truck

Auxiliary truck lighting and 110V wiring.

Posted on December 24, 2017 by akadventurer

I now have a 110V cord hard wired, or permanently mounted anyway, in my truck. Run from under the center of the dash in the cab, out the firewall, and ending in the drivers side inner fender. Should come in handy for any 110V current tools I might want to run off of my power inverter.

I’ve actually wanted to wire a setup like this in both the front and back of the truck for a while, just never got around to it.

So, Why now? your asking…

Weeeeelllll….

What do you get if I’m bored, not feeling the season, wanting to do something festive, and just plain silly fun, and have a brand new 20′ spare set of Christmas lights just laying around?

😀 😉

Cut up a couple old cords, one from a dead fan, the other from a dead string of lights, to make a small extension cord. Cord ends wouldn’t fit through the hole in the fire wall, and I needed a custom length anyway, so I put it through, then installed the 2nd end, thus my now permanent cord.

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Dug out the old power inverter I cary in the truck;

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Lots of zip ties;

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And voila!

😀

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Yes, I know I’m a total redneck… And that I’ll Never live this one down. But its just so freaking cool to drive around!

One guy that passed me on the 4 lane, as he went by me slowly, his passenger suddenly did a double take as they came up even with my front fender… The guy just about Garfielded himself on the window! Just so hillarious!

That reaction alone was worth it if no one else noticed… And a lot of other people noticed. Got lots of smiles out of people on our quick trip to town last night.

If nothing else I “lightened” up a few folks evenings, hopefully for the better… Definitely got me feeling a lot better!

Next year I’m thinking I’ll hang a wreath in the middle of the grill, and light it, and run the other lights on out down the full bed length. 😀

Merry Christmas everybody. 🙂

Categories: Adventures, Alaska-Life, Automotive Work, Christmas, Custom, Customized, Decorating, Fabrication, Funny, GetOutdoors, Good Times, Just Plain Fun, MacGyver, MacGyverism, mechanical, Modifications, Sillly, Silly, truck, Truck gear, Winter

A first since the 80s!

Posted on June 3, 2017 by akadventurer

A current trailer plug on my truck!

Been spliced into twice before, but no added plug on it now, and I don’t remember the factory one being hooked up either.

I didn’t want to cut into the old splices since they’re solid and transferring power past them, and cutting them out runs me short on harness length… I’m lazy. Someday I’ll clean them up. I added a splice where I could.

Temporary mount till I find my die grinder, and can open up the hole in the bumper (why on earth do these plugs have to be 2″ in diameter!??!) Hole was from the small factory plug, that wasn’t hooked up.

Proof is in the pudding they say… this time it’s in the trailer!

MacGyver would be proud… lol. How to hold the brake to check tail lights by yourself.

Categories: Automotive Work, Electronics/Media, MacGyver, MacGyverism, Modifications, truck, Vehicles

Midnight in the garden of good and….

Posted on June 3, 2017 by akadventurer

….Electrical problems. Which are very close to being evil! 😉 :p

Not what you wanna be doing at midnight(yes, it’s that light here at exactly 12am! ) …

Wired in new trailer wire plug on my truck(1st time it’s had a current/useful trailer plug since the 80s !). Got all done, works great, then notice I have a truck tail light out.

Uhuh. Trailer lights still ok. Hmm.

Check bulbs, ok.

Start tracing/probing for power before my splices, and after… at the socket… good past the splices for 4″ I can see, nothing at the socket…

Normally I’d have ignored it for a day or two till I could trace the 4′ of remaining harness. But I had to be in town to the trooper sub station/dmv in the morning. Uhuh, not doing that with a light out. 😉

I cheated and spliced in, and ran a new bypass wire for the tail light on that side. 😉😈😇

I’ll go back and pull the old wire and see about sheathing this one later when I have more time.

I hatecwiring/electrical/electronic work. Although ironically I find it very interesting and intriguing! And amazingly I’m getting passable at it. Ha!

Categories: Automotive Work, Electronics/Media, Fabrication, Improviser, MacGyver, Modifications, truck, Vehicles

Milk crate traction.

Posted on June 2, 2017 by akadventurer

Amazingly, these things wee originally used as a milk bottle carrier… I doubt most people know that. I didn’t for years…just figured it was an odd name, if I ever gave it any thought. To most of us, they are simply The greatest portable step/stepstool in existence.

