Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux

[rickf]

Making any sense of the English language is an exercise in futility. When in High school they tried to impress upon us how to use math symbols to put grammar together. I failed miserably at that. I had ADHD and sitting still to concentrate on that stuff when there are much better, and more active things to be doing? Yea right. Now math, that was a different story because with math you could see the results at the end of the equation. I was, and still am, good at math.

[m3a1]

Party prep around here is a massive undertaking and is something that always goes right down to the wire. The Witch of November has finally departed, taking the rain with her... and I hope she stays away.

Took the old YJ out yesterday ('old' being a less than descriptive term, considering the earliest jeep on the property was built in 1942). Anyhoo, confounding the proper use of the limited time remaining before party day was a follow-up appointment with my Ortho doctor down in San Antonio on Jones-Maltsberger Road.

A lot of street names in San Antonio are named for people who left their mark on the world. We have Houston, Travis, Bowie, Bonham, Crocket and many others who came along later and made a difference. Hyphenated names are, more often than not, attributable to two people who pursued some sort of cooperative effort. Owing to the road's condition, one might conclude that Jones & Maltsberger were guys who invented The Pothole and the standardized Substandard Pothole Repair Method.

There I was, very happily be-bopping along at 35MPH with the sun shining in and my arm out the window, whilst digging some very retro tunes on the radio and involuntarily making googly eyes every time the Jeep encountered another pothole repair. Occasionally, those two, wet orbs would pop out and leave a little wet mark on the inside of my sunglasses. Annnnnnd...... it finally happened....

DEATH WOBBLE.

Luckily, I had long been anticipating it because the guy who sold me the Jeep warned me that this particular Jeep was the home of that particular flavor of gremlin. As the front end began to go every whichaway all at the same time, my imagination took over. Among other things, I am an accomplished cartoonist and because I am equipped with that sort of default setting in my brain, I immediately dredged up an image of the Toonerville Trolly... Enjoy the clip.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mGVHCTdJJPA

(Death Wobble at about the 1 minute mark)

So, when it began the other less creative half of my brain went through several steps, beginning with friendly greetings -

Ah! So THERE you are, little Death Wobble Gremlin!

Followed by critical analysis -

The Jeep was certainly NOT out of control, or even anywhere NEAR being out of control but, having the suspension doing the jitterbug was really quite annoying. So, I gave it a moment to settle back down (which it did NOT do) and then heavily applied the brakes which had the effect of loading the front end and putting a stop to the wobble. Simple. That done, I happily be-bopped the rest of the way to my appointment as though nothing had ever happened.

Back when I was a motorcycle cop, we had a particular fleet of Gold Wings that had Death Wobble. That was frightening because of the long grey stretch of sandpaper we were riding on (and the possibility that we might be sliding down it on our butts at any moment), whilst also surrounded by all sorts of things that made for sudden and harmful stops along the way.

The immediate solution was to get up off the seat, hunch forward and put your shoulders up over the triple tree, thereby providing weight where it was needed to bring everything back under control. Braking only made Death Wobble worse and accelerating sometimes helped if the wobble hadn't progressed all the way from Jitterbug to Sven Otten on banana peels. After checking bearings, tires, wheels and all sorts of other little technical stuff, Honda quickly stepped in with a solution that stiffened the front forks; something we motor cops really appreciated since it made for far fewer returns to the station's locker room to change underwear.

So, after I get out from under this Christmas Party nonsense, I'll get the Jeep up on a lift and start my inspection and share the results with y'all.

Cheers,
TJ

[rickf]

One of my pickups and also a customers pickup used to kick in at 55-60 MPH. Now picture that with 38" tires and that is a REAL wobble!! I am talking tires chirping both front and back from the violent side to side. Slamming on the brakes usually worked but sometimes made it even worse. All it took to start it was a little bump at just the right time. speeding up always stopped it if you had the cajones to actually speed up while driving out of control. I was a race car driver so that was a common scenario for me, doing it with other normal people on the road....... well, they usually had already headed for the trees by then. What I came up with was that worn spring bushings were the main problem followed by worn Dana 60 ball joint components in other cases. This was exacerbated by any minor tire imbalance that happened to be at just the right spot in the rotation when that bump hit the tire and it all started. Speeding up brought the tires up to a higher speed which changed the frequency of the vibration, ending the event. But with tires and vehicles that big and heavy each time it happened it did more damage so after a dozen episodes the front end was loose enough to see all the bad parts just by rocking the steering in the parking lot.

