Electricians of the World, Rejoice! Your jobs are safe! Why? I am glad you asked that question. Quite simply it has taken me 8 whole hours to take the number plate bulb from this.
To this.
Now, I am embarrassed about this enough and, as those who have taken the time to follow the ramblings of this particular idiot will know about my loathing for all things electrical, but 8 hours to make a lightbulb work? Muppet.
Anyway, done now and I can move onto other stuff. Oh goody…more electrics… Ever since picking Woody up he has been rather reluctant to start on certain occasions.
Originally I thought this was a draw on the battery but checked this through and found nothing. On the day that I was supposed to meet Rian and Martin I once again experienced this reticence to turn electrical juice into rotary motion of the starter so had to face the indignation of using the Super Fiesta ™ to meet my other ‘Truckies’… I voiced my Holmes like deductions to Rian and came to the conclusion that it ‘must’ be a problem with the starter.
Now, I am going to have to call upon you to employ the ‘Theater of the Mind’ once again at this stage as I have no pictures of me taking the starter out, putting it on the bench and testing it (it was all good, thanks for asking). Once nestled back in the bosom of my small block, I turn the key and….
CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.
At this stage I reached for my handy, pocket size, copy of Roger Mellie's profanisaurus to bring to life my utter contempt and loathing for Edison and Tesler…. Ah, much better…
But, hold on a second… Hit key again and, as the bonnet (hood) was open I noticed a veritable 5th November (4th July) fireworks display coming from the negative battery lead. A quick feel of the cable and the 3rd degree burns to my palm indicated that I might have traced my problem (see I told all you electricians that you had nothing to fear…)
So, a quick trip to my local motor factors resulted in me procuring, these.
Which resulted in this.
Glad to report that turning the key now results in ‘Vroom, Vroom’ noise rather than CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.
HUZZAH!!!
Jumping around slightly I better explain the picture at the top of the page. For the more observant amongst you, notice the lack of Industrial girder style bumper for the more svelte contours of an original chrome bumper? Good…
So, on all of my trucks to date I have had the ‘dealer option style rear bumper and… I am not a fan. For those of you still awake you might remember my search for a rear bumper to ship back with Woody and I am glad to report that (hang head in shame as he has forgotten the guys name )came through.
As I am sick and tired of Electrics (did I tell you I hate Electrics?) and have to brace myself for the LM7 install, I thought I would add some Bling.
Armed with this.
Which I used on these.
Resulting in this.
I managed to remove the Girder with little effort, due to my Herculean upper body strength, Grrrrrrr….
Unfortunately, substituting great strength for a pea size brain, as already demonstrated by my 8 hour electrical marathon, meant that the Rubik’s Cube puzzle that was the rear bumper irons took a little time to work out.
However! I can report success as shown in the above picture. Now just need to make some Gravel Shields, tidy up the wiring and apply a little paint and we are good to go.
HUZZAH!!! again…
Please note that when I take the bed off to sort out a few bits and pieces I will be cleaning and painting the chassis.
Now, Remember this?
Well I thought I had solved it with this.
Wrong! However, whilst rummaging through the ‘Mystical box of bits ™’ I came across a Peep mirror that I had not got round to fitting to my BBW 56 Pickup, probably because the BBW rendered it superfluous…
So, lets throw it on Woody and marvel in the extra vision this would give my driving a LHD truck in a RHD world.
HUZZAH!!!!!
Oh Cock…
I have a funny feeling that I will be converting his Royal Woodness to a BBW sometime in the future.
Anyway, as it is cold and miserable (not as cold as Boston but still bloody cold for those unprepared, i.e Me) I decided to do some stuff, inside. Have to use the indoors voice because, as beautiful and understanding as my South African bride is, car stuff is VERBOTEN inside the house…
I purchased a ‘deluxe’ gauge set up from TBone64 which I planned to restore and upgrade with a Tach and Vaccum gauge. However, upon opening it yesterday evening I realised that, even though he told me it was a unit that needed work, IT WAS MINT! I can’t say how impressed I was and I have put up a separate post thanking him. What a top man.
Plans are to start fitting the gauge and tach this week, now if anybody has a vacuum gauge overlay they have that is superfluous to their requirements, let me know…
So that brings me up to where I am today, not sure if my ramblings are to all tastes but please let me know.
Until next time.
P.
