Turkey, Chicken, Duck and other Fowl Words

 Living in a rural area comes with it's share of challenges. One of those challenges is crappy roads. Another challenge is crap left IN THE MIDDLE of the crappy roads. 

The Queen left home at 5:50AM early last week to head to her newish part time job. She was not gone five minutes before the phone rang, and she indicated she had a flat tire. I asked where she was; and, before I could get her location out of her, she indicated that all 4 tires were still inflated after all but that something was making a racket. I told her to come back home, and I'd meet her outside to see what's what. 

The road we live on is straight as an arrow, and I can see almost all the way down to the intersection with the main drag about a half mile away. I stood at the end of the driveway; and, from the time I could see her headlights, I could hear something smacking the asphalt rythymically all the way back to me. 

And what did I find my curious eyes behold when The Queen came to a stop?

Well...that's not good. I wasn't awake enough to deal with that before sunrise. So, The Queen took my truck, and I set about scratching my head, grumbling under my breath and breaking out my floor jack. Fortunately, I am a smart fart that knows to buy road hazard certificates on his tires. So, I loaded the wheel and tire into the back of my mother's car and dropped it off at Discount Tire during lunch. They had it fixed before I even made it back to the house. 

I went through the same area where The Queen got her "flat" later in the day. I say "flat" because it actually held air pretty well despite having a spark plug sticking out of it. THIS is what I found scattered around the main intersection in our little town. 

Knowing how things operate around here, someone left a box of junk in the bed of their truck or sitting in their bumper when it bounced out at just the right moment to land in the path of The Queen's Chariot. 

It wasn't even a few days later when I got another call from The Queen. It seems that The Queen had found herself another object in the middle of the road. This time it happened on her way to the store. Fortunately for me, it was after work and daylight still. Even more fortunately, the temperatures had dropped down into the high 90s instead of the mid 110s they were the previous week. So, I grab my floor jack, mechanic gloves and a few other odds and ends that I knew might be helpful before heading off to town to change a tire. I arrived to find this. 

Bugger. Fortunately for me (again) it was approaching sundown, and the truck was parked in the shade cast by a building to the west. There was a faint breeze that helped the temps just a little. It took a little bit of doing to find all the fiddly bits to get get the truck jacked up (the flat had dropped the front end so much that my floor jack would not clear the bumper), the spare dropped, etc. Another small blessing was that the spare still had plenty of air (70 PSI out of a max of 80 PSI) despite being the original spare (with a 2012 date code). I keep an air pump in the truck just in case. 

Now I just need to find my plug kit and remove whatever the Hell that is so I can put my good Michelin back where it belongs. I'm going to have to mount magnets in front of my tires if this keeps up. 

Further Adventures in Auto Repair

Free time has been at a premium since we last checked in with Daddy Hawk. Even with the COVID-19 stay in place orders (which are slowly being relaxed here in North Texas), there is always something that  needs doing and many projects in the queue that need attention not the least of which is overdue repairs on both vehicles. 

The Queen's chariot is long overdue for a new driver's seat cover which has been worn through over the years by too many butts sliding across it. One was ordered and has arrived awaiting my time and attention. It's not an easy fix, but it is doable with a minimum of cursing and blood. Pro tip: if you have leather seats, sit into them as opposed to sliding into them if at all possible. I will try to document the process of replacing the seat cover here if I remember to take pictures. 

The Queen's chariot is also in need of a new power steering cooler as the existing one (which Ford conveniently included as one part with the A/C condenser) took a shot from an unknown object (or just let go over time) and is drooling power steering fluid like a St. Bernard with a mouthful of Novacaine. Having done the radiator a while back, I know what I'm in for which is why that can has been kicked down the road a time or two. It's a full day of disassembling the front end, draining fluids, cursing, threatening, begging, praying and generally trying to avoid insanity. The shop quoted $385 in labor to do it for me.  So, I'll be sucking it up and getting my hands dirty with that one soonish.

The Queen's chariot is not done with me yet. While I'm throwing wrenches at the power steering cooler / AC condenser, I have to go chasing a radiator fluid leak. I'm hoping it's just a loose clamp. I can't see any evidence that there is a more serious problem, but one never knows when you are talking about a motor with over 260,000 miles on it. Never let it be said I don't get my money's worth out of my vehicles.  

That leaves the project F150. I just replaced the radiator which had a hairline crack and was at least partially responsible for my coolant leak and overheating issues there. I suspect it has a leaking head gasket and will be testing that soon. It also sprouted a transmission fluid leak which I suspect is coming from an overtightened pan gasket. I just need a dry afternoon to get under there with a torque wrench and verify that. I have a replacement gasket for it if necessary. While I was crawling around under it a couple of weeks ago, I also noticed this:

I'm 85% sure that wasn't like that when I put the bed back on after replacing fuel pumps, but I'm also 100% sure it was hanging by a thread because it's always had a more or less straight pipe sound. I've  got a quote from the local muffler shop that I like which will be done after it's road tested. 

Way down the list for this truck is a rebuilt engine. I'm going to stick with the stock 302/5.0L block, but I'm hoping to tweak a little more horsepower and torque out of it in the process. Discussions will need to be had with my cousin the mechanic before deciding which way to go. I'd really like to ditch the automatic transmission and swap in a 5 speed manual, but that's just crazy talk....which means I'm seriously researching how to make it happen. 

This, of course, means I need to invest in more tools. What a shame. 

First Assignment and You Can't Make This Stuff Up

Well, the new business is off the a decent start considering I've only been operational for less than two weeks. Yesterday, I got good news that I was being added to the vendor list for a former employer who, oddly, has lots of claims in Texas but no staff to speak of in the state. Then, today, I received my first assignment from a law firm in Houston to do some accident scene investigation work in the Dallas Fort Worth area. So, YAY ME!!!

Happy dance will ensue when the invoice is paid and the check clears the bank. 

In other news of the weird and unusual, we have this bit of news. 

I wish I could have seen that claim file because I am betting the statements of the renters are priceless. The thing I cannot understand is why it took the respective carriers so long to come to a resolution. 

Oddities: Livestock Edition

The Queen and I have some friends that we visited yesterday. We were invited by the family of seven to go to lunch and see the teen boys (ages 15 and 17) play in a basketball tournament later in the evening. Between lunch and tip off, we went out to their place...which is in the middle of nowhere about a half hour west of Sherman, TX (approximately an hour and a half north of Castle Erickson give or take a few minutes). 

Directions to their house (okay...it's the largest double wide I've ever seen...it's like the Winchester Mystery House of mobile homes) include "...turn off the paved road...."

I'm not kidding. 

Do you see where this is heading yet? 

So, anyway, the man of the house (who has known The Queen since they were both younguns growing up in the Sherman area ages ago) offered to let M&M "help" feed the goats and chickens. Before going any further, I should mention that said man of the house is, by all accounts and his own admission, the quintessential redneck. 

As we approached the goat pen, I hear Mr. Redneck say "So, have you noticed the 'apparatus' on the head of that one goat?" 

Huh?

It took me a moment, but then I spotted this:

The explanation is that this particular goat likes to stick his head through the fence at which point its horns become stuck and it is too stubborn to let people help it extricate its moronic self from the predicament. 

Solution: screw two sign posts across the horns preventing its head from going through the fence. 

It's ingenious at the same time as it's absolutely ridiculous. 

For those that may be concerned, no goats were harmed in the making of this post. The screws do not go through the horns, and the goat could probably figure out how to rid itself of the "stocks" if it were so inclined and smort enough to realize that pushing its head through the fence hard enough might cause the wood to slip off the horns.