I'm going to do the hotel. It will end up costing about the same (or less) for the trip and I'll have hotel staff to clean up the grease left over in the shower.

 

Things seem to be coming along nicely...I'm sort of surprised the park doesn't have any spots for this weekend, there's nothing really going on up here right now. I guess this really is becoming a more popular tourist destination. Everyone's trying to get up here now before the lake starts to stink, it'll probably happen earlier than usual this year due to the dryness and the low lake level.

There's really plenty of room here for motorhomes. We can park them in the field on the north side of the house and run a couple of cords out to them, no problem. I don't know about a campfire, but we can fire up the barbie and watch the flames from the porch while we lounge in the hot tub...

Chet, do you want a hotel, motel or B&B?

As for directions, I've sent them to Mike, still need to send them to Chet and Sean. I'll do that in a few minutes. I'll go ahead and send you both directions to the shop, assuming that you'll be heading straight there. I'd like to be at work on the beast by 8:00 or so on Sat. morning...

Hit the wrecking yard today and located the perches we need, I'll pull 'em tomorrow after work. Got a few other things I need to grab at the same time if I've got enough time, maybe I'll pull out of work a couple hours early so I can do that. I'm way overtime on hours at work anyway, so I can afford to leave a little early.

 

I'll be looking for a hotel, but as long as I can get horizontal for about 8 hours, I'm good. You don't need to worry about me although I am open to suggestions. I'm a pretty spoiled traveler and tend to look to 3/4 star accommodations.

I can find a hotel as soon as I know where we're meeting. I have traveled a lot during the last 20 years and have never had a problem finding a place to sleep.

 

I just PM'd you directions. You'll probably want to look for something in Lakeport, as there's not much here in Kelseyville. It's only 5 miles farther, and is where the truck is at. I'd offer you accomodations here, but I don't really have any...other than the hide-a-bed on the front porch...

 

I have a nice tent and a couple of air matresses I can bring if people want to bunk up and sleep in it.

It has standing room and a couple of single air matresses. ~ 10x10. What I do is put a cooler between the air matresses as a side table with a portable lamp and beers/sodas in the cooler and I'm set.

The Motorhome has an outside shower for those that need to clean off or cool off quickly. Bring your swim suit for the spa, lake, shower. We'll just have to fill up at the State Park down the street if we get low on water.

Dan - Been thinking about buying one of those outdoor BBQ / Firepit. If I buy one of those and bring it along, cleared an area for use, we might be able to have a small fire in that. What do ya think? PM me and let me know. I wouldn't want to haul it up there if you didn't think it was a good idea. Thx

 

I am confirming that I will be there Sunday.

 

I hate to say it, but I'm not going to make it this weekend. I really wanted to be there, but my transmission is on its last legs, (i.e. just about to die-making funny noises and slipping bad....) and if I want to get it fixed I need an alternative form of transportation. I'll be finishing the bike's carb rebuild and tank reseal this weekend so that I can drop the tranny out of the truck next week.

Sorry to tease you guys, but I'll be there next time....

 

I have the rear and leafs pulled from the chassis out back.

I'm not sure on my travel plans yet, the wife has to work Friday evening and won't know until then whether she's working Saturday morning or Sunday morning.

If she works Saturday, I'll head out as planned earlier and be up by 2-ish or so and stay over on Saturday night, but if she works Sunday, I'll head out early on Saturday morning and target 9:00am arrival, but will have to leave in the late afternoon/early evening to drive back home.

It's never easy to plan anything with a pack of kids to tend to.

I envy Shamelss, he only has to worry about a dog

 

ShamelessMT - Sorry you can't make it. Looks like we will have enough hands however.

3Mike6 - Just call me on my cell tomorrow night. Or, you can call Dan on his cell or home phone to let us know when you'll be able to make it.

++++ Most of you should have Dan's cell by now if not PM him for it. He is the Point of Contact for this weekend.

I hope Dan was able to pull those perches today. If not, we'll pull them tomorrow or early Saturday most likely.

For me this will be my last email for sometime. Unless, I hit the Wifi Spot at the State Park over the weekend.

The motorhome is ready to go. Just finishing up foodstuff for the weekend.
I plan to meet up with Dan tomorrow at 2:30p-3p.

It looks like it may not be as hot as originally thought. That's great !!!