And would those Goldwings have been in the 1998 range? After I got mine I had it gone over by a Honda dealership and the manager told me it had already had a recall done on it for the steering head issue. I have never had any problems with that one.

[m3a1]

It has been a while but, yes, I think it would have been around then. We ran those bikes pretty hard and the wobbles were real boogers...especially while WE were having to live with them while Honda was so slo-o-o-o-o-o-o-wly picking away at the problem . There was some talk about grounding the whole fleet and putting us back in cars; an idea that was soundly and roundly poo-poo-ed by the motor officers. Motor cops tend to lead with their cojónes, not their brains.

[rickf]

Death wobble on a bike is just a bit different than in a 4 wheel vehicle. Death wobble on a bike brings on the dreaded tank slapper. Now we will see how many bikers we have here.

[m3a1]

We came.
We saw.
We decorated.
We reveled and made merry!

This year's annual Christmas party is in the can. It was a success and now it's time for a long winter's nap....

after I clean up all the wreckage.

Preparation for all this was, as always, a real nail biter. No matter how many years I do this, no matter how much advance work I perform, I'm never quite comfortable until the party gets underway and there is really nothing left to do except decorate and illuminate my parade vehicle. At the same time, I have been doing this for so many years I also know we have never missed our mark and every thing that must get done always does get done.

BUT - the higher one flies, the farther one has to fall.

The month of party prep is broken down into a brief period of very fine weather (this is the time I really scramble to get ahead) followed by one or two days of strong, uninterrupted wind, followed by a long period of rain (this is the time I sit inside and gnash my teeth at the interruption) and usually by the first weekend in December the weather becomes tolerably good, if only for a moment. This year followed that pattern to the letter except that 'the moment' happened to be one day only. Luckily it was the very day of the party and not one minute longer because after we turned out the lights..

...it rained.

AGAIN.

Decorating this year was an 'all-hands-on-deck' affair with several different styles of decorating going on simultaneously. The first style falls into the category of THE TRADITIONAL STYLE. The same tired old Christmassy stuff goes up in the same place, in the same way, with little or no variation.

The second style for decorating is the category of NOW, FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT STYLE. By way of example, I stepped outside one morning before the party to find The Billmeister standing in the drizzle whilst tying a Christmas tree to the roof of the old 47 Ford as a sort of homage to the movie, A Christmas Story. He didn't ask... and he didn't discuss it with me. He just did it. The only problem is, if I am ever allowed to bring this A Christmas Story theme to fully formed fruition, Billyboi's recent efforts kind of let the cat out of the bag. Still...nobody seemed to notice during the party. If they did, they didn't say anything about it. Still...

BRAVISSIMO!

(And kudos to Doctor Smith who claims, after proof-reading my article, that is was actually she who got the whole tree-on-the-roof-of-the-car thing rolling.) Bill took it one step further by disguising the trunk of the plastic tree with a piece of smallish tree trunk. VERY realistic!

I especially appreciated his (their?) taking matters into his (their?) own hands because it completely absolved me of all blame, even though it was I who broached the idea months ago and then thoroughly power-washed the car while I was power-washing sidewalks. But, a tree tied to the roof? There was no Triple Dog Dare, so whatever misgivings there may be...

No mea culpa!

His effort was as a result of an earlier discussion as to the possibility of decorating mi casa (in slight break of etiquette) by going against the time honored TRADITIONAL STYLE, which would mean putting my official FRA-GEE-LAY Italian Leg Lamp in the living room window of our house where would be displayed in flagrante delicto just as it had been in the movie. After the snap of a few sparks and a quick whiff of ozone, the lamp would blaze forth in unparalleled glory and bathe us in the soft glow of electric you-know-what. That glorious Major Award, coupled with the tree-tied-on-an-old-car idea and maybe....just MAYBE even an appropriately stenciled wooden crate on the front porch, WELL!... I think we'd have a pretty snazzy set up. This wonderful idea was (and still is) something my normally unconditional wife was having none of...

Unless we are to believe her post-facto claims...

A wonderful idea with wings, unceremoniously shot down by my wife, wielding an OFFICIAL Red Ryder Carbine Action Two Hundred Shot Range Model BB Gun (with a compass in the stock).

