The 12 Days of Christmas Okierover Style (Post #232) 12/20/2010

7th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…20
Seven-ty thousand sparks a flyin’.

I could have probably said seven scars a scarring. Hot embers from the cutting wheel rested on my skin so many times I stopped counting. One time the hot ember landed in the palm of my hand while I was cutting a nut off. It burned…a lot, but I wasn’t in a place to stop so I powered through it. The mental discipline the Marine Corps burned into me comes in handy ever once in a while.

Chicks dig guys dressed in red who bring them presents driving sleighs and guys with scars driving Land Rovers.

The 12 Days of Christmas Okierover Style (Post #231) 12/19/2010

6th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…
A friend with several 6×6 trucks.

My best friend JagGuy has been converting M35 6×6 trucks to “Bobbed Dueces”. He is amazing at seeing a huge, slow, decommissioned truck and seeing it renewed into a new toy for big boys to enjoy.

I drove 6×6 trucks in the Marine Corps. They were 5 ton trucks but for the most part they were identical except for the weight. I really enjoyed the first ride I had in it. It was great and brought back a lot of fond memories and perhaps a few not so fond. To quote or perhaps paraphrase the famous baseball player Chico Escuela, “The Marine Corps was berra, berra, berra, good to me.”

I learned a lot about driving off road. I learned there is nothing better than an M110A2 howitzer to pull a very stuck truck out of the mud. My very good friend Bear Bechtold and I were truck drivers together and managed to get our 6×6 stuck TWICE in the same day. Stuck, like buried all the way to the axles.

Trust me when I say, that truck weren’t going no where but down the more we let the wheels spin. And for the record, we were ordered to drive down there. You can tell this was a generation ago, from the old school poplin BDUs and the World War 2 style helmets we used to wear. Good times, good times.

The 12 Days of Christmas Okierover Style (Post #230) 12/18/2010

5th day of Christmas my true love gave to me…
Five bolts to turn.

You could probably count to 50 the number of times I turned a set of five bolts on this restoration project. Just on the hubs alone there are
5 bolts holding the ABS ring on
5 bolts holding the hub to the brake disc
5 bolts holding the half shafts to the hubs
5 lug nuts hold the tire on

FIVE BOLTS TO TURN!
Can be sung slowly and loudly, because you’ll turn all of them at least 5 times. Nothing will make you wish Santa brought you an impact wrench and a proper air compressor this year than swapping the brake discs.

The 12 Days of Christmas Okierover Style (Post #229) 12/17/2010

Fourth day of Christmas my true love gave to me…
Four discs to replace.

You never really appreciate the systems that make stopping possible until you can’t stop. With that in mind I knew the rotors and pads needed to be replaced. I had rebuilt the calipers just two short years ago. This project required me to partially rebuild two of the calipers again this time around.

Now we have four new discs, all new fluid, new pads and this Classic stops faster than Santa’s can bring those reindeer to a halt on top your roof.

The 12 Days of Christmas Okierover Style (Post #228) 12/16/2010

On the third day of Christmas my true love gave to me…
Three rusted holes to patch

I’ve been battling rust on the Range Rover ever since I got her in June of 2000. Finally the rust won and took out several sections of the floor pan on the passenger side.

The good news is I’m going to learn how to weld. The bad news is I don’t think this will be the last time I have to weld a new piece of floor in.

Mrs. OkieRover won’t have to worry about freezing cold slush and ice shooting up her leg.