Especially the older metal ones!

If you can find them. We always had 3 of them, one that I adopted and carried in my truck for forever, one that’s had a broken top as long as I can remember, and one with a Christmas tree stand permanently wired to the top (raises the tree for clearance under lower branches for packages and watering the tree).

About 3 years ago, I lost mine. Had to climb into a dumpster to dig for something of sentimental that was accidentally thrown away… when I found it and headed home, I forgot the crate by the dumpster. Oops. Couple hours later when realized, it was already gone. Someone here picked up a great find, a metal crate at the dump that night. Lol.

So, I’ve been carrying one of the modern plastic ones in the truck for a while. Nothing wrong with them really, they work fine. I just miss my old metal one.

So. I had this chunk of steel diamond plate I scrounged last summer. And some time to kill. And my welder already setup. 😆😇😆

The plate was too wide one way, too narrow the other. Cut it down to fit. Turned out to be tough tempered plate, should wear great for eons.. The 1/2″ or so on the other axis doesn’t bother me.. Still sturdy enough, and won’t hurt anything.

I really, Really, REALLY need to practice my “out of position” welding (technical term for any welding not on a flat, level surface in front of you…) Turns out it’s a bear to weld the inner lower corners/edges of a box! Whether laying down, or stood vertical.

Inner welds look like crap, but will hold more than enough.

Outer edge welds were a lot better, right up until I ran out of welder wire. Ha! Will have to finish it later (if it ever seems to need it)

1/2 can of Rustoleum gloss black later, and I have a fancy, rugged, heavy, should last a lifetime step! 😎

With a younger sibling

Categories: Custom, custom-made-tools, Fabrication, Modifications, old tools, Sentimental, truck, Welding

Spring time catch up.

Posted on March 16, 2017 by akadventurer

Been a while. It’s either been a lot going on with no time to post, or I’ve been sick as hell(flu, twice through, laid out for 3 weeks, then almost gone, got too cold working, relapsed, and now running into 6 weeks total) and literally Nothing going on to post about.

Anyway, here is a random slew of pics from the last couple months.

Moon and Venus.

My first day out snowshoeing.

Recent knives used and the books I was reading that week.(for a forum thread)

Dads stainless handle Sabre jack knife that lives in the den, which is currently the reloading room.

Case hobo and an Alaskan cookbook

225 grain LWN (long wide nose) hard cast .41 caliber bullets I ordered from GTBullets. 100 lubed and sized for $13, even with $6 shipping, it’s almost cheaper than I could cast my own.. And is considering I can’t afford the mould right now! 😉

Cleaning up an old Schrade USA stockman, a 8OT , that a friend gave me last summer.

Knives and guns, notable pairs, (for a forum thread )

My Beretta. 45, that I’ve now amazingly had for 10.5 years! And the custom Andy Sharpe coffin fighter that it’s come to live with. I rarely ever carry one without the other.

My Mom’s Liberty Mustang .22 and Dad’s Case peanut.

Most sentimental pairing; my Ruger Security Six 357 mag. Which has belonged to both my older brothers, and my Dad before me. With Dad’s Western brand hunting knife.

New stuff, second week of March, my takes from the EDCC (edccommunity.com) passaround box.

Old style finned bomb shaped beads are a fad right now, had some shop time so I tried one. LOTS of work to get the rounded nose, and fins. Had to freehand the cutters on the curve, and lots of file work off the lathe. Too time intensive to make many of them, but I might still..

A slew of pocket dumps, in mostly cronological order, late Jan. to now.

On my knees in a sniw bank digging out firewood at 0F or 10F. Something like that. Proof that I wear my guns working, they’re not babied. (Much.. 😉 )

Simple day last week, hour or two after dark working on firewood. Headlamp and the bluetooth speaker did constant duty… I zip the speaker into a mid layer pocket, hit Google Play, usually Springsteen, and have music wherever I am while working.

Yesterday’s carry, 3-15-17, an outside day. been cooped up sick, wanted to get out and work for a while, puttered around with a few projects (most of which involved shoveling snow!).

Cousins. Both old used and worn, but great Schrade USA stockmans. Large 8OT, and medium 34OT.

