Big Red

The Sound Made By The Needle Scratching the Record

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20 years ago, it was a common sound effect on television shows when a scene came to abrupt stop, to have the background music stop with the effect of a needle dragging along the grooves, as one carelessly took the stylus off the record. When you wanted to start listening to the record again, you would try to find your place, and drop the needle on it. It would make a loud clunk and the music would start playing again.

Much like a record suddenly paused in the middle of a song, one sometimes has a moment in their lives that turns everything up on the table. Where everything was going to plan, until suddenly something goes terrible wrong, and you spend months rebuilding and trying to figure out where you where on the record before you lifted the needle off the record.

Pines Along Jones Pond

It’s often not easy to go back where you left off. Times change, experiences change your perspective on everything. Part of your innocence is forever lost. You struggle to find your new identity and to make up for lost time. The world has evolved and things have changed, ever since the needle left the record in that sudden fashion. Much like the record that continues to spin around, time marches along while you recover.

What happened, happened. You have to tell yourself that, and hold your head, and move forward. You can’t get back what you lost, most of important the time. But you can move forward, seeking new direction and new experience. You have satisfied with the best you can do moving forward.

Sparkle

Sometimes life comes to an abrupt stop, but you just got to pick up the pieces and move on.

Didn’t Make It To Moose Plains

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Yesterday, I was planning on going up to Moose River Plainsο»Ώ to do some fishing, hiking, paddling, and plinking with the air rifle I had picked out and was going to pick up on way up. The pellets that air rifles use are very affordable and easy to get unlike .22 LR ammo which is next to impossible to get right now. It was going to be a really fun long weekend.

I had my truck all packed, and started heading up there with the kayak on the roof, and my truck was rear-ended in one of Albany’s many construction zone by another motorist. The kayak rode just fine during the crash, but things got pretty crumbled up on bed, bumper, and tailgate. While I was able to continue on and safely to get an exit ramp along the expressway to wait for the police, but apparently damage to vehicle’s gas tank or emissions system made it impossible to restart, and it had to get towed to the body shop. I was so hoping to continue on my trip.

I am a somewhat sore this morning, but for the most part I’m uninjured. None of the camping equipment that I had brought with me was damaged, and everything will be fine once the truck is rebuilt again. It’s not like my truck hasn’t been to my local body shop before, after it was struck in a hit and run crash two years ago on the driver-side, while parked at home while I was at work.

I’ve never liked the factory rear bumper on the Silverado. It’s made out of chromed sheet metal, and every little tiny ding and dent show up on it — and that’s just ugly. I am eventually thinking of putting an off-road bumper on the back, so it will hold up better when I bump things in the woods backing up, or even just snag the sides of bumper with an electric fence, as I did when the truck was almost brand new, years ago.

Certainly this all sucks. But at least everything else I’ve added on in the truck, like the CB radio and inverter are undamaged. I’m sure insurance, once it’s all worked out, will get things pretty much to same way there were before the collision.

Fixed My Second Battery/Isolator in My Truck Again

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Last weekend when I was up in Brookfield, the second battery on my truck stopped charging again on my way home. Yes, again. I heard the low battery alarm go off, and I thought it was an issue with the battery isolator exciter line coming loose. I had accidentally broken the crimp terminal on that and had just bolted down the exciter wire directly to the isolator, during the earlier spring excitement when I was playing with fuses.

It was a temporary fix, but got me back up camping. I figured the temporary fix had failed. after hitting bumps. I figured the fuse had blown in the process, so I went bought a box of small ring connectors and fuses. Get back with my volt meter, discover the fuse is fine and the problem wasn’t with the excited wire on the isolator, but with the ground from isolator. But I did replace the ring connector, and wired it back to spec.

Then I had to go back to the auto parts store, return the fuses I didn’t use, and get a larger ring terminal to go over the battery’s ground, and more wire then go back to the isolator. The ground nut was a bit of bitch off the isolator, but a little WD-40 fixed that. Once I had the nut off, fabricating a new cable was quick, and I just had to tighten the bolts up and tie the wire back down.

Now on the CB Radio, the Car Radio, Inverter, and Lights in the Truck Cap work. I can go camping again. Plus I like to listen to tunes while driving, and really miss not having the CB radio. But now I’m back in luck, until the next thing breaks.

