The Road Ranger. 1997 SEMI

[alwaysFlOoReD]

Thank you.

always remember it’s physical therapy for me coming out of my injuries, and it’s mental therapy (which keeps me out of the bus stations in my underwear).

You wear underwear everywhere else tho? Don't you!?!

 

[Rick W]

You wear underwear everywhere else tho? Don't you!?!

I reserve the right not to disclose details about my commando escapades

 

[Rick W]

Completely by accident, I found out the best quick way to get a decent result. (far from perfect, and this is only for the dark corroded spots):

Wet the aluminum with just water, then very lightly wire brush it along the diamonds in one direction, and then wire brush it 90° to that in line with the other diamonds.

(aside: Some people might not think it’s wise to brush a couple hundred square feet of Aluminum while it’s soaking wet with an electric drill on the west ground. Although I never lit my farts in college, this gives a whole new meaning to the practice.)

The 90° brushing his only done to eliminate the striations from the first brushing. The brush marks almost disappear. But the aluminum still comes out white-ish.

Then buff it with just a dry cloth. No wax, no polish, nothing. It comes out 99% as good as when I did wax it, polish it, buff it, etc. etc. etc.

Then I did an acid wash, and then a wash with dishwashing soap. The final step is to clear coat it with poly.

I finished up cleaning the big part of the deck today. I timed it perfectly. I rinsed the chemicals and soap off, and I put my tools in the garage, and it started to pour rain. That will be my final rinse before the poly.

Then I came in and ate a cold watermelon with Lincoln. (I really don’t know anything about dogs, but it surprises the hell out of me that he will eat watermelon. I’m afraid he’s going to meet other dogs someday and they’re all going to think he’s weird from the way I raised him.)

 

[pjtoledo]

check with your vet before giving watermelon to a dog.
I think feeding grapes to our Brutus is what caused his diabetes.
not to mention watermelon causes one hella lot of pee.

 

[Rick W]

check with your vet before giving watermelon to a dog.
I think feeding grapes to our Brutus is what caused his diabetes.
not to mention watermelon causes one hella lot of pee.

I just give him two or three bites, bites that are his size, but thanks for the heads up!

 

[RobbieD]

I just give him two or three bites, bites that are his size, but thanks for the heads up!

I know; he doesn't really like watermelon, but he just LOVES to spit the seeds at people.

 

[Sharky]

water melon is okay for dogs. NO grapes , raisins, almonds ( any type of nuts), apple seeds/cores, avocado, cherries, candies (chocolate for sure), chicken skin, hot peppers, lemons, grapefruit, oranges, chives, corn on the cob, garlic, kale, hops, liver and alcohol plus a bunch of other foods. be careful with ice cream as some dogs may have trouble with lactose.

 

[Rick W]

water melon is okay for dogs. NO grapes , raisins, almonds ( any type of nuts), apple seeds/cores, avocado, cherries, candies (chocolate for sure), chicken skin, hot peppers, lemons, grapefruit, oranges, chives, corn on the cob, garlic, kale, hops, liver and alcohol plus a bunch of other foods. be careful with ice cream as some dogs may have trouble with lactose.

I already cut his nuts off, what’s there to live for?

 

[Sharky]

I already cut his nuts off, what’s there to live for?

ask him ......

 

[Rick W]

I dealt with the redness on the shaft, and then I wire brushed my balls.

I caulked a couple oops holes in the deck. I’ll put a dab of silver on them before I clear coat the balls and the deck.

Except for a marathon session polishing wheels, that just leaves the AC on the truck, oil change and some routine maintenance before the long trip.

 

[Rick W]

At the last minute, projected sprinkles passed me by, so I went out just before dark, and I clear coated the deck of the trailer, the upper deck, and the face plate on the step. Trailer balls, and a few smaller items.

I used high gloss urethane, but then a nappy roller, hoping that a little texture with a little gloss will helped ease the discoloration’s in the aluminum. I guess we’ll find out tomorrow.

Lincoln barked at the neighbors dog. It was a great help.

 

[Rick W]

I did a few little things, and then I pulled my S*** together to start the AC work. @snoranger and a couple other guys gave me the plan and a lot of encouragement. @97RangerXLT turned me on to his write up TRS tech paper, and I read that a few times. I think that gave me the confidence I needed to tackle it since my truck is also 1997, and it was very step-by-step.

I think it’s the most organized mechanical thing I’ve done to a vehicle in like forever. I have an LED 4 foot light that looks like one of those 4 foot double fluorescents. I rigged that up under the hood, so I had plenty of clean light. I have this little desk thing that I use for my tools sometimes, and I set that up next to the truck. I put a fan on top of a chair behind me, blowing on me the whole time. I even rigged up an iPhone charger at that little work table so I could read the instructions step-by-step over and over without going dead. Good news and bad news.

The good news? The directions were great, but the real good news was that it must’ve been done before in the 300,000+ miles this truck has been around, because the hose around the back of the block was pretty much already clear of everything.

I started by pulling the dryer. Couple tight places, but it went fine.

The big hose was the problem in the first place. After I disconnected it and moved a couple things out of the way, I realized it was still going be a giant pain to wiggle out of there. I used the trick of grinding off the rivet on the holder. Then I switched the grinding stone for one of those little 1 inch in diameter diamond wheels, and I just cut the hose at that riveted support bracket. Obviously, it’s slid right out after that.

The bracket was very loose, but with the hose and the dryer out-of-the-way, I could reach down and find the bolt. It was a 13 mm, and I was able to tighten it up by using a shorty combo wrench.