Doctor Smith says she HATES the movie, A Christmas Story because it is demeaning to women. I continue to tell her that the movie ISN'T ABOUT WOMEN, and it isn't about Ralphie's mother...DANG IT!! Ralphie's mother is only a fictional character who does not require saving and who does not represent woman extant. She is only in the story as a plot device to help keep the story rolling along. She is also there to ensure that the reader believes Ralphie and his kid brother exist in a complete, traditional family unit of that period in time. A family that also happens to be entirely fictional!

But I can't reach her.

The movie is about Christmas through a child's eyes. The Good Doctor apparently doesn't understand fictional but she sure understands what it means to be frictional! I get an earful every time it comes up and my replies are always the same. Besides, I'm sixteen years older than her and I was raised quite successfully in just that sort of family unit. Just look how good I turned out! Okay, maybe I'm a poor example but you get my drift. Society was around long before The Good Doctor was born.

Yes, back when dinosaurs roamed the earth, somehow we managed. Young boys could count on their mother to be called to the table for sustenance in the form of sticky mashed potatoes, boiled cabbage and meat loaf-beet loaf. Young boys could also count on their mother for firm, judicious guidance as how best to avoid shooting our eye out. The lesson being, the best way to avoid trouble is not to put one's self in a position to get into trouble in the first place. That lesson would occasionally be reinforced by poisoning us with soap. Fathers, on the other hand, teach us how to be men in a world that is full of trouble that is often times not of our own making. Sometimes, that means having a BB gun, because of creeping marauders and insensate evil. Trouble... like Scut Farkus with his green teeth and his yellow eyes.

But I'm getting off topic so, back we go....to the salt mines!

The final category of decorating is THE SHOOT FROM THE HIP STYLE. This is the category where my wife lives and breathes Christmas. It oozes from every pore in her skin. If there is some decoration that has gone unused or that can be pilfered from someone else's pile of Very Necessary Decor (meaning something I need to achieve fully formed TRADITIONAL STYLE) she will pick it up, carry it off and find a place for it.

Yes, Doctor Smith is the Trash Panda of Christmas Decor. Leave it unattended for more than a minute and she will claim it as her own and festoon any undecorated space with it, meaning that yours truly must sleuth around as if on an Easter Egg Hunt in order to recover all my missing Very Necessary Decor.

Now, after 20 days of preparation, decorating, checking on the weather every 20 minutes and seeing all my hopes and dreams go up in smoke, my personal 'tinsel' is usually in a rather large tangle. I am simply beat right down to my socks and not having much fun at all because the clock keeps ticking and I have to keep up whether I want to, or not.

But, the truth is, after many years of this Christmas party decorating I have come to realize, with freedom of expression (particularly when decorating for a holiday) comes a sort of catharsis. Don't believe me? Just watch kids decorating sugar cookies (usually by applying even more sugar). The cookies often look awful but, look how happy those kids are with food coloring staining everything that is within reach. Other than busting my chops over her perception of inequality for women in days of yore, the Good Doctor gets a lot out of making ready for the party. That ALWAYS puts a smile on her pretty face so I support her in that way.

Come to think of it, I may just demand equality for men and use that as a bargaining chip to get that leg lamp put up next year. Wish me luck.

Cheers,
TJ

[rickf]

Did you know that the house that movie was filmed in is up for sale? Or did just sell. The owner fixed it back up right down to the last detail, yes, including the lamp, along with several of the surrounding properties he also owns. That is not all that far from where you grew up was it?
I just looked it up, See link https://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/forsale/, The guy is selling the entire "campus". Tell the missus you want to buy it! Let me know when you are going to tell her, I want to be looking towards Texas from NJ and se if I can see the mushroom cloud from here! But I too also remember quite well growing up in those days even though I did not grow up in a city.

[m3a1]

I have been to visit that house, twice. Enjoyed it both times and only 5 minutes from the Cleveland airport.

They have an online catalog by the way =

https://www.achristmasstoryhouse.com/gift-shop/

So..... if you never got a Little Orphan Annie decoder pin, $8.99 will get ya one. Buy a few more for your friends and join the secret society!

Cheers,
TJ

[raymond]

Just remember to drink your Ovaltine

[rickf]

I lived on Ovaltine!

[m3a1]

Laced with.....?

[rickf]

That was the later years. Actually it was raw milk, Ovaltine and 4 raw eggs in a large glass. That was part of my weightlifting routine for several years.