I swear, they did a nice looking job at the shop when I had the second battery wired up. But as soon as I got it home, and out on the rough dirt roads, everything started to fall apart. I’ve replaced fuses, wires, fuse holders, and half a dozen other things, due to issues I’ve had over the past three years with the wiring job the audio shop I took it to.

Keep Seeing Jacked Up Trucks

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Kept seeing some nice lifted trucks during last weekend. I think it’s punishment for deciding to put off the lift kit on my truck until July or August now. Saw a nice F-150 with 35s and 6 inch lift on Chesnut Street in Albany on Saturday morning. Then passed a couple of jacked up trucks on NY 30 outside of Mayfield. It was kind of weird – I wonder if there was some kind of show going on or something.

Still thinking of a 6 inch lift plus 35s. I want to re-gear with 4.88s at the same time to ensure I have plenty of power, don’t kill my transmission with the heavier tires, have more control going down the hills, and save fuel. Currently, I think the truck is geared too high, especially when I’m off-road or descending a steep hill on a rough dirt road. Maybe later on, add a 3 inch body lift and/or an Add-A-Leaf (AAL) and a leveling kitΒ on the top of that for an additional two inches.

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Maybe I should do the AAL and leveling kit when I do the lift, as that’s something that can be done relatively cheaply when the suspension is taken apart to install the lift kit. The body lift involves disassembly of the body, which is a totally different part of the truck then the suspension. The 6 inch lift kit would raise the truck’s suspension by 6 inches plus 2 inches for the 35-inch tires (35-31 stocks /2 diameter = 2 inches). That equals 8 inches of lift. The AAL on top of that would bring the total lift to around 10 inches, which seems plenty high, but not absurdly high. I want my CB antenna to still clear on the state truck trails.

The money situation for the lift kit is good now, but I don’t want to do the lift kit until I need to replace the tires, and have they have a fair bit of life left in them. Basically my goal, set about a year ago, was to have roughly 10 months of pay in cash savings in case of an emergency AFTER the lift kit is paid for. In the month of June, I’m too busy with work to do it. I don’t want to put off the lift kit until late fall, because I don’t want the factory tires to wear out and not be able to pass inspection in October. That would suck.

I want to have the truck back for a couple of weeks prior to taking any adventures far in the wilderness. I fully recognize that the bigger, heavier wheels will wear out the brakes faster – and at 30,000 miles or so, I am probably due for a brake job sooner then later. I also want to make sure everything was properly re-assembled and know the new handling characteristics of the vehicle, just be safe.

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Silverado with a 6 inch lift plus a body lift and an AAL. Very big and high. Maybe too much so.

 

Then again, I am still very hesitant about the whole project. It’s a lot of money, for basically a toy that won’t last forever. A safe guess for lifespan would be 7 years, although if I still like the big truck, I could have it repaired and keep driving it even longer. Lifted trucks are forever more expensive to maintain, despite being a lot of fun. My previous truck was 13 years old when I got rid of it. Then again, I realize I am 31 now, by the time I am 40 years old, I probably won’t want a lifted truck – so I better do it while I am young, have the money, and adventurous spirit. Eventually, I probably will end up getting hitched and not end up having the money or the desire to fun.

I am pretty sure my trips of late, are evidence of cruel and unusual punishment. I put off lifting my truck, and now everywheres I go, I end up seeing a lifted truck in the parking lot, and have to run over, and check out the lift.

Yeah.

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The General fixed my truck’s leaky windshield wiper reservoir and preformed the transmission recall. No charge. Nice.

McDonald’s Clearance Signs Lie.

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So yesterday, I went to McDonald’s drive in Clifton Park to get some coffee. The sign said “9 foot clearance”. My CB antenna hit the clearance bar. No damage, as the spring did its job, but I surprised. I hadn’t actually measured the antenna, but I knew the hood was 4 ft, the antenna was 4 feet and mount and spring were six inches. That equals 8’6″ to the top. So why did I hit? I don’t know. When I got home, I checked with my measuring tape, and sure enough, my estimate was right — the antenna is 8’4″. mcpicture-clearance Moral of the story… don’t trust clearance signs at McDonalds.

So yesterday, I went to McDonald's drive in Clifton Park to get some coffee. The sign said "9 foot clearance". My CB antenna hit the clearance bar. No damage, as the spring did its job, but I surprised.