Is Friday really your last day of work?
FOREVER?

 

Yeah that storm was something, I was working at the time. Worried my power or internet might go out but both stayed up all night. It rained off & on several times but the overall amount of water was not very much, I still had to water my tomato plants on Monday morning.

It would be nice if you can clean that work truck inside and out, but I do think it's crazy that it's all on your time. Oh well!

We had a nice cookout yesterday for Memorial Day, also celebrated my son's birthday. So I had my 2 grandsons over to play and swim, that was nice. But everybody was here until 8:20pm and I had to get up at 10:50pm for work, so I did not have very much of a nap.

You're a short timer now with only 3 more work days to go!

 

Yes Friday is my last day officially but when I called in to see what I have for Wed. I was on standby for Tues.
I was first put on 2 LP loads by 1 dispatch and told to hold on and the lead dispatch came on and side they gave my LP trailer to another driver as his was being repaired and because my trailer was set up for my truck I cant really use a different one with out making changes to my tractor.
So with that I was told it is slow so to come in and clean out the truck and they will pay me for the rest of the week.
As he said it is only 3 days, and if anything was to come up they would let me know but I think I am done

How is the truck coming along?
I think the last I heard was you had to work out the shift linkage for the auto transmission?

So if the power / internet goes out what happens to you?
Do you wait till it comes back on, if it comes back on that is.
Or do you have to head into a building somewhere?
It would suck if you have to use your cell as a hot spot to hook the lap top to.
If you had a inverter that plugs into a lighter you could power the laptop and charge the cell but think that would be really slow working

When I was in I.T. there was only 2 times I drove into work during a storm but it was only 2 miles from my house.
It was more so I could get to the systems as they did not have enough VPN ports for everyone working from home

As for the truck cleaning I am going in Wed to bring it home so I can clean out my stuff, use shop air to blow out the inside and then wipe it down before turning it back in.
I washed the mud off the out side a few weeks ago and even used soap a few times on the cab so the outside dose not look too bad.
So I will be a little busy Wed for part of the day.
Dave ----

 

Congrats on ending your time with a nice easy few days, I meant to text you Wednesday to say this but of course I forgot. The problem with nights, I see something but it's too late to text, so I say to myself "I'll do it tomorrow" but by then it's 12 hours later and I've already forgotten!

What happens if I lose power - I take my laptop off the docking station and just use it as a laptop, it will last about 2 hours. If power is out more than 2 hours I am kinda screwed. My previous department when we were based out of Wake Forest had a backup office in Raleigh off Millbrook but the department I work for now is based out of Maryland and everybody is remote with no backup. In 4 years it only happened once, but with no power at all after laptop dies I just say "sorry guys, can't work no more!" and go offline. And yes if internet goes out I have to use my phone as a hotspot, and it's really hard to open more than 1 or 2 applications on my computer, works really slow. I have done this several times. Luckily most of the time when internet access goes down it is due to maintenance and restores within 20-30 minutes. But sometimes it's a legit outage and and hotspot all night is the only thing I can go.

 

I dont miss the I.T. days and needing to do all that just to work remotely.
I always worked the help desk helping others to connect remotely so had to know how it worked LOL
I never had to use the phone as a hot spot but did make sure 1 or 2 time that I could just in case.

Again I was so close to the office on most of my jobs I just drove in.
It was nice as I was the only one in the office, could put on internet radio, crank up the speakers and surf the internet as most people did not have power or just did not care if they worked.

Yesterday I went in to work late to get the truck and brought it home to clean my stuff out and wash the inside down for the next person.
Mary went with me in the truck when I took it back and we both said our good by's to everyone as over the years she has talked to them also.

I am still on the bed by 8pm and up at 3am
Been eating breakfast and washing the dishes for dinner and breakfast before Mary gets up.
Going to head out to the garage and load up the old drain oil and take that to the dump. They only take 5 gallons a day and I may have a little more than that?

Also told Mary I would go to the gym with her today as I got to sign in or something before I can go by myself.
This way when I get up at 3am I can go and do my thing before the crowd gets there LOL
Dave ----

 

If I was that close to the office it would be very helpful whenever there is an outage, but no more... They sold our building in Wake Forest and now it's being used as a private school or something like that. A man without a country!

I went to the dump with more than 20 gallons of oil before, but this was the main one on 210, not the remote sites. I had been saving them for so many years thinking someday I might build some kind of burner for winter time heat in the garage, but that never happened.

Going to the gym at 3am, now that's a retired night shifter!

 

I went to the gym for the first time yesterday and got signed in so I can go when ever I want.
Did 3 miles on the bike and 3/4 on the tread mill while Mary did her thing.