[Mark]

I never understood why eat raw eggs?Seems to me they would taste better cooked.

[m3a1]

I don't need to lift weights. They're already firmly attached to my midsection so I just kinda carry them around with me....

[m3a1]

With the party over and the party not officially torn down but rather reorganized into tear-down tasks that are a bit more bite sized, I finally had time to address the matter of the Jeep's absent third brake light because getting an inspection was necessary before getting a title and registration. Several perfectly plausible options for hooking up said third brake light were shot to pieces by grim reality.

This Jeep had been built without a third brake light and also, without wiring for a third brake light. One thing was clear.

This wasn't going to be a walk in the park. Tiny vehicles are miserable to work on.

Xloflyer and I discussed this the night of the party and parade and, since he hadn't actually seen my new machine at that point, he very graciously suggested that I bring it over AND that we put it up on his lift, in his NICE, DRY, WELL LIT garage.

I call it the Taj Majal. It's very uptown and if I was ever envious of anyone, it's Xloflyr with his fabulous garage.

We made a date to sort this out and fellas, that was a date I certainly kept because somewhere up under the dash, was THE MAGIC WIRE that carried the power for the brake light circuit. It was somewhere between the brake light switch and the gadinker. We removed the driver's door and put the Jeep up on the lift. Xloflyr had already done his homework and could tell me precisely where the center of gravity was on my Jeep.

Pilots are all the same. Always worrying about CG...

Center Of Gravity Achievement Badge - AWARDED to Xlofyr!

With the Jeep up in the air, I could sort of lean in and get my porkies up under the dash, snoop around with a mirror and at least be in the same neighborhood as THE MAGIC WIRE...but, being in the same neighborhood isn't the same as being able to distinguish THE MAGIC WIRE from every other wire under there. It also isn't the same as being able to actually get to it without having to bulldoze part of the neighborhood to lay hands upon it..

much less being able to tap into it.

Embittered after putting in a lot of effort, and then getting ZIP, ZILCH, NADA as payment for all my trouble, I suggested we switch gears for a bit and check the front end to see if we could determine the source of the death wobble. My back was hurting after all the leaning forward and twisting so, going under the Jeep and leaning backward while twisting seemed completely sane. NOT!

Naturally, everything appeared to be absolutamente fabuloso despite its age. When you're looking for trouble, you can't find it. And if I can't squeeze trouble out of the front end, you KNOW what I'll do. I'll go looking for trouble elsewhere. So, we poked and prodded and picked at every little thing. We were picking away at the Jeep like we were looking for a reason to NOT buy it. Too late. I already DID buy it. I always wait till after I buy a vehicle before I thoroughly inspect it. But hey, that's just me.

Truth is, there was very little 'bad' to be found. Worthy of mention, there was not even a smidgen of rust. Dual rubber hangers for the aft end of the exhaust? Barely hanging on by a thread. It is 30 years old, after all. Hangers will need to be replaced. Rubber bushing for the radiator mount? Still there but just about done in. It will need to be replaced. Vent hose for the front differential? Also, just about done. Put that on the list. It will need to be replaced as well.

On the rear axle, the right rear landing-pad-thingy opposing the bump stop was missing. At least I think it's missing because there is one on the left rear. They're held in place by the U-bolts so the guys who put the lift on this machine failed to put it back on and now the missing part is probably gathering dust beneath some goober's work bench. All of this bump stop business is completely irrelevant because no one took off the originals and installed extended bump stops which are necessary because the truck was lifted by means of new springs with a far greater arch than the originals so, the stock bump stops are far too short. I eyeballed those leaf spring stacks and found them to be just a tad out of line with one another. Hmmmmm. That's a hint of trouble. So, I checked the nuts on the U-bolts holding the springs to the axle tubes. Not tight. Not loose, as in L-O-O-S-E-Y G-O-O-S-E-Y but still, they were scary loose.

Scary, like in a horror movie where the killer may be in the closet or maybe not. Anything can happen from that point on..

They fasteners were tightened to 40-45fp (1/2" U-bolts with 3/4" nylocks). Krikey! Thank God for nylocks!

Out came the tools and I was thrilled to have found SOMETHING that I could finally sink my teeth into. I was especially thrilled that this problem was also out in the open where I could get at it, unlike that mess under the dashboard. We laid on an off-the-cuff guesstimate of what was proper torque; a generous 100fp (probably should have been 90fp) and we stopped there. I should have taken the time to loosen everything up, check the centering pins, straighten up the springs and then tighten everything back down but the fact is, we had spent far too much time trying to sort out the third brake light hack to spend more additional time beneath the Jeep.