I was able to nip the expansion tube with a pair of ancient skinny needle nose I have from daddy, pulled it out, and replaced it. I replaced all the O-rings in that area.

The bad news? Then I took my new hose out of the package and realized it’s the wrong hose. After almost crapping for a moment, I immediately went online to find the right hose. Everything in town was like $200. I found the right hose at Rock Auto for $42. Then I had a choice of FedEx at $110 to get here on July 30, or UPS ground to get here a few hours later on July 30, for $9.90. I don’t know what’s up with that, but you know how cheap I am, so I figured I could wait a couple hours. That will give me a day and a half to get it back together.

I had just gotten to the point where I was all excited that I was going to get it done, and I’ve got admit, it really took the wind out of my sails when I realized I had the wrong hose.

Anyway, I cleaned everything up, and went back to my list, and did four out of the last eight items. Polishing the wheels (seven of them) and this AC are the only big things. I’ll start polishing and do the last couple items tomorrow morning.

Then, since I still had hours of daylight, I did what I call the “asbestos tile inspection.“ “ATI”

Most people who have a house want everything perfect, whether they could get there or not. Not true of commercial real estate. I learned a long time ago that when you walk up on a commercial piece of real estate, don’t make a list of everything it needs. Write down the three or four worst items, and deal with them. When you’re down to one or two, step back and look at what are the next two or three worst things. When you get to the point where nothing is jumping out at you, stop, collect the rents and the profits. You’ll have the nicest property in the area.

Everyone knows the 12 x 12 floor tiles that you glue down. They used to be 9 x 9. A lot of people don’t realize that the 9 x 9, which you haven’t been able to buy in 30 years, are usually asbestos. Here’s what the “asbestos tile inspection” is:

Combined with the real estate concept, like everyone, I step back and look at what the big items are, and I take care of them. Then, I do the ATI. I go step-by-step around whatever, and I just look at a 9 x 9 spot. What jumps out of me from that little spot? I go around the whole project, put them all on a list, but then I do the same thing I do with the commercial real estate. What are the worst three or four? Deal with them. Then the next three or four. Without spending a ton of money, you eliminate the obvious eyespots, and for a little money you end up with something decent.

I got an artist brush and walked around the truck with a can of red paint. I cleaned the brush, and then I walked around the truck with the semi gloss black paint. I cleaned it again, and walked around with the silver. I’ll probably do that one more time before I head to Nationals. The beauty of the rustoleum paint job, is you can touch it up like that, and it doesn’t show. The paint is nice enough to look nice, but it’s not a disaster if you chip it or scratch it.

Enough fun for today

 

[Rick W]

I polished two of the wheels. Five to go. The OEM 14 inch wheels are pretty easy. After I use the 505 Dietrich stripper, they’re pretty shiny. Most of the ugly is actually fading and damage to the clearcoat. I did one in about 45 minutes.

The 15x8s with the bigger offset are more of a challenge. They’re aftermarket, and I’m pretty sure sometime in the past somebody stripped them and polished them, but then never clearcoated them again. When I put the stripper on, it does nothing, no coating. I ran out of the buffer acid stuff, so I mixed some 50-50 muriatic acid and water, and put it in the spray bottle and used that. After I let it sit a couple minutes, I went over all the wheel I was going to polish with some 0000 steel wool. Then I really had to work them with a 6 inch bonnet on my variable speed buffer.

After buffing up the polish on both of them, I used leftover diesel/gasoline mix to clean all the wax residue off. I let them dry, and then I coated them with high gloss polyurethane. They came out pretty good. It takes one bonnet for every wheel, & I ran out of bonnets.

When I pulled the self tapping screws out of the trailer deck and replaced them with proper hold down fasteners, one snapped off. When I did it, I said to myself “I should dig that out of there because I’m going to cut myself on it.“ A few hours later, when I cut myself on it, I said to myself…

Well, you get the idea. Two cuts later, I finally went out and dug that screw out and caulked the hole. I’ll touch up the paint tomorrow.

I couldn’t find my pag oil, so I bought another little jug. And I was running low on satin black rustoleum, so I got a quart of that.

AC stuff has been shipped and is supposed to be here Tuesday afternoon.

You can’t even imagine how dirty nasty I look when I do this kind of stuff. I have a whole set of stained and ruined clothes that I wash and use for this kind of work, and of course, I immediately get them more stained and more dirty.

So when I was cleaning up today, my new young neighbor’s hot mom came by to see what I was doing to the truck. Yeah, I’m sure she’s really interested in the truck, and, Yep, she’s single (from Michigan). Never missing a beat, I washed my hands, and I opened a 20 year old bottle of Murphy-Goode “Liar’s Dice” Zin.

We sat in the lawn chairs in the middle of the filthy driveway over the tires and chemicals and got to know each other a little bit. Lincoln didn’t even growl at her that much.

For anybody worrying about sweet pea, don’t worry, it’s OK. This gal lives outside the ZIP Code….

 

[Rick W]

Two little wheels to go. I think I realized that the reason the wheels I did last year have a tiny bit of gold tint may be because the polyurethane is turning amber sort of. I’m running out of time, so I didn’t do the super Duper polish although these wheels are 1000% better. I’m going to research a clearcoat that won’t discolor, and then probably do them all over again over the winter. Starting to thunder, I’ll do the last two in the morning and will have to live without polished spares.

AC hose is supposed to be here between 11:45 (Yeah) snd 4:45 (boo).

 

[Rick W]