I did not get to the gym at 3am but was there at 5:30 today and did 6+ miles on the bike in 30 min.
That was enough for the 2nd day. Got a good sweat going and my hart rate up.
The plan is to go 3 times a week and once I feel good I will work the weights some but for now I want to work on the hart.

When I do the trash today I will do the drain oil as I did not do it yesterday.
Mary also wants me to drive her to Cary.Think to return some sleep study stuff?
And here I thought I was retired
Dave ----

 

Sounds like you’re staying busy, and that’s good!

I would like to take you out to celebrate your retirement, you’ve certainly earned it!
Let me know your favorite restaurant, pick a date and we’ll go have us some good eats!
(Pick a day when John can join us)

 

Do I remember reading that you had some drive shaft work done locally?
if so, where & how much? I need to shorten mine.

 

Yes when I added the over drive unit I had to have the drive shaft modded.
It was on 70 Think in Garner? They do truck drive shafts just cant remember the name ATM
I will hunt it down in a bit
Dave ----

 

Yes when I added the over drive unit I had to have the drive shaft modded.
It was on 70 Think in Garner? They do truck drive shafts just cant remember the name ATM
I will hunt it down in a bit

edit
Stone Truck Parts, 1120 US-70, Garner, NC 27529

They had to make a whole new drive shaft as the one I took had a dent in the tube and he would not trust it not to be bent or weak.
I under stood 100%
He did use the transmission yoke but everything else was new. 2 Ujoints, 2 shaft yokes for the joints and the tube.

There are 2 ways to measure for the shaft, just tell them how you measured and they can adjust for it.
Weight should be on the suspension.
If the transmission uses a slip yoke push it in all the way and pull it out and inch. The seal should ride about where it was when used before if it is used.
Here are the 2 ways to measure:
Measure from the seat of the caps of each Ujoint
OR
Measure to the center of the caps of where each Ujoint would be. This can be kind of a guess to get the center.
Again tell them you pushed the yoke in and back out 1 inch and how you measure, to the seat OR the center, and you should be good.

On lunch let me settle in a little, this is all new to me
If you need a hand with the truck just give a shout, but I think you got most of the heavy lifting done now.
You still have the motor break in to do right?
Dave ----

 

I’ll give Stones a call to check lead time and also to see if they make custom high pressure hoses. I need a new high line for the power steering and at some point will probably want new A/c lines made up.
as far as lunch, just let me know, there’s no time limit on the offer.

yes, I’m starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Lots of little loose ends, but I think all of the heavy lifting is done. Just some more wiring for the Sniper, routing fuel lines from where they were w/ the YF to where they need to go for the Sniper. Final check of the linkage between the Trans and the column. Drop in the core support so that I can get the last couple of bends on the Trans cooler lines.Etc.
All little piddly things but no knuckle buster jobs left.

 

At the time my drive shaft only took a few days but I also told them I was in no rush.
If they were doing something that made someone money, truck down, then do that first.

Will let you know on lunch.

Yea the little things can take for ever to get them all done.
On the Sniper system I dont remember did you go with the v2 or v4 to fit on the Offy intake?
Someone was asking what was best to use and I could not remember even if not running yet.
Dave ----

 

Those transmission cooler lines took FOREVER!
As I often do, I decided to run them on a path that I wanted them to go rather than the way Ford did it. Being an Architect, I thought I had a pretty good handle on 3 dimensional vision. In this case, not so much. It kicked my ***. Coupled with the fact of working alone, I think I got under the truck then back up to bend the lines a little more then back under the truck to check fit. I counted one day 25 up and downs and this went on for days!
Im getting too old for this.

 

On the Sniper, I did select the 2V vs the 4V.
reason being, as we know, one of the biggest issues w/ the 300 is it’s ability to breath.
Given that the Sniper is a computer controlled TBI, I figured that because the 4V is rated @ 800 CFM and the the 2V is closer to 450 and most folks seem to agree that a the best size of a standard carburetor is around 390 or so . . . . rather than force WAY too much air into the intake and hope that the computer could compensate, I figured that if we fed the intake w/ approximately the maximum amount of air the engine can handle, the better chance that the computer had to get the A/F mixture correct at all conditions. I’ve also rotated the Sniper so that the butterfly’s are parallel to the length of the intake AND they tip down away from the head. That way, the squirt is directed away from the center cylinders, giving the front and back (outer) cylinders a better chance of getting a more similar A/F ratio as the middle cylinders.
Now I see that Holley has a 1V Sniper that is basically a computer controlled YF, similar to what I ripped out 15 years ago.