axle truck. What a useless set-up...had to use the high range to get enough momentum backing up the ramp into the warehouse to get loaded today...low range wouldn't go fast enough to get me high enough on the ramp for the front drive axle to have the traction it needed to push me up the ramp. Pathetic. If I didn't like what I do so much, I'd be awful tempted to say "F it" and figure out something else to do with my time to earn a paycheck.

Nevermind...figured it out. I/E gets supplied on one side, and exits the other. Dump is for an air supply from a dump switch. C1 & C2 were for the lines to the bags.

It took all of 1/4 mile to go from "crap...that vibration don't feel right" to (BANG) (hissssssssssssssss) "CRAP". Yolk on the short shaft let loose, sending the shaft a-twirling around. Put a good size ding in a shock (amazingly enough avoided the brake can), ripped holes in the front 2 air bags (setting the truck down hard enough to bend the upper brackets that hold the bags to the frame rails...luckily, new bags come with 'em), obliterating the leveling valve and mangling its bracket (which I was able to straighten). Anyway, they patched the air leaks on the side of the road so I could limp it to their shop, where I show up today and they were all standing around with their thumbs up their butts..."storm knocked the power out". Whatever. My brother (shop is MAYBE a mile from his house) gave me a ride over to Mack to get the other airbag we needed) only thought we needed 1 at first) and when I got back, nobody in sight...so I got to work. Had everything done except the driver's side air bag and leveling valve done before they came out and said "I don't care if you want to keep working, or if you want to stop and let my guys finish it, but I can't have them working along side you.". Whatever. I'm not paying for MY time spent wrenching, so if they don't want this truck on their clock, that's fine...but I have to get back on the road. "I know. Every truck in here needs to get back to work, but I'm short handed and..." I just need my truck back ASAP. Anyway, trying to figure out how the air lines are plumbed into the valve. 5 ports. 2 marked "I/E", one marked "C1", one marked "C2", and one labeled "Dump". That last one is easy enough to figure out. I'm assuming the I/E ports are the outputs to the airbags. They ran the supply line to C1 to get it back to the shop yesterday, and the valve seems to be working...so in theory, all I need to do is run the line to the front bags off that 2nd I/E port, leaving C2 plugged. Does that sound right? Not much left of the old one to go off of...

“They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.” --Ben Franklin “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone who comes near that precious jewel. Unfortunately, nothing will preserve it but downright force. When you give up that force, you are ruined.” --Patrick Henry “Those who deny freedom to others, deserve it not for themselves” --Abraham Lincoln “Those who expect to reap the blessings of freedom, must, like men, undergo the fatigues of supporting it.” --Thomas Paine “I would rather be exposed to the inconveniences attending too much liberty than to those attending too small a degree of it.” --Thomas Jefferson “The power of the Executive to cast a man into prison without formulating any charge known to the law and particularly to deny him the judgement of his peers is in the highest degree odious and is the foundation of all totalitarian government whether Nazi or Communist.” --Winston Churchill Them thar was some smart fellers. Show me a reasonable proposed gun law that would have stopped the Orlando massacre and then I'll believe "common sense" gun control legislation might actually exist. For all of the talk, I have yet to see ANY evidence of it being more than just a fairy tale. Fact of the matter is, for all of the talk about "no fly/no buy" and denying those on the watch list a firearm, the guy wasn't on any of those lists. Sure, he had been investigated on more than one occasion for one reason or another...but the FBI cleared him. Hell, he worked as an armed security guard, and had passed the company's background checks. Nothing anyone on the left has proposed would have done a damn thing other than place MORE restrictions on the freedom and liberty enjoyed by the law abiding in our society. Someone with criminal intent will find a way to get what they want. Illegal drugs are still bought and sold quite frequently to anyone who wants to buy them. Do you really thing it'll be any different with guns? Look at the cities and states with the most strict gun laws. They also have some of the highest violent crime rates. Why? Because the criminals will always get what they want because they don't care that what they want is illegal. They are already planning to rob (illegal), rape (illegal), murder (illegal), steal (illegal), threaten (illegal), extort (illegal), and do whatever else they so desire. Do you really think prohibiting them from legally buying a gun is going to change anything? They'll just go out and buy one ILLEGALLY out of the back of a van in a dark alley....or they'll steal one. The laws ALREADY ON THE BOOKS don't affect criminals because criminals don't obey the laws...so what makes you think MORE laws will have any effect? "Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." --Albert Einstein Instead of passing more useless laws, infringing upon the liberties of the law abiding, we should make it easier for the law abiding to have the means necessary to take action to protect themselves and those around them when faced with an evil person with criminal intent. Get rid of the "gun-free zone". Allow law-abiding citizens to buy whatever they want, carry it wherever they want, and use it whenever they need it in order to preserve the rights to life, liberty, and property of those around them. "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." -- Edmund Burke

