3 Mechanics: 2 Babes: 1 Rig

Woke up this morning to a big Hallelujah!! The torsion bar is in. Everybody scream....ahhhhhh!!!!! Very excited, J' was off to get it before I even had the bed made. It's going to be a big day! J' walked down to Wayne's to chatty Cathy it up before going to the mail place. The two boys went down to get the part but it wasn't in yet, so they came back to our rig for a bit, taking parts of the van off to get it ready for the big day.

[caption id="attachment_1912" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Getting Joon ready[/caption]

Since it is Saturday, we only had about an hour and a half window before they closed, so we had all our fingers & toes crossed hoping it would get there before that happened. About 25 minutes later, the boys were back in Gigi (Wayne's truck) to get the torsion bar...it will be there this time!

And...it was!

[caption id="attachment_1913" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Longer & Better than the old one![/caption]

J' had a lot of work cut out for him for the day...I try to help but always just end up getting in the way so he lets me sit and take pictures and keep an eye on the 'Bug! Hooray, haha.

[caption id="attachment_1915" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Working Hard & Hardly Working...what a pair![/caption]

J' decided to put the shackles on today too, since we had the rig pulled apart. Also very helpful, was Wayne with his 20 different kinds of jacks...it would have been hell trying to do all of this without those things.

[caption id="attachment_1914" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Jacked up![/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1916" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Rusty Shackleford[/caption]

Around 3 p.m. or so, J' started back working on the torsion bar...the shackles took a bit of time, just then we had another visitor approach camp! Looked like we were having a Pit Crew Party! haha Our newest friend, Jim, was coming to say good-bye....little did he know he was about to get down, dirty and closer to the action than he probably wanted!

[caption id="attachment_1917" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Pit Crew Partay[/caption]

[caption id="attachment_1918" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Next time, he'll call before coming over, haha[/caption]

Jim was pretty handy with giving J' a big hand under and on top of the van, along with having some wooden boards for the jacks. We were very fortunate today...not only for the part coming in on time, but for good friends that stop everything they are doing to help a couple of "crazy kids" out, like ourselves! A HUGE THANK YOU TO WAYNE & JIM for being selfless, thoughtful and so very helpful today. We really couldn't have done half of what we did today without you.

[caption id="attachment_1926" align="aligncenter" width="300"] Daddy's little helper[/caption]

 We finished up with everything right around sunset! Woo Hoo!! After everyone left, we loaded everything up into Joon...only took an astonishing 20 minutes, instead of the hours and days in Shaver Lake, and headed out to see how she rolled and get a bite to eat...for celebration of course! You really don't know how great it feels to have wheels rolling underneath you until you're immobile for 10 days...it's quite the feeling! We went straight to Little Caesar's Pizza for a $5.00 Pepperoni Pizza and chowed down right there in the parking lot. It was definitely the best pizza we had all day! What a great day, a great feeling and great friends! Our bellies are full now and we can go anywhere we want...it feels good to be free again!

Have you freed yourself today?

PEACE

Things that go BAM in the night

So...we're laying in bed last night. I had been tossing and turning and staring at the stars through the window. J' was in sleepy land.

BAM!

It shook us both up and alert. It felt like we were just rammed by, a, well... Ram! We both looked out the windows, watching for movement. We put on the headlights...nothing. We laid back down after a while and going through different scenarios. We figured maybe we fell off of the rocks we were leveled on...went back to sleep.

A sleeplessness night later...

We got out of the van to investigate what had happened last night, as we came around the driver side we saw something that didn't look so right. The frame looked like it was sitting right on top of the tire.

[caption id="attachment_1599" align="aligncenter" width="300"] What's wrong Joon?[/caption]

Running through what might have been the problem, nothing looked broken, ripped, cracked, popped... nothing. J' opened the hood to make sure nothing popped up and through something in the engine compartment. Everything looked fine.

After some research and talking to some peeps on a forum about it, J' found out it was most likely the torsion bar. For those of you that don't know what a torsion bar is or what it does, here's a quick lesson:

The torsion bar is a suspension component.

It twists ever so slightly to adjust ride height. 

[caption id="attachment_1600" align="aligncenter" width="300"] That's not right![/caption]

We spent the rest of the afternoon trying to break it free. It's just too wide one way and too long another way (yeah, yeah...that's what she said).

We needed a contortion bar! haha ka-dink-shh...Get it?

Anyway, we're not too worried about it. We are close to town so that's a plus, for walking or short trips if we decided to go that way. It's nothing we can't handle, we're in a good place. I'll let you know how it goes and how it goes down!

Catch ya' on the flip side, yo'!