Well, we got back from Louisville, KY today. We went to our 2nd annual Abbey Road on the River festival. Post on that to follow...
My dad and I got Jen's Jeep and installed the new cold air intake that came in last week. This should do some good on gas mileage and power. Looks good either way! ;)
p.s. Almost forgot, Jen put her new fitted neoprene seat covers on while I worked on the intake.
Well, we spent another Saturday in the sun working on our Jeeps.
On the list today:
- Change the transmission mount on mine.
- Replace the coolant bottle in hers.
- Fix the soft top/frame on hers.
- Install new sound bar on hers.
- Install new ignition cylinder on hers. (couple nights ago, actually)
Not on the list:
- Completely wipe down transmission and skid plate! (Got some major leakage and build-up)
Well, I got all of that done before the rain came...sorta. We got hit with a 5 or 10 minute storm while we were repairing her soft top frame so we had to rush and get it connected. Her's still has carpet it in, that's why we panicked. If it were mine...business as usual. :) You'll notice in the pictures how much leakage and build-up we had on mine. I had Jen pressure wash the skid plate with Dawn and a scrub brush. There was a good inch of sludge and debris on the top side of it. Even found a penny buried in the muck! HAHA
Compare the old mount to the new mount. Old one was split in half, smashed, and deteriorating. Pretty good amount of wiggle in it. It ran like a totally different Jeep after I installed it!
Don't know why someone trimmed off the plastic around the ignition cylinder opening, must have been a theft at some point. The guy who sold it to us had a machinist friend of his make a little tool that fit in there and you could turn the ignition with it, although it wasn't easy to use...and it looked ghetto!
So, one of the more important repairs that Jen's Jeep, named Lucy Sky, \m/*.*\m/ needed was rust removal and repaint around the windshield. This isn't the only rust on the Jeep but most of the rust is in the frame and not the body.
This is an easy fix! Started with a grinder & rust wheel, followed with a coat of bondo & sanding, followed by a rust primer, light sand & single coat of touch-up spray paint. You'll notice a very thin line around the taped edges. Later, Saturday I will lightly sand and re-coat this entire area. I'm also going to spray a protective coating after the last coat of paint. Even with the edge line it looks 100 times better. I'm gonna take that grinder to the frame underneath and then paint it this weekend, as well. Can't wait to get this thing on the trails in Tecoma Valley!
Well, we bought a Jeep for Jennifer yesterday. One more step towards our dream! Her's is a '94 YJ model. It needs a little bit of work but nothing major. I will be following this post with the first project...
So here's my first rough sketch of our future Earthship. The scaling is way off, of course, so the depth of the house will not be as long as it appears on paper. Just an idea of how we want it laid out.
Here's a shot of about half (or less than half) of the bottles we have saved so far. I scored a huge load of wine bottles at a wine tasting at the country club I work at. We also have a huge stockpile of beer, liquor, and sauce bottles boxed up in a large storage closet at home. We easily have 1000 bottles saved so far. Just one more piece to the puzzle...
I'm homesick for a place I've never been...
