Painful desert reality.

I've been unsuccessfully trying to track down an electrical short that causes my brake light fuse to instantly blow when stepping on the brake pedal. Through process of elimination I've found it's not in the brake light circuit but rather something peripheral. Probably the ABS. Anyway, because I had the fuse box removed from under the dash I wasn't able to move my truck for a few days. Today I got tired of it so I plugged everything back in, started up the truck, and turned it around so I could work on the passenger side front suspension.

This is when things got ugly.

When my UCA snapped in the desert it had enough force to bend the shaft that holds the UCA in place and dent the coil bucket.


The shaft is cheap and easy enough to fix (cut the UCA in half to access the bolt, cut the bent part of the bolt off, throw out the old stuff, bolt in the new stuff). Willpower and a dead-blow hammer got the Fox coilover into the bucket but that dent is a concern. Along with the still-unsolved electrical short and the huge list of other outstanding items left to do I don't see how I'll be ready for this year's race.

It looks like I'm turning my attention to the 2009 San Felipe 250 in March or the Baja 500 in May for my first race.

Hardest realization ever.

 

I'm definitely gonna try. The bank account is pretty lean and I was hoping to hold off on further fabrication work until next year. I only have a few weeks left to submit my entry for the race and I'm still waiting on a quote from FuelSafe for the bladder for my race cell. That alone has taken months.

I should be much further along this late in the game, but I'll keep pushing forward with the things I can control and see how everything turns out. I kinda need the fuel cell so I can weigh the truck and properly valve the rear shocks, but I'm gonna guesstimate, hope for the best, and fine-tune later.

My hope was to have the truck completed so I could test for a month or so before the race just to make sure things are solid. Making changes right up to the last minute can only lead to bad things. I'll be wrenching most of this coming weekend so I'll see what headway I make. This might just be a bad night and I needed to vent my frustrations.

 

Dunno why but that really made me laugh. Dude, I needed that!

 

Turning wrenches solo at 1am on a broke-ass truck with a deadline sucks and it's too easy to lose sight of how worth it this is gonna be in the end. The disparity between your enthusiasm and my exhaustion was hysterical to me for whatever reason.

I blame lack of sleep and sobriety. I should rectify one of those, and considering I have go to work in a few hours I should probably go with the first one.

 

LOL! I hadn't even thought of how this confirms everyone's suspicions.

I had a '66 Mustang that I resurrected when I was 20. Every time I took that thing out on the road something else went. Totally takes all the fun out of owning a cool car!

 

Damn straight. Mine needed to have the bottom end rebuilt at 35,000 miles. That's completely unacceptable. These days I'm riding a Triumph and couldn't be happier with it!

Thank you!!!

 

is your triumph that big one that you took to Key West?

 

Yep. I rode my Harley to Florida twice but it never came close to the comfort and power of cruising on that Triumph.

The new bike also attracts random pink-haired girls. So I've got that going for me, which is nice.

 

I love girls with pink hair. Gwen Stefani...mmmm....

 

True. On both counts.