After putting new upper ball joints on the blue truck, I now see that I need new upper control arm bushings. The tighter I make each part, the more parts come loose...the way it always is.

Than, with Ernie's fine help, I unplugged the evaporator drain and cleaned the pan on the Element. Jonelle came home Friday with water all over the floor.

...sharpened the blades on the mower to help chop up leaves.

Now the Yellow truck:

Changed the oil

Installed a new battery

Pulled the high lift off and rebuilt that (Thanks Mike)

Pulled off the front bumper and will refinish that. Not an easy task, but now all the wires will have quick disconnects.

now that's what I call taking on some projects.

It's naked!

Man I know ...
It's like

I've been trying to get winter ready around here with projects too.
It never stops Damn it

What connection are you looking at for the QDs on the winch? I know Warn has something that might work (P# 65707), somewhat along the lines of their jumper cable QDs.

As far as the rest of the electrical you might want to check out Waytech and Allied Electronics for something waterproof.

Any plans on the interior of the bumper painting? Or is the just mud?

Thanks Don, I already spliced all the wires with disconnects so they are good to go. A total of 14 wires and it took some time since I solder everything. I don't know if I will do anything to the winch. It's sitting nicely on a 2x6 right now and it wouldn't be hard to pull the wires if I wanted.

I will strip (sandblast) the entire bumper. That's not mud in there. It cakes up with salt in the winter. Another reason to hate NYS.

Not much time tonight. No time to break out the sandblaster, but I did wash it with degreaser, scrapped and pressure washed it.

it's already starting to look better

More work on the blue X today. I'm kind of getting sick of spending all my free time on trucks.

I got the UCA bushings yesterday so last night I took apart the drivers side (again) and took the half-shaft out to install that bronze washer I forgot last time. I then took off the UCA and cleaned it up. I installed zerks on the UCA which took a little doing. These are the older style Calmini UCA's where the arm attaches to the center of the sleeve. The zerk need to go in the center so I had to drill it at an angle and get longer zerk fittings than I had on hand. I also installed new Bilstien shocks in the front. I all took me longer than putting in the lower ball joints...nothing went easy...I was too tired and impatient.

This morning I had to go to NAPA for some more parts. I had to cut out the passenger side shock last week and didn't have a bolt that really fit well, so I had to get another. Again, I installed zerks on the UCA and a new shock. This went much better today.

I have replaced every wear part in the front suspension on the blue truck. Alignment appointment on Tuesday. Finally, no clunking or creaking in the front of my truck.

While I was at NAPA, I took in my old half shafts to exchange. Just so you know, rebuilt axles are $59 each at NAPA, with core. I got them for $48 each, so I may go exchange the others I have at some point. You can't have too many.

I also replaced both tailights on the Yellow X since they were both broken. I found some used ones, which are in brand new condition, on Ebay. New windshield, new tailights...now all I need is to replace that short piece on my tailpipe and get the bumper back on and I'll be ready for inspection.

you're making me feel the need to do the same sort of work to mine.. I'm hoping that there will be one more run and then, maybe it'll be time to start taking things apart and refurbish them.

http://www.nexterra.org/forum/viewtopic ... sc&start=0

Both of you MF'ers should come. It will be crazy.

Wow, sounds like a lot of work scott.
I have a ton of work to do to the runner before I can go out wheeln' again.
I'm not looking forward to it either.

I have family plans for that weekend... but, I'm going to see if I can get out of them.