A Truck Weekend

As I mentioned in my previous post, I picked up my "new" truck on Friday evening. Suz and I drove out and picked it up. I took a can of gas with me because I knew it was low on gas, and the last thing I wanted to do was run out of gas on the way to the gas station. After we got all the paperwork taken care of we headed back home, with me in my new "unknown" truck and Suzie following me in my Neon. I never did get a chance to drive it over 35mph the time I first checked it out, but I was pleasantly surprised--It drove real nice at all speeds. After we dropped it off at home we capped the evening with a good meal at a tavern here in town.

We intended to spend Saturday up at her house, with me washing and cleaning my truck and Suz doing things that she needed to do. Before we left though, I needed to address one repair on the truck: The squealing power steering belt. It was horrible. After I delved into it, I discovered that there was an belt alignment issue with the pulley right above the power steering belt, and they had probably purposely left the PS belt loose in order to give it clearance. Well, that may have worked when the belt was new, but it didn't work now. I got a new PS belt and shimmed the other pulley outward to provide the right clearance and alignment. Nice and quiet now just like it should be. It was pretty embarrassing to drive that way...

Suzie had a pressure washer at her place this last week for purpose of cleaning off her deck (which now looks awesome by the way). I started to wash the truck out with the bucket and mitt, but at her urging opted to use the pressure washer instead. I'm glad I did--I didn't know how hard it was going to be to get clean until I started in on it. The people that owned it lived under large evergreen trees, so I doubt if the sun ever did shine down on anything they owned there. It's no wonder that my truck had green all over it here and there, and had pine needles in every orifice. It even had a couple of rodent nests in it under the hood.

After spending all afternoon doing that, we switched gears. Sarah's school was having their Homecoming bash that night, and Sarah asked me to come down and take pictures of them. Her and a few of their friends were meeting at a local park for the purpose of taking pictures before they jetted out on their evening of fun. Sue and I both went down there and took about 100 pictures of them all. They were sure decked out nice! I uploaded all the pictures on our picture site for everyone to enjoy. Teresa was there also and spoke with Sue freely here and there. It's good that everyone (i.e. Suz and Teresa) gets along, but I have to say it's weird--I don't know anyone that can relate to that happening to anyone they know. We spent the rest of the evening up at Suzie's house. I bought a giant Papa Murphy's stuffed pizza and we had a few of her family over for a pizza and beer fest. After they all left we were bare-assed in the hot tub for the rest of the night. It was a great day!

Today? What else--More truck stuff. I spent all day out here in the driveway with it. Cleaning, cleaning, cleaning. The more I dive into this truck the happier I am with the condition it's in. Noplace I've opened up has any evidence of rust. Sure, there's some surface rust here and there, but no rust-through of any kind. I had to really do some digging today too just to get all the pine needles out of everywhere. Under the floor mat (it's mat instead of carpet) and inside the cowl under the windshield area were the worst. I really wanted to get the floor mat out badly though because that is an area that, left neglected and wet, will surely end up rotting a floor. Thankfully, mine has no rot anywhere on the floor even starting. There was plently of moisture though, and it's all drying out now as we speak. I also listed the tool box that it has on Craigslist today. It's a pretty nice tool box, made out of aluminum diamond-plate. Here's a pic:


Tomorrow will be my attempt at getting it licensed. I drive right by a license agency in Kent on my way home and I like that one better than the one here in my town. I'm going to at least get it put in my name, but I'd like it licensed too for obvious reasons. I'm going to use my cousin Melinda's address as I previously mentioned because she's out of the inspection area. The owners gave me a copy of the emissions test they got last time they tried to take it and it failed so miserably. The gal said she was mortified at the time because it even set off some alarms or something when she was there it was so bad...

It was a fun and productive weekend!