Boy's day out!

My friend Roger from Des Moines, not to be confused with Rich from Des Moines, called sometime last week saying that his wife had a girls day out planned and he was to be stranded....

Some background... Roger came out here by himself back in November, and stayed with me here for a few days...  He was looking at Real Estate down by Tucson...  And they came back at the first of the year renting a place from his wife's girl friend that now lives over in California... They never did purchase anything...

Since Tucson is more of a drive from out here in East Mesa, I only see him once in a while here in Arizona....  But..... this girls day out, was to be in Chandler...  So Rich and I went to get Roger at about 9 AM...

We had a boy's day out planned.....  The girls didn't seem to care...  Yeah I know...  none of my concern..

We started by going to North Scottsdale and a big Motorcycle dealership, that has all the brands in four different showrooms... Actual buildings with different addresses... but a common parking lot.  He told us they had everything except Yamaha...  I guess they didn't like the concept..  And Harley had to have a couple of businesses in between them and the rice burners..  And their salesmen had to have different colors on their shirts...

But we walked from Honda Goldwings to BMW touring bikes in a matter of moments..  The Harley's seem to be much more old school (dated) in their designs...  And so did the Goldwing for that matter..  We looked at Triumphs and Ducati and many others...

Next it was over to Dillon  reloading supplies for accessories for our ammunition reloading presses..  And then on to Twin Peaks Restaurant...... Uh, how do I tactfully describe that experience.   Let's see, short shorts and tank tops on waitresses.......  Yeah you get the picture.... I counted 40 big screen TV's in there as well...

I had a big burger with two patties and two cheeses and bacon and bar be que sauce.. Steak fries and a diet coke...  It was much better food than the Hooters fare that this place is in competition with...

From there we went back to our house out here in the East end of the valley and let Biscuit out for her duties...  We sat in the shade of the back patio and told lies for quite a while...

But then we went on to the Mesa Swap Meet with its many booths selling everything imaginable.  I think we were running out of gas by that time, and had to return Roger to Chandler...

Yep, a boy's day out....!

Retired Rod

Five guys and finding a friend at a swap meet...

Tow bars and the safety cables are usually quite safe....  But the coiled airplane style safety cables hook into the eyelets that are on the hitch and tow plate of the car and do assume that these items will not come off of their respective vehicles...

The hitch on the motor home is welded onto the frame of that vehicle....  These welds could crack, but having all of them crack enough to entirely drop the hitch seems beyond rare....  Now on the base plate end connected to the car, a set of cables is supplied on each side to further make sure that the base plate doesn't completely disconnect the towed car...

If all of the connecting bolts came completely loose, the base plate would come away from the frame, but the safety cables over the frame would limit the plate from falling off, more than a few inches..  In other words you still wouldn't have a complete disconnect...

The actual tow bar arms are reinforced with cables between the coach and the car's base plate... Having all of this fail all at once allowing the toad to go free seems almost impossible...  Of course you can never say never...

Rich and I have been rather lazy here, since his arrival... He has an hour's time zone change which messes up his internal clock..  So he is early to bed and earlier to rise than I am....  And we have enjoyed a leisurely breakfast...  Yesterday we were out to 5 guys for burgers and peanuts at lunch..

Then a trip to Ikea yielded us a new foot stool for a Po ang chair, that I already had... We went in the out doors to access the stock area bypassing all that long walk thru the warehouse areas...  We had an awful time assembling this stool once we arrived home...

Seems the hole drilled for one of the little fasteners was tilted and sticking the 4 inch long bolt into the wooden holes was so misaligned that the threads wouldn't start...  It took quite a bit of drill bit carving to get things to match up...  If it wasn't so far back over to Ikea, I would have taken the piece back...

This morning I went on the motor cycle over to Valle del Oro RV park and attended their Thursday Country Store Swap meet...   The place was swamped...  Not a parking spot anywhere... Hundreds of cars... I finally angled the motor cycle in between two parked cars...

I found my Bamboo socks lady right off, and purchased some new pairs...  Then just wandering, I found a fellow member of the Goldwing Club selling magnifier paper weights..  On the corner of his table was one of his air wings that go onto the motorcycles... I kind of wondered if he thought some of the RVers would know what they were...

