greasy grumpy and HOT

Ball joints are DONE!!!! the old ones, yup, wore out,,, 1/32-1/16″ play, by hand motion, so ya know they were wore out completely. Rotated my tires too, since they were off and showing some wear from the worn balljoints.

Tellin’ ya,,, That job is a job that almost requires a drinking buddy. By yourself, its pretty hateful, and didn’t improve until I turn the stereo on and cranked some tunes up. (nothing like a liittle concrete blond or corrosion of conformity to get the blood pumping when you are rastlin’ truck parts into place.)

Doing an oil change now. Got the engine good and warm on the test drive and picked up the oil and filter for the change. Now I am sitting here letting all that hot oil collect in a pan: hot drains are the best for this, and she is HOT right now,,, almost couldn’t handle the drainplug,,,,(quick flick of the wrist and she hit the ground, not the drainpan,,,,)

Test drive tells me things are better, but I never really felt the loss of control until I was driving in the rain. Going over to B’s last weekend, I took the Rattlesnake and it took me about 30 minutes longer than it should, and I was white knuckling that steering wheel the whole time. (his place was the meet-up for the Pigeon River run.) Sloppy? Complete understatement. She would develop a vibration in turns like hitting the rumble strip, only; there was no rumble strip. Squealed in turns that shouldnt have chirped, and wandered around in ANY level of standing water. Really shook me up a bit. Was more than happy for that beer B handed me when I got there: just enough to knock the shakes down.

And here I am getting ready to drive 294 miles one way,,, LOL Yeah, I’s a wee bit Kray-kray.

Gotta mitigate your risks, right? Well, thats whats I’s been doin’ all day. replace the known worn, get things ready for a roadtrip, and get ME ready for a long haul tomorrow. Gonna call it an early night (on a FREEDAY, whoa, thats really kray-kray,,) and leave out before the sun gets up. Wanna be crossing the gap by then. Dude has a memorial service in the afternoon, and I don’t want to screw up his plans. At least I am ‘losing’ an hour going that way, crossing a timezone: not that it matters to me since I get it back coming back. but that should get me on site early enough that we can still hit the Tennessee river for a test drive.

more laters ya bunch of hoooligans, don’t burn down the shop, turn off the coffee pot if you leave and lock the door behind you. Make sure that Grizz and Mama can’t see the bottom of the food bowl and I will chat atcha’all tomorrows, sometime, between drives (like quick notes while fueling up.)