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The Project Thread


rajncajn
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And I now have a hugh pile of truck parts on my garage floor. The last of everything came in yesterday afternoon. This one will be new to me. I've done many brake pads and even a few standard rotors and calipers, but never wheel bearings or any of the suspension parts. The mountain looks daunting.

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-Front and rear rotors and pads, including wheel bearings

-Upper and lower control arms.

-Tie rod ends

-Stabilizer bars

-All new bushings

 

Should be a blast...

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15 hours ago, rajncajn said:

Well, since nobody else cares to venture a guess. It's a cooling shower for the seafood pot. When you boil crawfish/seafood, you have to get the temperature down quickly to prevent overcooking. Most people just dump a bag or two of ice into the pot, but that dilutes the seasoning greatly. With this rig you just hang it on the pot with the hose attached and stir the pot with the shower on. Temps come down faster than with the ice.

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Very cool, I was wondering what it was and had checked the other day to see if there were more guesses or an answer.

 

Good luck with the truck work, that's some significant stuff there. I've done brake pads on a few of my motorcycles, and a caliper one time with the help of a friend who had the right tools and experience to deal with bleeding fluid. 

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On 3/2/2022 at 5:45 PM, rajncajn said:

Well, since nobody else cares to venture a guess. It's a cooling shower for the seafood pot. When you boil crawfish/seafood, you have to get the temperature down quickly to prevent overcooking. Most people just dump a bag or two of ice into the pot, but that dilutes the seasoning greatly. With this rig you just hang it on the pot with the hose attached and stir the pot with the shower on. Temps come down faster than with the ice.

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I've been to a handful of crawfish boils and had never seen that rig.  Nice.

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5 hours ago, darin3 said:

I've been to a handful of crawfish boils and had never seen that rig.  Nice.

There's actuality someone that makes these and sells them.  I just figured why buy it when I can easily make it?

 

 

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The work has begun on my truck. Got the rear brakes done yesterday and started breaking things loose on the front.  I didn't get the impact I was going to borrow yesterday,  so I had to call it quits for the night.  Going to see if I can get that today.

Below is The rear brakes broken down then back together. I didn’t mess with the emergency brakes because they still have plenty material left on the pads. I'm not happy with how they're holding though, so once I'm done with the front I may pull those rotors again and adjust them. :

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I'll be honest,  this job really kicked my ass. It was pretty much and all day and half the night event and I still have a few things to do today.  My first hurdle,  which turned out to be a mountain,  was the hub nut. First of all,  the torque on this thing is 295 ft/lbs, which is massive.  On top of that it's probably put on with locktite, it's a lock nut and it's heavily rusted, so I let it soak with PB Blaster overnight and sprayed it again befre starting. I tried the breaker bar with a cheater bar, then a longer cheater bar, then a 6' cheater bar. I tried the impact gun and heating it with the torch, all with no luck. My neighbor and his son came over and we all worked it over again. Finally, flushing it over and over with PB Blaster and the impact got it to break free and still there was the other side to do.

 

I won't go into every detail, but the rest of the job was easier, but don't mistake that for easy in the least. I would say,  from a technical standpoint, this isn't the hardest car job I've done. But it definitely has been the most work.

‐---------------------------

(the really bad word), (the really bad word), (the really bad word)....

 

I got this all typed up this morning and was going to upload a couple of pics. But first I wanted to finish up tightening the hub nuts, putting the wheels on and taking her for a test drive. I got the first side on and hand tight, went to put the other side on and apparently one of the lug bolts is bent.

 

F'n Amazon. When I first placed the order I was just going to do the front rotors and Amazon had then cheaper than anywhere.  First,  the order was delayed. Two days later and I got one. When I opened the box it was obvious it had been dropped because the lugs were punched through the thin plywood protector and the box was a bit damaged. I did an inspection, but obviously not close enough. The other rotor never showed up and I had to do a return. Now I have to wait another week for a new rotor to come in. I don't know if you can see from the pic, but the top lug is obviously bent.  There's about an 1/8" gap between the nut and rim.

 

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In the meantime, here's the completely torn down pic. I'll post the completed pic after I get the new rotor. I also went ahead and ordered new calipers because I had some concern with the slide bolt sticking on the driver's side and the ram sticking/ram boot bulging on the passenger side.

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rajn - I admire you.

 

I can pretty much fix anything. Been in the trades either contracting or selling or managing for the last 25 years. I could build a house from the ground up. But for some reason cars frighten me. 

 

:lol:

 

Watching you do this work is really fascinating to me but so way out of my lane.  Love seeing the pics of all this stuff. 

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22 hours ago, Chief Dick said:

rajn - I admire you.

 

I can pretty much fix anything. Been in the trades either contracting or selling or managing for the last 25 years. I could build a house from the ground up. But for some reason cars frighten me. 

 

:lol:

 

Watching you do this work is really fascinating to me but so way out of my lane.  Love seeing the pics of all this stuff. 

