Shoppe Clean-Up and Mower Repair (Post #617) July 31, 2023

Broken Mower Part

No Land Rover content this week. I started the weekend trying to get the chores done first. Mowing the grass which grows at a ridiculous rate due the the wet July we’ve had. I’m cutting grass every week now.

I got on the mower and got my book on tape going [Extreme Measures by Vince Flynn the eleventh book in the series]. I kept hearing some odd noises, vibrating parts, and the engine was running like crap. Just last week I was evaluating how many more summers I might get from this mower while I was patching the holes in the tires with plugs.

I have been impressed at how trouble free this mower (Husqvarna 1842) had been with this being the sixth summer. I’ve only had one other serious repair. It was also a mandrel. I have also replaced one battery and before the summer is up, I really should replace all the tires.

After an inspection I saw the shaft on the mandrel wiggling like crazy. The upper bearing failed on the mandrel. So it wasn’t going to be grass cutting for the weekend, it would be mower repair. I looked the part up and found it had a John Deere part cross referenced. I went down to P&K Tractor on Highway 9. The parts guy was SUPER helpful. He looked up the part on several sites and found a part number at O’Reilly’s. Turns out in his words this was the most common bearing in the world. I was surprised how many different parts numbers were associated with it. I ran down to O’Reilly’s grabbed two.

The bolts (steel) were really stuck in the mandrel housing (cast aluminum). You don’t have to be a chemist to know this is a recipe for disaster. And that’s exactly what happened.

I wound up having to attempt to drill and easy-out what was left of the bolts. Broke two drill bits and eventually the mandrel. Four hours lost. I’ve ordered a replacement, it comes in this week. So I spent the rest of the day cleaning and organizing the shoppe.

I’m going to visit an old Marine friend of mine this week. Jeff was one of my closest friends in the Marine Corps. We went to boot camp together and artillery school. I haven’t seen or heard from him since perhaps 1988. Gonna be great catching up. RovErica’s kids are coming to stay with us this week too. With all this happening I don’t think there will be any video next week. But we’ll see.

Jeff and Bear
Heavy sigh.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Awesome Rig (Post #507) 7/31/2014

I’ve talked about JagGuy’s nasty hobby of bobbing deuce and a halfs. The picture is of his personal rig. It is simply awesome. The stance, the color, the massive 5 ply tires, it has “that look”.

While I waited for him to get back from lunch on Saturday I checked out his truck. I drove M54 the  5 ton version of this vehicle when I served in the Marine Corps Reserve. The summer of 1984’s Combined Arms Exercise found us driving the Wisconsin National Guard’s M35’s aka the deuce and a half. So I have a slight fondness for them.

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Everyone he builds he puts a different sign on. That’s his website, XM381.com. You can go there and see other examples of the trucks he has built.

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He has sources to vendors where he can get the replacement stickers. Ah….NBC…nuclear, chemical, and biologic warfare. Three of my absolute favorites!

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Kaiser Jeep built these trucks.

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Some views of the cab.

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Always a good idea no matter what you are driving.

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Danger! a slightly modified instrument cluster.

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Modified spring seats.

20140726_131300Waterproof radio with waterproof Mil-Spec speakers. That just looks bad ass.

I know you all are thinking how much? I actually have no idea. If you are interested give him an email. In our chat today we got to talking about his camper project. It’s still in the planning phase but I know its going to be awesome too.

Check out his page to see more about his trucks.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

 

#Hibernot (Post #439) 1/28/2014

What a great bit of advertising. I love the dog not moving when called with that, “I’m not getting back in the truck” defiance and little girl at the end trudging on behind her mum. Where do I get a #Hibernot bumper sticker? I’m all in.

I first saw this video on the Hooniverse website. I snagged this snippet from Land Rover UK’s website explaining Hibernot (Land Rover UK).

Winter. Hibernate? No Chance. #Hibernot

#Hibernot is about embracing the British winter, about enjoying winter in all its glory.

Explore what other people have been getting up to, tell us what #Hibernot means to you and search #Hibernot trails in your local area.

Doesn’t that make you want to go out in the 30 mile per hour winds with 48 mph gusts and experience the -10 F wind chill of the southern plains circa January 26th? Well no. But it does make me want to take my Land Rover somewhere remote and get out and enjoy, if only for an hour, the crisp clean air of winter and the sting of winter cold. The sting that reminds you of February, 1987 the winter that you stood in knee deep water running barbed wire for Dr. Kammerlocher. The sting that reminds you of the weekends you stood on the back of a M110 howitzer in freezing rain while serving your country in the United States Marine Corps Reserve. The sting that reminds you of camping with your friends (just for the fun of it) in period clothing from the 1750’s on the the Javine Farm near Barnsdall, Oklahoma when it dipped to 12 F overnight. The sting that reminds you of the cold air and snow down on the river below the dam at Bull Shoals Lake, Arkansas when you took Mrs. Okierover on her first camping trip in 2013. Simply, hell yes.

