Pay Before You Play

Today has been one where I've taken advantage of a fortuitous alignment of the planets to get some long-standing chores out of the way.

Marilyn has departed to points east to visit with Missy and Vi, Gretchen has flown toward Gratis, and I'm full of energy thanks to about 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep. So, I used the opportunity to knock off some Jeep maintenance prior to our mountain trip. The brakes were squeaky, the heater blower only had two of its 4 speeds (loud and "What!!!???"), and the parking brake would only hold if it was uphill in both directions from where you parked.

On my way home from Wally-World this morning, I stopped into the local auto parts store and picked up new brake pads for all four corners. A four hours and a pending hernia later (33 x 12.50 tires are heavy), the Jeep stops on a dime, the emergency brake holds like a champ, and the heater now has 4 speeds.

The brake job took about an hour, most of it spent cleaning up the old parts. The e-brake fix took 5 minutes with a wrench and a pry bar to hold the linkage, but the replacement of the resistor for the blower took forever and a day. I spent nearly an hour trying to find the stupid thing. It's just a flat resistor, held in with two screws, with a 5 prong plug on one end that fits into the air distribution box near the blower. The genius who designed the Jeep put it directly behind a heater duct, and camouflaged it with a courtesy light and a 4-way junction in the wiring harness.

Once I found the thing, removed the light, loosened the duct, and warped the wiring harness out of the way, it only took 15 minutes to find the right sort of 5/16 inch wrench to remove the last screw. Putting the new one in took 3 hands and about 10 minutes of finagling to get the thing into the hole around the heater duct and wires. Putting the last screw in was a contortionist's nightmare. I was literally upside down between the passenger seat and the underside of the dash.

The only good part of the whole chore is that the resistor I bought months ago was the right part. That and the fact that it's done.

Now that the Jeep is cool for the trip, I get to spend tomorrow cleaning the camping dishes, and packing all the various tarps, tents, chairs, tables, stoves, saws, axes, lanterns, and sundries into the trailer so they can be unloaded in the order they're needed and ride without shifting.

Like I said, you've got to pay before you play.

Stay well.