Here's an article I just found that explains my point a little better: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2016/06/20/dirty-secret-about-four-senate-gun-control-bills.html

Sure, we could be like the old Soviet Union, stripping folks of their rights any time they say something anti-government. Heck, North Korea simply executes folks for less. Who needs due process? He was investigated and insufficient evidence was found to file charges...so let's just shoot him! After all, he MUST be bad news, because the FBI investigated him...twice! We have rights, which quite simply cannot be stripped away without due process. If a person had the ability to know WHY he was placed on the list, allowed to confront witnesses against him, and present his case as to why he should NOT be on the list...and then a judge or jury of his peers decided he needed to be included on the list...then his right to due process would have been fulfilled. Without that due process, inclusion on the list is arbitrary and should not void ANY rights a person may otherwise have. Perhaps some day you are deemed to be an environmental terrorist hell bent on destroying the environment because you like to drive an old diesel truck that pre-dates emmissions regulations. That is brought to the attention of some left-wing do-gooder working in the government and as such, your name is put on the watch list. Nobody tells you until you're trying to purchase a new rifle in preparation for deer season. You're denied, and nobody will tell you WHY you are prohibited from buying that rifle. You spend thousands of dollars in legal bills just to find out you're on the terrorist watch list, which seems ludicrous to you being the patriotic American that you are. You cannot find out why you are on the list, because it is "classified". As such, you have no way to prove the allegations to be false in order to have yourself removed from said list. Without due process, we must fight to keep ALL rights intact. It isn't that much different than the left being open to free speech...so long as you agree with them. Disagree, and you ought to be shouted down and prohibited from speaking. No. You have the right to speak, and if you're an ignorant tool with the KKK spouting off your racist views at a rally in the park, you ought to be allowed to speak and be recognized as the racist idiot that you are. Just because I disagree doesn't mean you shouldn't get to speak your mind, because if I don't allow you to speak, what ground do I have to stand on when I have something to say and somebody else disagrees? We are either a free people with a government bound by the constraints written in plain English in the Constitution, or we are subject to the whims of whoever happens to control the government at any given time. I choose to be free, and to do that, I recognize the rights of others to be just as free. Sure, it sucks that 49 people were killed. But, I blame TOO MUCH government rather than an insufficient control by the government. If 1 in 10 Floridians have a CWP, and there were 300 people in the club that night, that means 30 people SHOULD have had the ability to fight back. If the club hadn't been designated a "gun-free zone" based upon the percentage of revenue derived from the sale of alcohol, rather than a 3 hour ordeal with 49 dead and many more wounded, there might have been 2 or 3 dead including the gunman...and it would have been over in a matter of seconds. Screw this gun free crap. When victims can and will shoot back, these sorts of incidents just don't happen.

Thing is, though, he was investigated by the FBI and deemed unworthy of having any charges brought against him. Why should he lose his rights when he hasn't committed any crimes and the FBI cannot find any reason to charge him with anything? So he runs his mouth and says some pretty ignorant things. Guess what, that (especially political speech) is protected under the 1st Amendment. As repugnant as it is that he celebrated the attacks against this country, IT WAS HIS RIGHT to do so. We cannot restrict some rights just because he exercised other rights. As long as he is not making threats, he has committed no crime. The 5th Amendment guarantees that "No person shall...be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law". The states are likewise prohibited from doing as much by the 14th Amendment. You cannot be stripped of your rights without due process, and there is no due process where these "lists" are concerned. To allow the government to start infringing upon some rights without due process opens the door to the government infringing upon ANY right without due process. Where would you draw the line? Guns? Speech? The press? Peaceable assembly? Unnecessary search & seizure? Perhaps quartering of soldiers in your home? Where is that line to be drawn? As far as I'm concerned, our Founders were clear. To yield any one right starts down a slippery slope...and I am unwilling to venture down that path.

