If You have A Stuck Bolt, Give Me A Call

Friday, May 1, 2009
Sunny, breezy, 67

Today our order from Jung's came. We ordered 3 black raspberry plants (Jewell Black), 2 Filbert or Hazelnut trees, and some Valentine Rhubarb! We got the raspberries put into the ground right away. They came as sprouted shoots. The others we got earlier are canes which look dead and are supposed to sprout new canes from the roots. Karen is certain they are dead as door nails. I remain optimistic.
One of the pear trees we planted is blooming! Yay! the other still looks like it may or may not wake up. Karen also thinks this one is dead. I don't think so.

I mulched the onions and raked some more of the garden.

After work, I decided to tackle the trailer hitch. I ordered the hitch for the truck, as well as the necessary wiring needed to hook up a trailer. It had come in the mail a few days earlier. I had made a few attempts to start by trying to remove some bolts from the frame of the truck. As I had anticipated, they were rusted solid under there. I used my trusty can of PB Blaster (that stuff works!), and swore a million times getting under and back up from my truck. looking for the right size socket, etc. Though I actually own no less than 3 socket and ratchet sets, somehow I seem to be lacking a 3/4 inch socket. Guess which size my offending nuts were? Go ahead, make the offending nuts joke.

In the following days, I chewed on my lunch plotting and scheming against those bad nuts. They were obviously in cahoots with a couple of real undesirable bolts. I plotted my revenge, and headed to Sears.

A few minutes later, I left Sears with a renewed sense of confidence, a lilt in my step. I had a new toy. I'd always thought my air compressor was lonely without a real air impact ratchet. Well, she'd need to pine no longer! Heh heh. That bolt was coming off. And in a hurry. With no smashed knuckles. Not hardly any effort on my part. And bonus - it would be with a satisfying vornado! of garage sound!

Now, don't worry I'm sure I will be able to find plenty of other applications for my air impact wrench. Farms are full of rusty bolts and stuff. And I got it on sale! I did pick up some necessary accoutrement's; goggles (cuz shit FLIES when you use one of these things, whee!), air tool oil, and some impact sockets. All I need.

Honestly, I wish I could have made it last longer. Those bolts unbolted in a speedy fashion once they had the business end of my air impact wrench ordering them to spin. They backed out in a satisfying cloud of flying rust and vvvvv vvvvvvv! I was wishing I had more rusty old bolts to unhinge. I started to think maybe I'll learn to do my own brake jobs. How hard can that be?

Not as hard as putting a 60 lb. trailer hitch on the back of a pickup truck! Now, basically, all I had to do was lift this hitch into place, line up the three holes on each side, and bolt it on. The hard part was getting it up there and holding it steady while putting a bolt in. I tried using two jacks and a crank, but it wasn't working. So I had to ask Karen to come and give me an extra set of hands.

She emerged from the house in a purple lounge suit, covered in a plaid quilted jacket. At least I got her a towel to kneel on. After lots of jockeying and excited talk between us, we got the first two bolts in, and the rest was all downhill. She went back inside to put Birk to bed, and I finished wrenching under my truck, listening to blues on the radio. Life can be good. Got the wiring harness all hooked up properly, and voila! We are in business and ready to haul!

I will admit, however, that I may have developed a slight hitch in my giddyup from all the rolling and thrashing on a cement floor, punctuated by a zillion repetitive stress movements of crawling back out from under the truck for parts and instructions, and from trying to bench press 60 pound with my arms and alternately my legs while gingerly applying a cross bolt. Man, I woke up the next morning feeling like a Bears quarterbck after a game at Lambeau. What is the name of their quarterback? Does anyone know who their qb is this week?