Hibernot means not shunning exposure the elements, but embracing them. You would not know winter if you did not have summer. If sweat had never run down your brow while you were standing in the 120 F heat of the high desert of 29 Palms, you could never appreciate the winter blizzards on the southern plains.

We will never be as “hard” as we thought we once were back in our youth. We will never be as foolhardy again either. So get out and enjoy the winter. Get out and let the snow or cold rain fall on you with a “devil may care” (Idiom) attitude. Then get in your Land Rover, turn on the heater, and if they still work your heated seats, and drive to a coffee house or diner and get a warm drink, then drive home remembering the good old days.

Toby Keith said, “I ain’t as good as I once was, but I’m as good once as I ever was.” (Youtube video)

Get out and enjoy your old self.

Thanks for reading, Happy Rovering, and Hibernot.

FINALLY!! Some Common Sense from Washington, D.C. (Post #420) 12/12/2013

One of my home state senators, Tom Coburn, has introduced a bill to get rid of the Renewable Fuel Standard ethanol requirement. As stated by the senator,

“This misguided policy has cost taxpayers billions of dollars, increased fuel prices and made our food more expensive. Eliminating this mandate will let market forces, rather than political and parochial forces, determine how to diversify fuel supplies in an ever-changing marketplace. I’m grateful my colleagues on both sides on the aisle are prepared to take this long-overdue step to protect consumers and taxpayers from artificially high fuel and food prices.”

You could not be more right Senator. And to put the cherry on the cake the Left-est of the Left Senator Frankenstine Finklestein Feinstein of California Über Alles is a co-signer! Who said congress was unable to work stuff out?

Of course this is a long way from passing. And the effin’ president will probably kow-tow to the mother trucking-tree-hugging-special-interest-save-the-planet types. But at least they are trying. Who could be against cheaper food and fuel? Idea-logistic morons, that’s who.

Yes, that is a long line of US Marines.

We’ve been on the wrong side of bills before.

Like when this crap legislation was passed the first time.

To say this bill was a HUGE handout to oil and gas companies and the energy sector would be an understatement. It was meant to subsidize their activities and it did. It originally even exempted oil companies from disclosing what chemicals were used in their fracturing fluid and exempted them all from the Clean Water and Clean Air acts. This was later repealed.

One thing this bill did do was increase production and today we are better off than ever due to advances in technology. Unfortunately this bill also had an unintended consequence of causing food prices to go up. Which helped farmers get higher prices for their corn but cost us all with higher food prices.

So let us all hope this bill passes isn’t amended too many times and stuffed full of pork for the states and gets passed. I’ve been against this from the start and dearly hope it passes. Interestingly enough Hilary Clinton was against it and Barrack Obama as a senator from Illinois was FOR IT. Funny how times have changed.

Hopefully the suede-denim secret police will stay away and we can get this legislation passed.
Thanks for reading, contact your representatives, and Happy Ethanol-free Rovering.

Beards Made in America, Ooorah (Post #416) 11/22/2013

Beard Care That Cares | stubble & ‘stache
I have several friends that are beard wearers. Notably The Evil German Dude and +Frank Keller who my children call Frankenstein. Mostly because my kids have grown up seeing him as a freakishly large man with a lot of facial hair. I know him to be the giant teddy-bear his actually is. The legend is that Frank has had a beard since he was in 5th grade. If memory serves he came to Newcastle that year. I know I was in the 6th grade when I heard that rumor and I’m sure that by the time he was in middle school Frank was at least a by-weekly shaver. Remind me to tell you the story of Frank and I’s ninja-attack-kidney-punching semester sometime.

I could not grow facial hair until I was around age 20. I had been in the Marine Corps three years by then and mustaches were all the rage. This was the early 1980’s so try to remember Freddie Mercury, Geraldo Rivera, Eddie Murphy, and of course the amazing Tom Selleck (People magazine). Classic 1980’s mustaches. Thusly, I tried to sport a mustache. I fell short of Eddie Murphy’s and in short, it was pathetic.

I saw this clip on Military Times’ Battle Rattle blog. It is very funny and quite manly. Enjoy.