My Titanium Eng1nerd Prangler (mash up of key dangler and pry bar) is getting some great coppery brass colored wear stripes in its anodizing. The things that swing and rub on it are brass and it sort of burnished onto the area as it rubs.

And, more of 3-15-17… got the sled out for a bit.And found out how out of practice I am… Was stuck a total of three times! Oi. Thankfully all within ~100 yards max from the house! God is good to me!

Categories: Adventures, Alaska-Life, Beads, Clothes, Custom, custom-made-tools, Daily-cary-log, EDC, Field Notes, Flashlights, Guns, Hanks, key-chains, knives, Leather, Modifications, Multitools, New Gear, No-pain-no-gain, old tools, Outdoors, Pocket knives, Reloading, Sentimental, Theory/Thoughts, titanium, truck, Vehicles, weather and seasons, Winter, wood processing, Woods tools

An interesting event the other night..

Posted on April 9, 2016 by akadventurer

I think I need to change the belts on my trucks more often… Opened the hood the other night to add power steering fluid while in town (it leaks… bad..) and found this;

And, then this, the other one, completely off, laying on top of the engine… Not good!

I was blessed though, to find that before the battery went dead (one that was completely off is for the alternator ) and even more so, before the other broke leaving me with no cooling..

I limped it home slowly at that point. By God’s grace, I made it without losing the second one!

Spent the next day sorting some belts that a friend gave me a couple summers ago,

And managed to find 2 to fit the fan/power steering, one to go on and a spare. Had to go steal one off of my broke down mud truck to get the alternator belt.

I’d call that a win though; Crisis avoided, and a no investment fix!

Categories: MacGyver, Outdoors, truck, Vehicles

Some adventuring!

Posted on March 5, 2016 by akadventurer

ATV covered with snow after a day out;

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Some of the ruts I left in the 16” to 20”+ of snow;

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HUGE birch burl I found;

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Its even on my property!

I actually knew it was there, but hadn’t gotten close to look at it, I though it was a big growth of Chaga(tinder fungus) that I was going to look at harvest, when I discovered it was a burl! Bad since I now need to find another place to get Chaga, but great since birch burls are pretty rare here, and I can do a lot with this one! Just gotta cut the tree out without dropping it through the power line its next to… 😉

My home away from home on the weekends;

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These little king salmon are one of the many reasons I go there…

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Here are some of the other reasons;

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Categories: Hunting, Outdoors, truck, Winter

A little winter time prep work…

Posted on January 26, 2016 by akadventurer

Or maybe repair work is more accurate. Some prep work for doing repairs, while preparing for the rest of the winter?

lol. Anyway.

Another thing I did Saturday, was finally taking apart my snow plow hoist motor (it started sticking while plowing a couple months ago, would lock up and I’d have to rap on the motor to get it to let go and run again. Real pain to get out and do between passes… )

(Not that it matters but this is on topic because I used my carried Leatherman box wrench to break lose the bolts, and the 1/4 drive set that’s EDC’d in the truck to take them out. )

Yup, I think it needs new brushes….

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Not bad though for about 40 years of use though .

40 might actually be a little inaccurate, but I can remember 20 to 25 years where they weren’t replaced, and I don’t remember Dad ever talking about having replaced them at all before that, or ever… He got the hoist(a Meyers E-46) around/between 78 and 80.. The date on the bottom of the motor from the factory is 11/20/74…

I’d say its at least 30 years. Heck, even the 25 years I personally remember is pretty good!

(for those that don;t know, the motor runs the hydrallic pump that pressurizes the ram to lift the plow.)

I’ve been trying to do an educated guess at a run time that might be on that motor every year, but there are a lot of variables to consider… too many I think. Figure we plow an average of 4 or 5 times a winter for our yard, which is about an acre more or less to clear, and then probably half of the years we did the road, which is about a 1/2 mile. I make probably 40 passes or lift cycles every time I do the yard, probably the same every time I do the road.

No idea what to add for when I’ve hired out to plow for neighbors the last few years.

Each cycle has to be 15 to 30 seconds of run time on the motor under load, heavier load if its colder/the fluid is thicker….

yeah. A lot of run time, even if its in short bursts.

Categories: EDC/MT use, Outdoors, truck, Winter

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