Odd sping heads' up

[Ridgbak]

--I replaced my left front spring last Saturday. We took the 7-leaf spring off the '85, for the '86.
--The busted spring was completely seperated from the rear mount, with just a 1-foot piece and the rubber grommet still connected.
--Taking off that leftover piece was a real pain. The bolt wouldn't come out, and that's what broke it.
--In a forensic investigation somewhere between the X-files and the Simpsons, we deduced that the bolt had frozen itself into the steel sleeve that runs through the center of the rubber. This meant that every time I put a load on it, like towing my 9000# water trailer, the bolt, frozen to that metal sleeve, wouldn't flex and roll. Every time I accelerated, it was like bending a paper clip, untill the metal fatique was finally too much.
--Once I lost the first leaf, 3 more went quickly, until they all broke.
--Complicating things, the front shackle, still being connected fully, pulled the left side of the differential forward. We had to slap a come-along onto the hitch and crank it back so the pins would align.
--Never thinking to lube these metal sleeves before, I pumped the greese to 'em.
--This is the first time I've seen or heard about this little snafu, and it can really ruin a good ride. :D

[ March 04, 2002: Message edited by: Ridgbak ]</p>

[Don S]

Ridgbak.........."For want of a nail...there go I??"...What was the toung load? :eek: :eek: ...How much ($) is the water? ......wondering what the name of the Mountains means?.........don't mean to be nosy :D ;) .......ds..

[64Trvlr]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Ridgbak:
This meant that every time I put a load on it, like towing my 9000# water trailer, the bolt, frozen to that metal sleeve, wouldn't flex and roll. <hr></blockquote>

I guess if you are hauling water that you don't live at Dove Mountain. LMAO
:cool:

[Ridgbak]

DonS-
--For want of a nail really nails it. (sorry)
--The water runs about 1-buck per thousand gallons.That's not factoring in the cost of the trailer, and fuel. The trailer is a stand alone pressured water system, like a fire truck. I have an adapter that allows the Jeep to fire it up...We're in the boonies here, and water, (wells), are a head ache, a lot of my friends borrow it. The cost in barter is a 12-pak of Longnecks.
--As I mentioned in a previous post, half the 12 mile trip back is a 6-mile long constant grade. The speed limit is 50. A hugely irritating speed with a load on a grade. The tranny wants to go 2nd -to 3rd every 3 seconds, and to run in 2nd is death at 110 degrees.
--AND it is everything that the Jeep not appear wimpy by doing 40, which 2nd could handle. I'm funny that way. :D
--Tortolita means, as of this morning, Little Turtle.
--Being here, smack-dab in the middle of the hottest environmental battle on the planet, the folks around here can still not agree on the translation of the Tortolitas into english. I have a ball raggin on the Liberal Democrats, Republicans, Libertarians,Green Party, Anarchists, and the occasional oddball, such as myself, into simply excepting the given name and forgoing the translatory crap.
--Romantically, I like "little turtle dove kachina in love", but (I'm in the minority).
--With regard to nosin' around, I will answer any question put to me. I'm one of the few die-hard 4-wheelers around here. Yet, all of a hundred friends that I know, ( I am the town chef),have 4wd's. Regardless of political affliation, when it come to 4-wheeling, yuppies to the core.
--DonS asks about Dove Mountain, a 'gated community', that has taken about 7000 acres on the southern foothills of the Tortolitas. I live 3 miles east of them, and have been battling, really fighting, with Cottonwood development, for 7 years.
--That development cut off my 360 degree capability to toolin' around the whole range of the Totolitas. AND they were settin' golfcourses, and just scraping and raping. I have a whole different attitude between personal property rights and corporate property rights.
--Early in their development, they were doing some very bad things, and I was VERY active in the trails. I would fly my ultralite over the property and photo the... indescretions...
--When they started showing properties, after about a year of scraping, they sent a couple of lawyers to my place to inform me to cease and desist from tresspassing. They knew I had flown over, they hired a PI to find the plane.
--I was standing on my porch, .45 on my hip, and my (then) four rhodesian ridgebacks were automatically and calmly seated around these two 'suits', and they have the cojones to threaten me with legalistic bancrupsy(sic).
--I put them back in their Ford Bronco II, and told them, since they were tresspassing, having ignored the "NO TRESSPASSING- SURVIVORS WILL BE SHOT, AGAIN"-sign on the gate, that they had to BACK OUT of my property. A 500' tightly winding rock-lined 12' wide road. They looked like the ball in a pinball machine. Ping'in off the rocks with the back bumper, the dogs walking them out. LMAO
--Next day all I did was send the pics I had to the office, and I got a master gate key for all the fencing.
--To really cover my legalistic butt, my Mom was retiring from Boston, and I bought her a house in Dove Mountain. Not only was this a good buy, but, [though too young for residency], I am a full chartered homeowner. The crap Cottonwood now has to put up from me comes with the full complications of a web-savvy homeowner.
--As the matter of the Existance of the Town of Tortolita comes before the US Supreme Court, I browbeat all these political hacks and reporters into safaris in this old Jeep into seein' what they are about to loose.
--In the Tucson Weekly, reporter Chris Lambaris eludes to the Jeep as Lee Iocoaca's last great effort, as he was forbiden to mention my name or vehicle type. ;)
--I don't bother with a well, drilled around here to 1000' and $30.000+, when I can tap into the main that runs about 300' away from me. They want 20k to tap in. When I sell I'll tap in. It'll add 50k to the value.
--This property is spec, and in 7 years it's gone up from 5 figures to almost 7 figures. When we decide to sell, and build morgage-free on 40+acres, with dirt trails for thousands of acres around us, new each day, then I'll rid myself of this tiresome polit-crap.
--64Trvlr, see, I answer to the extreme...go 'head, ask me another... :D