http://latino.foxnews.com/latino/news/2016/06/16/pastor-who-praised-killings-in-orlando-doubles-down-on-controversial-remarks Damn...if I'd been sitting in that pew, I would've walked out. It isn't a very "Christian" view to have, considering Jesus spent his time with sinners. Whatever happened to "judge not lest ye be judged..." (Matthew 7:1) and "let he who is without sin cast the first stone" (John 8:7)? We are taught that there are no commandments greater than to "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength" and "Love your neighbor as yourself" (Mark 12:30-31). Rather than executing those who WE deem "sinners", we ought to show God's love for them and encourage them to repent and be saved. It is NOT our place to judge...that job is reserved for the Almighty. This Baptist preacher needs to rethink what it is he is saying, because it does NOT follow Christ's teachings and more closely resembles what one might hear in a mosque.

Just because you're on a government "list" doesn't mean your 2nd Amendment Rights ought to be infringed upon. The thing about those "lists" is that you may not know how or why you got put on it. Could be that your name is just too similar to somebody else's who may or may not pose a real threat. Could be you cut somebody off in traffic and they made an "anonymous" report of suspicious activity sparking your inclusion on said "lists" while being investigated. Once ON the "list", you may not have the ability to find out how or why you are on the "list" because it's "classified", making it damn near impossible to remove yourself from said "list". If you have committed a crime, been arrested and charged with that crime, tried and found guilty of that crime in a court of law, THEN you have proven yourself incapable of being entrusted with the rights and privileges enjoyed by the LAW ABIDING. Until such time, you are supposed to be considered "innocent until PROVEN guilty". They don't have to PROVE you are guilty of ANYTHING to put your name on one of their "lists"...and that is the problem I have with using those "lists" to deny people their God given and Constitutionally protected rights. As far as this shooting is concerned, it is yet another shoot-em-up that happened in a "gun-free zone". If it weren't for the prohibition on carrying in establishments that derive a majority of their revenue from the sale of liquor, perhaps some there would have been in a position to STOP the attacker, instead of cowaring in fear awaiting their turn to die. Yes, I agree it may not be wise to have drunks carrying guns...but they encourage people to "designate a driver", who will stay sober and make sure everyone gets home safely. I see no reason why such a person should be prohibited from packing heat as they are NOT drinking. Gun free zones don't work. It doesn't matter if that gun free zone is a property (school, movie theater, night club), a city (Chicago, DC), or a country (France). Criminals and terrorists alike recognize these gun-free zones for what they are: SOFT TARGETS! They know, when they go in and open fire, nobody will have the means to stop them for however long it takes for the police to arrive, set up a perimeter, and figure out how to get inside. Most of these attacks end at this point, when the killer takes the coward's way out ending things on his own terms. Want to prevent these mass killings? Eliminate the "gun-free zone". Allow the law-abiding easy access to the tools they need to protect themselves, and eliminate any restrictions on where they may or may not carry those tools. The Constitution ought to be the only "permit" we need. What part of "SHALL NOT BE INFRINGED" don't they understand?

Let's see a Chevy do this:

Wreckers cost money, and if it takes too long you wind up PAYING to haul the load. Screw that. I'm in it for the money, so I ain't looking to move any freight that costs me more than it pays to move it.

Sure ain't friendly to straps! Trying to get chunks of mudflap under all of the pointy little ends took longer than anything...and then, of course, when it shifted I lost a bunch of the mudflap chunks and poked holes in places that hadn't been anywhere NEAR the straps before...

See, now that's the difference between having a truck driver vs. a Certifiable Redneck Engineer at the scene...

BOL says 32K...not sure how accurate that is, because as long as there ain't no scales 'tween here 'n there, I generally don't fret over what stuff weighs.

Ya know, if it weren't for the occasional challenge, this job would be downright boring. It is why I don't pull a dry box or run the interstates (if I can avoid it).

Anyway, got the load there without damage, and nobody got hurt killed or injured in the process. In my book, that's a successful run.

They weren't long enough to reach the other side, which when the winches are located on that other side, exacerbates the situation.

I think part of the problem was the way it was loaded...notice all of the boards between the stacks?

Got it up to where I was going with it...unloading was a little sketchy, though.

Made it home...some daylight pics:

Pulled over on the shoulder for a little emergency Redneck Engineering...