dirtbagging [part one D].

Do some maintenance to old beater Toyota pickup.

After reading super-helpful posts online that give great instructions, and tapping the tool shed and expertise of a handy father-in-law, fix the classic sagging rear end by spending $36 on a pair of Add-A-Leafs and $50 on a couple of new shocks.

To start, it helped having a real floor jack, and then a couple of jack stands to keep the entire rear-end of the truck lifted while we worked, which also allowed us to remove both wheels (giving us more room to work).

Before I say anything else, I must say that Scott's 'cheater bar' was my best friend today, mostly in the removal of the four (times two for each side of the axle) 19mm bolts that were torqued to probably 80 ft lbs. I had sprayed them with PB Blaster earlier in the morning, which may have helped. But either way, with that cheater bar it was just a matter of slowly pulling and every bolt came undone.

In short order, we had the rear springs disassembled and ready to insert the Add-A-Leaf -

We smeared the anti-friction pads with marine grease and inserted the AAL -

After calculating the length of the new 3/8" centering bolt (and sawing it to that length), we had to figure out how to line up all the leaves to get the bolt through them. We ended up clamping all five together with Scott's giant C-clamps and then tightened the new nut onto the bolt, before reassembling the U-bolts.

Then it was time to quick replace the rear shocks -

And soon enough the first side was done (new shock and the AAL is the black leaf second from bottom, or the overload spring) -

We worked together on the second side (while K took some photos) -

And then it was done, too -

It may not be easy to tell between these photos, but the difference in the lift was immediate as soon as we dropped Stuart back to earth...

[Before - taken the day I got ol' Stuart... ]

[After - note the difference in the amount of space between the wheel and wheel well in the two photos... ]

Anyway, now he is level and, according to Scott, can probably handle another 600-700 pounds in the back. Next... get the exhaust system redone (at a shop), and maybe replace the front shocks. Then he'll be ready for Part two... building out the back for dirtbagging.

miter saw stand.

It's a sickness really. This whole thing about not wanting to get rid of stuff. I guess the reason is it's paid off... a lot. Like the scrap cement board I had held onto for years that happened to fit perfectly in the space I cut when we tiled behind the washer and dryer during that part of our remodel.

Well, I had this table I built for a darkroom that perfectly fit in the bedroom closet of my old apartment (before buying this house - and yep, I used to be adamant about developing all of my own film and prints) -

Heck - I even had it in the basement here up until a few months ago when I clicked this photo (and some others) before finally disassembling the whole darkroom to make room for the gear cabinet.

But that tabletop... it was kind of solid, and so - for some reason - I held onto it. And a month or so ago it hit me - it perfectly fit the miter saw! See, almost every time I used the chop saw I brought it out into the driveway cos I needed more room than I really had on my shop table in the garage. And each time, I'd scrounge around for some 8' scraps of plywood or 2x4' or whatever I could find to fashion some sort of table that would hold my workpieces and notebook and various squares and tape measures etc. (or just plop it on some sawhorses).

It was kind of a hassle.

Enter... the old darkroom table -

I did find some scrap - from old window screens I had built (I always always always save scrap wood, speaking of sicknesses) - to reinforce the edge with the side cut out of it.

Then drilled four holes, and got some 1/4" T-nuts, bolts, and wing nuts (for quick release, like I did on the shop table years ago) to hold the saw down on the table while I work with it -

It holds everything I need, and easily stores away in the garage. Boom.

garden bed[s].

I've been promising my wife garden beds for a while now. So after spending last weekend in on-again-off-again weather in the mountains - knowing this weekend called for rain - we stayed home to be productive, wiring the garage lights and then - building garden beds.

It started a few weeks ago when we scoped out the southside yard that we knew would be a perfect spot for beds - a) cos the grass pretty much fried last summer and we didn't feel like keeping it and b) cos it gets lots of sun. Oh, and I had a bunch of cedar leftover because I had miscalculated when I built the fence - but it came in handy for these beds. I threw together a quick design, then went to work notching all the ends on the table saw - enough for four beds.

A quick test for squareness and to see if this design would work -

(The 4x4 posts were from back behind the garage - they've been there since I moved in, so I finally found a use for them... )

Then we borrowed my father-in-law's rototiller to dig up half the side yard - the thing just loved to dig, it was like a pup on steroids. Oh, and his posthole digger. Father-in-laws can be a good thing to have around, particularly the handy variety like mine happens to be. K turned the dirt, and I got to work building the thing.

Had to make sure it was level...

It went together really easily. The part that almost took longer was digging dirt from our dirtpile that we made when we cleared the space for the patio. We also sifted dirt from our compost pile using an old screen -

Finally, as it started to rain, K did what she's probably been dying to do... plant the seedlings we picked up at the Farmer's Market in town the day before...

And boom. Done. I just need more of those little plastic 4" caps, and I'll also likely stain it to match the fence (the skinny plank dark, the fat plank light).

crazy light.