I snorted out loud when he tells the angel he has crabs! Hilarious!
So if you are one of the manly men growing a beard this No-Shave November buy some of this product and enjoy your beard while helping out some of our troops.
Made in America. Ooorah!
Semper Fi, Nick.

Thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.

Cutters? (Post #415) 11/21/2013

If I said, “Cutters” to you would you know the reference?

I ran across a photo today that brought to mind a movie I really enjoy every time I watch it, 1979’s “Breaking Away”. I watched this movie on a VHS tape for the first time in the early 1980’s. I was serving in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, I was going to the University of Oklahoma, I was the son of a civil servant (F.A.A.), and we were the definition of middle class in Oklahoma at the time.

So if you know this movie you can imagine it struck a nerve when I watched it. I didn’t fit in with the Greek fraternity/sorority scene at the university nor did most of my friends. I was fiercely proud of my independence and my disdain for those things I considered the realm of the rich (like food, spending money, and automobiles that ran EVERY TIME you turned the key to start them) was almost visible. My friends and I even got a softball team together and played one season in the Intramural League. We called ourselves Gamma Delta Iota (GDI). If you were a frat you knew immediately what that meant. We were outsiders. (See also, Revenge of the Nerds (1984), Better Off Dead (1985), Sixteen Candles (1984))

I paid my way through school, no help from my parents or the public through grants or loans. You see, we were middle class and I did not qualify for public assistance. As a matter of fact, my second semester I needed help with tuition. I asked my parents about “the college fund” that was supposed to be put aside from the proceeds from the stud fees on my dogs, it didn’t exist. So I asked for a loan to be paid back in two months from my Marine Corps pay. “No.” was the answer. A week after tuition was due and I had withdrawn from school, my parents bought new furniture and carpet for the house. The jumbo bonus was my mom had secured a janitor job for me at T.G.&Y. from her boss at the newspaper who it turned out was also the manager at the T.G.&Y.

Things haven’t changed too much today. The poor, or economically challenged, or what ever you want to call them get assistance from the government to go to school. The rich, you can imagine generally don’t need help getting their kids to the university. So I watch my middle class kids pay for their college with loans and a little hand from the Mrs. and I when we can. It makes you wonder if there really is a “class war” in America. The ultra-rich stay rich, the moderately rich are taxed down to the middle class, the poor are assisted in order to achieve the middle class, and the middle class remain in the middle riddled with the debt to keep them there.
/end rant

Sorry for that. You don’t come to this website for social or political commentary so, back to the movie. Well for one thing, its great. I highly recommend it.

I ran across this picture today on the Just a Car Guy blog (he re-blogged it from another site, Illusions of Insite who re-blogged it from Entertainment Weekly. That’s how the interwebs work.)

Imagine how I enjoy this picture!
I’m already writing the sequel in my head. And frankly since there are no “new” movies in Hollywood I’m surprised some “B” studio hasn’t optioned it for a remake. They’ve remade nearly all the 1980’s great movies, time to slide down into the 70’s. Hell, they’ve remade “Robocop”….ROBOCOP! Really? How do you remake greatness? Do you think they’ll make it closer to the book like they did with the brilliant remake of “True Grit”? That’s a joke of course. The book was written after the screenplay and is different from the movie. Insert eyeroll here.

Okay, lets clear somethings up.

  • I have rich friends, I have middle class friends, I have poor friends. I hold no animosity in any form toward any of them. My rich friends got their money through damn hard work. My poor friends work harder than most people do and who could begrudge any of that?
  • This post oozes irony…
    • I am fiercely middle class and independent. It is ironic that I have such disdain for the Greek system yet I belong to the largest (and most deadly) fraternity in the world, the United States Marine Corps.
    • Today, ironically, I drive a car that only rich people could afford brand new.
  • I am no longer angry at my parents (deceased). It sucked at the time to be told no to my education. I’d be lying if I said I didn’t resent it at the time. It sucked a little harder to be out of school and a janitor again. But I learned a lot from that. And for the record, T.G.&Y. turned out to be one of the funnest jobs I have ever had.
  • I really don’t want Breaking Away remade. Please Hollywood, I’m begging you on my knees, stop re-making movies. Write something original and add to the mystic of your venerated Hollywoodland. As of the publishing of this blog post no jackass in Hollywood has planned a remake. You could see the soul of Hollywood escape the minute they started filming a live-action movie of Scooby Doo.

Once again, sorry for the soapbox, thanks for reading and Happy Rovering.