...And Sometimes the Bear Gets You

Ok. So if you read last Wednesday's post, you know we were in the shop on Saturday. So why did it take me until today, Tuesday, to tell you guys what happened? Because it took me this long to heal from the first class beatdown the dashboard put on me.

I thought taking apart the dashboard would be easy. I removed the entire rest of the interior (sans wheel and pedals, of course) on my own in about two hours with three hand tools. Surely with the assistance of five others the dashboard would be a cakewalk, I thought. Turns out I'm an idiot.

At first the dashboard was no problem. The glovebox, air bags, radio, gauges, and A/C control panel all came out like clockwork. Once those were gone, however, Murphy rolled up in all his maniacal glory.

It began with the steering wheel. Despite removing the head bolt, the wheel stubbornly refused to separate itself from the steering column. Then someone said I needed some sort of steering wheel removal tool. So I went down to the local Advance Auto and got one, along with a Haynes Repair Manual for the truck (I already had one but foolishly left it back in Springfield). Upon opening the wheel removal tool package I immediately knew something was wrong. Sure enough, the book said airbag-equipped wheels needed a "two-jaw puller." Another trip, this time to Pep Boys. I go in, get the two-jaw, and return to the shop. I attach the puller as I'm supposed to, tighten it, and instead of pulling off the wheel, it bends and pops off. So it's back to Advance Auto to see if they have a better one. They don't. Back to the shop. Adam, one of the Clayton shop people, welds steel bars to the puller to keep it from bending. Naturally, it simply bends somewhere else, obeying the law of "if you strengthen the weak link, you wind up with a new weak link." So, at day's end, the wheel was still attached.

As for the rest of the dashboard, it was a day-long game of "find the bolts," over fifty of them, most hidden in places requiring small hands and/or six inch extensions on the socket wrench. In the end, the dash did yield, but not before putting a serious hurting on us. We now also have one less week to get the roll cage installed (and this coming Saturday is expected to be a short one). Vegas to Reno is only 172 days off.

Ouch. Someone pass me the Tylenol. And as always, thanks for reading, dudes.



The dash with all the easy stuff removed

Scoutmaster Ron Harrell hunts for the "magic bolt"

The dash, finally freed

So that's what a dashless truck looks like.

Project Update 1/23/08

Hello, dudes, and welcome. Clearly the biggest update is this blog. Doing it on the website just wasn't working out, so I decided it was time to move it over here. Hopefully this will make it easier for me to post, as well as allow the blog to be seen by more people. Though I do find myself feeling overwhelmed with all the websites I'm now a part of. Myspace, Facebook, Flickr, the crew website of course (which is a massive pain in the ass to keep up to date), and now this.

But you guys don't care about that. You want to know about the truck, right? Well here's the latest. We took the truck down to Clayton's shop on the 12th to start work on the rollcage. Transportation was provided via a desperate last second reservation of a U-Haul truck and trailer to the tune of... well let's just say I'll be getting a hell of a tax refund next year. The hood decal blew off somewhere around the Mass/CT border (now I need to buy dad a new one), but aside from that there we no problems, despite it being my first time to ever tow anything over a couple hundred pounds (unless you count the airport stuff).

After getting the truck unloaded and into the shop garage bay (and reminding myself I still have a lot to learn about driving stick), we promptly started taking measurements for the two rear hoops for behind the driver/co-driver. Clayton, a magician on the CAD, was able to design and 3D render them in his computer in seemingly no time at all. In little more than an hour, we were already bending the first tube. We took the tube to the truck, placed it in the cab, and found it fit perfectly, an exciting moment for us all. And that's when Murphy walked in.

As we were working, I was reading the rule book's section on roll cage design. It stated we needed 1.75" tubing if the truck weighed 3000-4000 lbs and 2.00" tubing if it was over 4000. I knew the truck had to be at least 3000, so I stopped Clayton and asked what size tube he'd just bent. He said it was a 1.50". That piece of tubing is now in the scrap pile.

So we had to load the truck back on the trailer, take it down to the local CAT Scales, unload it, weigh it (the lady at the counter couldn't understand why we were weighing a Ford Ranger, which came in at 3600 lbs for all wondering), load it back on the trailer a third time, drive it back to the shop, and start all over again with 1.75" tubing, which Clayton only had a single bar of. So we got our two rear hoops designed and bent from the bar, installed them (but didn't weld them yet), and spent the final hour or so just making sure there weren't any other rules we didn't notice. Rory managed to escape from his shop for a couple hours and came over to remind us that we have a lot more work to do than we thought. Which is why I invited him over in the first place. He's good at remembering the stuff we forget and knowing all the things we don't. Anyways, we left the shop at 4, planning to return the following Saturday, which didn't happen because the tubing hadn't arrived yet.

Ok. Other news. We'll be returning to the shop this coming Saturday, Jan 26th. If Clayton got the power steering fixed on his rock buggy, I'm sure we'll end up playing around in that thing (and hopefully not rolling it like they did with that Cherokee). We're also working on the paint scheme (suggestions and designs welcome). This may seem premature, but with two car shows in February we want to at least have a drawing of what the truck will look like by then. I, of course, have a long day's work of web updating ahead of me, which will have to wait until the afternoon, seeing as I'm blogging between classes and quickly running out of time.

Anyways, that's the latest. Expect another post following Saturday's return to the shop (hopefully a shorter, Murphy-free post). And as always, thanks for reading, dudes.

PHOTOS! (YAY!):

The truck leaves the garage it's been in since bought two months ago.

The truck at the shop and ready to be unloaded.

The truck arrives in the Clayton parking lot, minus a decal or two.

The truck sitting in the Clayton garage bay.

Clayton 3D renders the roll hoop.

Nick guides Adam onto the trailer so we can weigh the truck.

Clayton, Adam, and Nick bend tubing for the cage.