[porkchop]

Wow! Now that is a response. I may have to come out that way and check it out sometime. So is that community for mostly snowbirds?

[64Trvlr]

<blockquote>quote:</font><hr>Originally posted by Ridgbak:
--64Trvlr, see, I answer to the extreme...go 'head, ask me another... <hr></blockquote>

OK........What's your point?
I know all about Dove Mt as I used to live on Thorneydale. One of the many reasons I moved.
:cool:

[Don S]

THANKS RIDGBAK..I don't know if I'd have done the fly-over...they might of had SAMS.. :D I've got two big lots near Belen NM. without water rights and no service..........No I didn't buy them.....Nearest water is a mile away and I have the choice of city water or the Rio Grande river. :( .......it was a land swidle 'bout 40 years ago....Had not thought about that type of trailer........thanks mucho........ smile.gif ...ds..

[Ridgbak]

--Porkchop, roger the snowbirds. As of yesterday I am 5 years away from the age requirement of 55 to live there.
--When not Jeepin' around, I use one of my cammo'd golfcarts to pick up pure quartz rocks in the area. These carts are '85 electric EZ-go's, and they'll haul half a ton of these rocks per load.
--Occasionally, I'll head over to Dove Mountain in one, or more w/ buddies, metal targets on the back where the bags go, no tops, and shotguns in a rack up front. We park w/ the others in front of this swank clubhouse, and it empties out every time. I think they all wonder where Granny and Ellie-mae are. ;)
--Because the color and type of carts in this place are regulated by the CC&R's, it really upsets the management to see me coming. I did promise to bring them over less often if'n they upgraded the single-malt choices in the bar. They complied.
--With regard to the water tank: watch out for the PVC-types, as UV will make them pretty brittle down the raod a bit. To power it, slap on a Sears Jet-pump, and get a little ac-converter for the Jeep. You can run a hose right to the spicket of the house and pressurize the whole system, or use a holding tank.
--Point? I need a point? Hell, where's the fun in that? :D