I really appreciate that and likewise, doing any of these projects gives me a much greater appreciation for guys like you who work in the trades day in and day out. The main thing I have really going for me in that regard is an ability to tear things apart and then figure out how they go back together. I've also always had a love for figuring out how things work. I'm usually only held back by my ignorance,  but the internet has freed a lot of that and I'm never afraid to ask those more knowledgeable for their opinions. Even the times that I pay someone to do a job I like to pick their brain or pay attention to how it's done because i have a genuine interest in learning.

 

One thing that's funny about this particular job,  before getting into it I knew very little about the suspension system.  I wasn't even sure what everything was called. But in doing this I've learned a lot and it's something I know I could do again on another vehicle. 

 

I think of all the stuff that I'll mess with,  electrical is the one thing that really scares me. But even with that I'm willing to dig into it if I'm confident in my work. 

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Driver's side is assembled. Not going to tighten the nut until I absolutely have to since it's already cost me an extra $50 (they're one time use). New rotor was supposed to be here Friday. It's Saturday evening and it's still not here.

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I see a few differences, this rotor is scored and does not look new. Also the inner area with lug bolts also looks pitted and scored from use. Also appears that this one was punching thru the flimsy wood used to protect it. Maybe that isn't it though. 

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Coating is worn off the surface of the rotor, there's grease/dirt where the rim seats against the rotor,  there's still axle grease all over the bearing along with dirt and debris,  so it's obviously been used. Plus,  the packaging is obvious that it's been dropped and the top most lug in that picture is slightly bent.

 

Rockauto is getting a phone call today from an extremely unhappy customer who's recently spent a whole lot of money with them and is now going on a month without his primary vehicle. 

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2 hours ago, rajncajn said:

Coating is worn off the surface of the rotor, there's grease/dirt where the rim seats against the rotor,  there's still axle grease all over the bearing along with dirt and debris,  so it's obviously been used. Plus,  the packaging is obvious that it's been dropped and the top most lug in that picture is slightly bent.

 

Rockauto is getting a phone call today from an extremely unhappy customer who's recently spent a whole lot of money with them and is now going on a month without his primary vehicle. 

 

Ahh missed the bent lug, so same problem as the last one. I sure hope they were not represented as new, because that is not even close, and I would consider that fraud.

 

The other one sure looks new and I would assume you're not mixing old and new parts (I see new calipers, and recall many other new bits were being used). 

 

Not having use of your vehicle, and having it in parts would have me really steamed. 

 

Give them hell.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Minor update on the truck. I got the part and it was good. I got it installed, bled the brakes and still couldn't get pressure to hold on the brakes. Bled a couple more times and no help. Changed the master cylinder and still no help. Now I'm thinking I've either got air in the ABS module or behind the plunger in the master cylinder. When time is available I'm going to try bleeding again with a vacuum pump.

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  • 3 weeks later...

The vacuum pump and bleeding the ABS module manually helped a lot. Everything seems all good now. Still need to bring it in for an alignment, but I know I got it pretty darn close. Happy to be back on the road now.

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19 minutes ago, rajncajn said:

The vacuum pump and bleeding the ABS module manually helped a lot. Everything seems all good now. Still need to bring it in for an alignment, but I know I got it pretty darn close. Happy to be back on the road now.

 

I'm impressed Rajn, you're a handy dude. 

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This is another older project,  simple,  but was pretty satisfying. I'm not particularly a hoarder.  In fact,  I'm quick to throw things out that I know it's just taking up space.  That said,  if there's something that I think can be useful to me at some point down the road then I'll hold in to it. One of those things was the kids old trampolines. My next few posts are going to be uses that I've gotten out of the old trampoline parts.

 

This one was based off an idea I think I got from Pintrest or something like that. I wanted to do a grape vine trellis and thought I could use the trampoline frame and,  sure enough,  there were some ideas there. 

 

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What I did here was take the two halves of the top frame and the tees where the legs connected to made perfect connection points. All I had to do was cut the legs to the width I wanted and the frame was done. Then I took string and zig-zagged it around the frame to give the vines something to grow on. That turned out to be a mistake because it wasn't strong enough and began to break within months.  So I went back and restrung it with baling wire. Below is a pic I took yesterday,  the leaves are just starting to sprout.  I have another year before they mature and start to produce, but they're looking great so far. 

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This is another small project I did using some of the leftover trampoline parts. The metal poles are the safety net poles cut to size.

 

For this one,  I needed a firewood rack for my fire pit. Just something to hold everything and keep it relatively dry. 

 

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Made it too tall at first.

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Made the roof hinged so it's easier to stack the wood when I replenish. 

Edited by rajncajn
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This is another small, but fun project using trampoline parts. A friend of mine gave me a kayak and I really had nowhere to keep it out of the way and somewhat protected. I did a search for a kayak rack and of course they were either more than what I wanted or more than I wanted to pay, so I figured I'd just make something that suited what I needed.

 

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These are the same leg tees that I used on the vine trellis.

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These are the safety net poles from the kids first trampoline. They're already pre-bent, which make them prefect for a rack. The cap on the top held a flexible fiberglass ring, just like a tent pole (I've used those for a lot of stuff as well).

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Everything bolted up to the fence.

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Works perfect and sits right over my jet ski.

 

Edited by rajncajn
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