For those of you coming don't forget to bring a small ice chest for your drinks and food. Or, you could simply run down the street and pick stuff up at the store as you need it.

See ya'll in Clear Lake ... This should be fun !!!

 

There's a fridge we can use in the shop. I've got the swamp coolers working (or will after a wee bit more tinkering tomorrow.)

Pulled the perches today...what a PITA! So much easier to pull them when the engine isn't in the way, and of course the bolts didn't want to co-operate. But I got 'em...

Also found a nice set of 4-1/4" tall rear lift blocks, maybe AJ and I can pull 'em tomorrow (if I don't have them out already by the time he gets up here...)

 

Dan, I hope to make it up there one of these days, but for now, I can't.

Too much "carp" going on here, and work.

It would be cool to meet some more FTEr's; and see/help out on the project.

Ben

 

UPDATE: AJ arrived in one piece and has the motorhome parked next to the house. We hit the wrecking yard this afternoon and got the rear lift blocks, now we're just kicking back at the house and getting ready to watch a DVD. Tomorrow AM we'll see what we can get accomplished on the truck and welcome the rest of you as you roll in. See ya then!

 

Well, I called it in my earlier post. Stuck here today on overtime.

Hope you guys are having a blast. Please post up how everything comes out. I'm there with you guys in spirit. 'Cause I certainly don't want my spirit here at work.
Git'er'done, Tim

 

Like Tim, I'm stuck at work today too, then tomorrow take the kid to band camp by Auburn and back to work the rest of my shift. I hope to make a meet sometime this summer . . .

My spirit is there too, so if a beer comes up missing, blame it on Tim .

Good luck guys, keep up the good work!

Rich

 

Saturday went pretty well...Chet showed up around 10:00 or so and the three of us launched into the thing, cleaning parts, dissassembling the other front knuckle so we can replace the u-joints and ball joints and continuing work on the front spring mounts. Mike showed up in time for lunch and got an overview of the project, offering advice and suggestions. After lunch we did some rearranging of the work area to accomodate the rear end and engine he'd brought up and then Mike jumped on the rear end (he's quite the rear-end man...)

In our earlier discussions on rear ends we made a few determinantions: Tim's rear wouldn't work since the axles were missing and needed to be fine spline, all the axles I could come up with were course spline. Mike said he had a 4:10 Dana 60 rear end from a Dodge that we could use if we relocated the spring perches. Clint and I had measured the axles from the original rear end out of the truck several weeks ago while Mike pulled an axle from the Dodge rear end and we compared measurements over the phone. Mike's Dodge axles, while fine spline, were longer meaning the rear end was a couple inches wider. Not a problem for fitment into the truck, I was just hoping for an easier solution.

So Mike pulled the Dodge rear end out the vehicle it was in and loaded it up along with the engine, planning to either swap in into the project truck or swap the 3rd member from Tim's unit into it (since Tim's is Posi and the Dodge isn't.) He pulled an axle from it and stuffed it into Tim's unit, and found it a perfect fit. Not only spline-wise but length-wise. Perplexed, we took some measurements and found that Tim's unit was wider than the original out of the project truck...in fact, only 1/2" different from the Dodge rear. Turns out that we never measured Tim's from flange-to-flange, I only checked the spacing between the spring perches, that being correct I assumed all else was the same...wrong!

So the upshot of it all is that we now have the rear end from Tim mounted in the truck on the highboy lift blocks AJ and I pulled from the wrecking yard Friday afternoon with the axles from the Dodge and the brakes and hubs from the original rear end out of the project truck on it. Poor Mike didn't need to go to all the work of pulling the rear end from the Dodge and hauling it up here, all we needed was the axles after all. So guess who's S-list I'm on...

One thing though...the rear Tim donated has a nice pinion angle built into it that looks darn-near perfect for our lift, so no pinion angle-correcting wedges are needed in the back. Due to compression of the springs when we put some weight on it I think we'll still need a little lift back there (I thought we would) but all in all I'm pretty happy with it. Sure looks nice to have a rear end back in the truck again...

I actually managed to make progress on the front end at the same time, and finally solved one semi-major problem that had been bugging me.

Mike blasted off for home around 7:30, and now today Chet, AJ and I are preparing to hit it again, soon to be joined by Karl. Things are certainly shaping up, and AJ has been getting pictures as we go along. I'll give another update on today's progress tonight.