I worked on our vehicles yesterday, or, at least, two of the four that are still at home.

The Dodge needed brakes (it was shimmying hard at speed going downhill….so I guessed that a rotor must be warped or something) and the Mail Jeep needed….to be fixed.

The Mail Jeep leaks out of every orifice, but that wasn’t what I was fixing on it.

There was something moving around up front, clunking and shifting, when I drove it that concerned me.

I don’t want to lose my steering coming down on of the big grades on the route.

I don’t want the front end to blow apart.

(A couple of weeks ago, I fixed the brakes on the Mail Jeep. That was exciting….no brakes on Miller Mountain is not a calming experience. Turned out that one of the wheel cylinders was fragged and fluid was just pouring out of it.)

Diagnosing the latest problem finally came down to just wiggling a bunch of stuff connected to the steering box….and, sure enough, the steering box was pretty loose at the frame.

All three bolts, loose about a turn and a half.

That’s pretty loose.

So, I tightened them all and the Mail Jeep was back in business.

I also changed the oil….switched from synthetic 10w30 to conventional 10w40.

The Mail Jeep has over 260,000 hard mail route miles, so we’ll see what that does to the engine after a lifetime of only using synthetic.

It’s leaking some oil from what I guess is a front seal, and I’ve heard that synthetic is bad to leak, so maybe a change will be a good thing.

I’ll go with that hope….maybe a change will be a good thing.

I need to switch out the radiator, too, but that will wait for another sunny day.

There is something beautiful about the way a machine is put together.

Mechanicing is a good thing….but I sure do have to hit the Lava soap hard when I’m done.

It’s a good feeling to get close to understanding how anything works.

Understanding….I’ll take what I can get.