We were out working in the yard a couple of Sundays ago, trimming the trees, when something miraculous - which I had never witnessed in ten years - happened...

A low layer of grey clouds hung in the east, while dark storm clouds moved in from the west. But, for a few moments, the sun dipped below them and above the horizon - bouncing its last-day light off those low clouds in the east, reflecting back to the house, lighting up the front (which faces east) at sunset. Spectacular.

In a few minutes it was over, and the rain started to fall in earnest - soaking us as we hurried to get what we could fit in the yard waste bin to be recycled...

garage lighting [part one].

I guess after ten years of having a bare light bulb hanging up in the center of the garage and barely being able to see anything in there at night, it was time to amp up the lighting. Randomly, on our traditional Memorial Day camping trip to Salmon La Sac, we passed through the ol' town of Ronald and - lo and behold - off the side of the road some dude was having a yard sale and selling four fluorescent light banks. He had $15 marked on each, but all I had was $40 so I bargained him down to that much for all four. Boom.

After spending the better part of an afternoon a few weeks ago diagraming the garage circuits, I figured out what I had to do. I seriously don't know how electricians work... I've been as bewildered about wiring circuits in my house as I was about this one in the garage. Whoever wired it up decided to bring in power, then split it so half would go to a light on the backside of the garage, while the other half would go to a box in the middle of the rafters where that bare bulb hung. From that box, he/she brought power back to a switch, as well as split it out to the far corner.

Then there's another circuit that has a switch by the backdoor - I'll get to that next, when I install and wire three exterior lights in a bit.

And lastly, there's a whole other circuit that comes in the side, and seems to be powering a single outlet that is on the outside of the garage. There's a dead wire that just ends (of which I'll connect a receptacle so I can run power tools off that 20A circuit instead of the one now with all the lights), and a 220V outlet in the other far corner (that I know my old neighbor Trevor tapped into while he was building their house next door and living in a trailer, but that was before I had bought this place).

So anyway, wiring schematics are fun, but it was time to install these yard sale lights...

First I went around and just hung them all with self-tapping screws. And yep, that circular box is where the bulb had been (I pulled the wire running back to the switch cos I was going to use as much of that 30' or so as I could to string between the four light banks - instead bringing in power from the box a foot-and-a-half away).

The corner was sort of a mess... The outlet is where the one circuit I was messing with came in, and the box above it is the other circuit (which just held the splice between the cable that came up from underground and the one that ran to now-gone exterior lights - of which I'll install three new ones soon and redo that box - heck, I'll even cover it so there won't be bare wire splices just hanging out). The switches then on the right flipped on the bare bulb and an exterior light on the backside of the garage (handy - but I'm going to replace it with a motion-sensor light I picked up at a garage sale a month or so ago for $5 so the new switch will just stay 'on').

A closer look at the two boxes for those circuits...

And the new switches - the one on the right will be for the new lights, the one on the left is for that backside light...

But since I wasn't using the end-line circuit the crazy electrician had wired, I had to pull power from that outlet box where the circuit from the house was coming.

Easy-peasy. I just pigtailed the hot and neutral to reconnect the receptacle, while pulling power over to the switch and then running each light fixture in parallel.

And done...

Then it was finally time to, well yeah, string the cable between all four fixtures. This, uhh, took longer than expected...

I was sort of killing myself working with 12-gauge cable (I could've used 14, but it's a 20A circuit and so whatever - the newer 12-gauge seemed more supple than the old stuff I pulled and reused, but that could also just be cos that cable is, well, probably thirty years old). But after a couple hours it was done, and the garage now has a bit more light than that bada** bulb was putting out...

So yeah... next will be wiring and installing those three exterior lights (I picked them up years ago at - yep - a garage sale, so I'll have to spray paint them an oil-rubbed bronze to match the front porch light and backdoor light that cost a touch more), and then installing that garage sale motion light so when we go back behind the garage to take out the compost after dinner it'll light the way for us...

dirtbagging [part one C].

Fix simple things, like instead of some hack found on Youtube to keep the rear window open - just Google the factory model # of the lifts and spend twenty bucks at Amazon to get a new pair.

The lock was a bit more ($50), but probably the same price as taking it to a locksmith and having a key made (actually, I have no idea how much a locksmith would cost).

dirtbagging [part one B].

Slap outdoorsy stickers on canopy.

dirtbagging [part one A].

Have old beater pickup (preferably late 80s/early 90s Toyota)... check.

Find old canopy that a) perfectly fits it (even if it'll need some parts which, spoiler alert, will be part two) and b) offers elevated headroom... check (thanks to some guy K found selling one on offerupnow).

And... already returning, loaded with gear from a weekend adventure in the North Cascades...

Part two will include replacing and adding some parts before building out the bed to let us dirtbag for real... at last!