I had to look at this fellow a moment to make sure he was the right guy, but it didn't take long to confirm we knew each other..  So rather than just purchase socks, I now have a set of these wings on order...

Let me explain a bit....  The Honda Goldwing is water cooled and has two radiators on each side of the cowling in front of your knees...  In the summer, overwhelmingly excessive heat pours out of these vents..  These new plastic deflectors channel the heat away from you as the rider...

I was really hot last summer when getting slowed down in nasty traffic... These come highly recommended...  They are much thicker in their plastic material and have very sturdy mounts...  I have my fingers crossed...

Retired Rod

Tow Bar and Lighting

There it is, a finished product....  Not much to see, but the tow bar is under the bumper and the lighting socket is in the middle...  I would go take a picture of the tail lights, but there is nothing to see back there other than the original factory lights...

The bulbs are inside of the the factory lights and all of the wiring is inside of the metal body..  The rest of the wires are under the bottom of the car...  At some point I will need to move the brake box break away switch...  This is on the front of the CRV back in Kansas...

Some states require this break away lanyard...  If all of the safety cables and the tow bar failed, the last thing that would happen would be this switch would be pulled out as the vehicle pulled away from the coach...

In theory, the brake box would slam on the car brakes...  Now no one would be steering at this point, so where would the car go....Even with its brakes on, the likely hood of something orderly and good happening, would be slim to none...  Most likely the vehicle would go off of the road and tip over..... or worse.....

So while I might transfer the box once I am back to the midwest, it would be about worthless...  I checked on ordering a new one, and it is $80 and shipping.....  Nope... I'll wait..

Installing the light socket was more about finding longer bolts and spacers to set it out away from the bar farther...  Checking the wiring harness with a multi meter found that my wiring on the motorhome and the CRV was all standard...  So wiring the Jeep in the same fashion solved my troubles instantly...

This morning my friend Rich arrived from Des Moines at Sky Harbor..  As usual, they wouldn't let me wait more than a couple of minutes outside the door while he collected his bags...  I had to drive around to the other side of the terminal when the cops moved me along...

That kept him guessing where I was outside and which door to find me beyond...  Kind of like a shell game...  Thank goodness for cell phones.....

Retired Rod

Wiring extra bulbs in the Jeep's Tail Lights..

Just as I was complaining that UPS didn't deliver my Amazon package, but rather sent it to the Post Office.... And the package had disappeared with no tracking info available.....

With a reticent attitude, I went to the mail box on Saturday afternoon, and there was the package...  The post office added only one extra day....  So... I ordered on Tuesday and it was here on Saturday...  A total of 4 days from Texas...  This was the free shipping as I am not a Premium member.  That's really a good deal..  I did have to pay sales tax however... My complaining wasn't warranted..!



I wanted to do this wiring project myself, because when I have hired it done in the past, they poke the wires along the frame next to the exhaust pipes...  The heat tends to melt the wire insulation... But that doesn't happen right away, but rather a couple of years later... After you can't go back and complain.. Sometimes they wrap the wires around the gas line like they did in the Honda CRV.. Electric wires around the gas pipe.......? What could possibly go wrong with that...

So I spent this afternoon engineering how I was going to install these light bulbs...  You have to take the tail lights out of the vehicle and drill a 1" hole in the side of the plastic light housing on each side...  I had seen on the internet how this was to be done, and drilling the hole wasn't too bad using a spade bit and running it backwards in the drill...  I can't remember who taught me that, but essentially you rub your way thru the plastic and it doesn't break...

The longer project is running the wire away from the exhaust... I decided to run it down the center of the Jeeps frame..  So with the various holes drilled along the frame and a coat hanger as a fish tape, I pulled the wire all the way to the front...

A larger project was to run the tail light wire from the passenger side across under the carpet to the drivers side of the Jeep... Its always such a puzzle to get things apart.  Of course I solder and tape all the connections rather than using the crimp splices that they provide....  All of this takes time.... but then I have a lot of that.....

I still have to put the connector on the front of the tow bar, and go over to the motorhome and figure out how it is wired...  For some reason, the round 7 connector on the back of the rig isn't wired like a standard connector...

Other than going to church this morning, that was my entire day....

Retired Rod