I’m surrounded by stuff at this desk that I sit at to write this blog.
I see a light sabre…..and a hot glue gun…..my hat….a new sim card for Isaac’s phone….lots of other stuff.
There is life going on around me….that’s for sure.
I changed out the u-joints and hubs on the Cherokee yesterday.
It wasn’t hard to tell that the u-joints were bad….rusty and dry.
I took one side apart and each cup of the joint was full of dry and broken needle bearings….bad. It’s not supposed to be like that. They should be greasy and shiny.
I took the other side apart and two of the cups didn’t even have any needle bearings at all.
How do the needle bearings get out?
Do they just turn to dust and blow away in the wind?
If you watch the beginning of this video, you’ll see what I did to change out the hubs…..and you’ll get to see what I have to do to fix the thing that I discovered I had to do….but didn’t have the time….or the parts….or the tools….to fix when all the beginning stuff in the video was still off the Jeep.
I guess that’s the way it goes…the deeper you get into something, the more you see that needs to be fixed.
The upper ball joints are kind of loose really loose….so I will have to tear it all apart again….and then go deeper…..deeper…..deeper…..tearing more apart as I go…..until I get to the point where I can fix the thing that needs to be renewed.
The thing that I do with this car is a really crummy way to treat a vehicle.
If I was a Jeep….and I had feelings…I’d be pretty sad when they put my steering wheel on the right hand side of the car.
I might have heard the stories out on the line.
I might know what was coming.
I’d be sad to be a mail Jeep.
Anyway….I did the job yesterday that I’d been putting off for weeks….and it wasn’t any harder than most of the things that I’ve done to our cars.
Every thing that I do with these cars gets me over a hump of apprehension.
I can do this stuff.
I CAN!!
If nothing else….to be out in the gravel driveway…..covered in grease…..looking for that 13 mm wrench that was “right here”….but that’s under my knee now….if nothing else, it teaches me that I can muddle through these car repairs….and save us some money doing it.
That’s kind of empowering.
Man…..thisĀ knowledge does make me sore, though.
Kneeling in the gravel all morning makes my body hurt….no matter how empowered the final result of the experience makes me feel.