Recent content by irish44j

Some progress on the hitch . Added some gussets (ironically, which I cut off of an old hitch basket that I repurposed for the Mighty Max trailer, so it's pretty beefy). End caps of the main support beam, I chopped some tubing so as not to have squared ends (knees go OW!). The open top will be...

Taking a little break from the Raider for the moment (I do have one smallish thing lined up, but we'll see if it works out), so let's go back to the Sequoia. As much as I love the Raider, I would eventually like to do some longer-distance (poss. cross-country) trips in the coming years. And...

Well I hope you all had a good Christmas or whatever holidays you're celebrating this time of year. I had some free time on Christmas eve and the weather was nice, so time to get a bit more past the point of no return. After thinking on it I decided the only practical way to bring hot air from...

And let's do some more stuff. But first, my birthday was a couple days ago so my wife/kids/in-laws got me some stuff: 1. a gaudy yellow Rotopax for diesel. I'll just replace the white water tank on winter trips (frozen water isn't useful anyhow) if I"m using the diesel heater. Otherwise, it'll...

So for a while I've meant to finish my upholstery. Much of the truck I did in VW Westphalia upholstery fabric, which was pretty $$ as cloth goes. But my rear platform looks ratty, and the front one has black fuzzy carpet on it that I can never get clean... So I ordered some more of the...

I assume it will be no surprise if I'm doing more storage refinement. You may recall I have a zip-up cargo net on the rear door (a repurposed overhead roof net), but the zipper broke on it - it's not made to hold much weight in that direction. Overall, it just turned into a catch all for "stuff"...

Just to wrap that up, added the LED license plate lights, which also act as the bolts to hold the plate on. From eLED, nicer than the ones I tried from Amazon previously (hopefully)

Ok, time to tackle those projects. First off, replace the U-joints on the main driveshaft. I don't do U-joints very often and find it takes me 3x as long as it should and I always buy a spare one because I'll likely mess one up, crack a joint top, or something. In this case, lucky I did since...

Allright, let's go local tripping again. This is our annual trip up through Dolly Sodds, Canaan Valley, and Blackwater State Park in W. Virginia. Bigger group than usual with about a dozen rigs, but as always Andy had it all planned out for us. We met up with about half the group out near...

Well, I'm back on the "essential" list at my agency so I've been going to the office for a few hours a day to do "the most essential" work (but still not getting paid, like all the other gov workers...) so plenty of time to do more projects. So getting to a few things I've had in the planning...

Finished my "kitchen table" which plugs into my 1 1/4" secondary hitch receiver on my left side swing out. Hacked-up Amazon UTV cargo basket, an old street sign, and some welding.. Now I don't have to carry a folding table inside this tiny rig, and can also carry more firewood out to the...

Finishing up the interior updates today. First off, needed to make something to cover that rear corner vent. A decade ago when we took out our gas fireplace I saved the front screen of it, which is nice mesh, so I dug that out of the shed and cut myself a piece A little shaping and some...

...and to follow on to that last post, this morning I drove to work, signed my furlough paperwork (yeah, have to do it in person, annoyingly), and headed home to do some projects in the perfect weather. First up, something I've been meaning to do for a while. My Sequoia has an 8-foot awning on...

Headed out for another weekend trip with some of the usual crew to GWNF, up to Flagpole Knob and Reddish Knob. Done this trip several times, nothing too challenging but some nice views, good camping spots, and such. This was the first long drive with the new steering and after I got used to it I...