My Day as a Mechanic

Note to my lady readers: This post might be boring and senseless to you.

I am so sore today. My arms feel like I had multiple flu shots, my butt cheeks too. My hands ache and my neck is stiff.

Yesterday was the day that I spent an entire day putting in a lift kit on my Jeep. My brother-in-law kindly volunteered his expertise, tools, garage and patience to assist me in installing a 2 inch lift kit.

First thing Friday I drove three hours in a cold Jeep to meet Tom. I gently drove my Jeep in his garage, opened the box and started jacking up the Jeep.

The directions were vague. Tom has many hours of experience as an amateur mechanic working on cars and boats over the years. It was definitely a two man job and one of those men needed the mechanical experience that Tom has.

After several hours of raising and lowering the Jeep to make things align, tapping shackles with a hammer, and coercing old frozen bolts and nuts to release, I emerged from under the Jeep with a bloody forehead. When you have a big head like mine you tend to bump it around a lot.

There, we were finished with the rear but we were missing parts. Darn, we weren’t supposed to install those smaller shackles on the front part of the rear; they were supposed to go onto the rear of the front.

Two more hours later we finally finished the rear.

Judy fixed us a fantastic lunch and my mother came over for a visit. Tom and I headed back to the garage to tackle the front end.

The bolts came of very easy compared to the rear, but the front end was not without its own issues.

The parts fit very tightly and the front had to be forced into alignment with a come along. Five hours later we are finished.

Now another problem, the roof rack is too tall to pass through the garage door. We removed the rack, backed out the Jeep and reinstalled the rack.

I waved goodbye and got home just before midnight.

Judy asked me several times, “Now why are you doing this?”

“To make it look cool Judy.”

“I’m glad I’m not a man”, she would reply.

I think the job turned out nicely. It is a good looking lift without being a sky high lift. 2 additional inches looks good.

The Jeep handled well. I will need to get the front aligned and my headlights aligned. I will also need to install some extended shocks.

Also my front bumper needs to be cut and modified to fit properly. Overall I am well pleased.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Very cool!

Unknown said...

Looking good! I love seeing the constant changes to your Jeep.

Michael said...

We're Baaaaa-aaack... I'm sure Terry is commenting on all the posts, but she didn't read all the way through this one. Your "mechanics day" sounds a lot like any of my days working on a rover, one step forward, two steps back, but at least you get visible results.

I'm going to be going through something similar soon after we finish getting the new (read: new to us) engine all hooked up and running in "The Great Pumpkin". No lift kit, but I've got new springs and shocks for the rear, so the job will be about the same.

I'll probably wait a bit after finishing the engine, so we can at least drive it a little before starting the next step.

mr zig said...

looks awesome :) - good post too - funny how Judy asked why... I remember Alyssa used to ask "why" all the time back in the day when I used to modify my vehicle... ah girls...