What should have happened with the springs didn't happen because I STILL didn't have a working third brake light and this was going way longer than anyone had planned. Xloflyr's buddy showed up. He's an aviation electrician. That means people trust that the quality of his work won't leave them stranded in the stratosphere without a parachute which is far different than being stranded alongside the road. That ALSO means he entertains himself with his multi-meter instead of playing Simon's Cat Bubble Pop on his cel phone, and he probably enjoys quality time in the bathroom with electronics periodicals, like Nuts & Volts. Having a verifiably skilled person added to the mix was welcome. Finally, a ray of sunshine!

NOPE. Sadly, no rays of sunshine.

The poor guy was as bamboozled as we were. Not because he lacked skills but because, like the rest of us, he lacked information and experience in the matter or brake lights and turn signals. Airplanes don't have em. Information or NO information, I had to move forward on the matter. To HECK with this! I am not tearing apart my Jeep just to satisfy the whims of some pencil neck, tanning bed-dwelling, safety geek who issues Motor Vehicle Inspection edicts from his broom closet sized office in Austin. He's a JERK and he's probably freshly transplanted from California and he hasn't the slightest idea what it takes to

Get

THIS

DONE!

In short, Pencil Neck Dude hasn't the slightest inkling all the trouble he's causing people....and probably wouldn't care, even if he did. That's the worst sort of person to have creating rules for the rest of us.

Aviation Electrician guy went home. Thank You for your help and your input, whoever you are. I am being sincere about that. What he certainly DID DO was confirm that we could not achieve what I, as a lay person, believed we could not achieve. The Gods of Lightning have spoken! After he departed Xloflyr and I did two things. (1) We removed an old wiring harness that went from the front end of the Jeep and into the cabin through a small port in the firewall (someone used to tow this Jeep with an RV or something). (2) We ran a hot wire and a separate ground wire from the engine bay into the cabin where it terminated on the floor to the left of the driver's seat.

I know what you'r thinking. Why not find a ground closer to the terminus? Answer - because every inch of this circuit was temporary. And you know know what they say.

"NOTHING IS QUITE AS PERMANENT AS A TEMPORARY SOLUTION."

Xloflyer and I went out for a couple slices of pizza...sadder for not having been quite clever enough to get this done, but wiser. I had a plan that I would execute at home, leaving Xloflyr entirely guilt free and with a conveniently ironclad alibi.

When I got home I ran another set of wires (hot and ground) around and under the back seat then up by the right rear mount of the roll-cage. I used entirely different colors of wire...just to keep things unprofessional. I installed my periscope-style third brake light (from a TJ Jeep) on the spare tire mount with two large magnets. Then I connected the rear set of wires to the light's wires. I hooked a plunger switch to the hot wire by the seat and connected the front and rear ground wire with a good crimp connector. I even went to O'Reilly''s and picked up a waterproof blade-type fuse holder and fuses of the same flavor as the rest of the fuses used in this Jeep (except the manufacturer of these fuses claim they glow when they blow).

Weird, but okay....whatever.

I installed the fuse under the hood and finally, I attached the wires to the battery clamps in a manner far better than this whole temporary THING deserved. Not my best work, mind you, but not Bubba, either. No one would look at it, point and snicker at the Jeep for unsafe wiring.

Press the plunger and BINGO! Houston, we have ILLUMINATION! No cut wires under the dash. No little blue splice-thingies all over the place. No curious wiring for the next owner to have to figure out. No errant black electrical tape. No muss. No fuss. No chalky feeling or nasty aftertaste.

Badda BOOM.

I drove the Jeep over to get it inspected. Inspector said, "BRAKES!" and I simultaneously stomped the brake pedal and depressed the plunger. It passed the inspection. To some of you, this may seem like something of a peccadillo on my part, but frankly, I can live with it. Tomorrow, the Great State of Texas will require me to pay motor vehicle sales tax of 6.25 percent on the purchase price or standard presumptive value (SPV), whichever is the highest value. Yeah, it's going to sting and yes, a few pennies of it are going to be used to pay Pencil Neck's salary.

It's a vicious circle.

Cheers,
TJ