My wife's 24 year old niece recently moved out to CA, and from what I can tell that's the reason your weather changed. All the crying over here stopped, hence the huge deluge of rain out there.

Oh well. One less spoiled brat in NJ, adding to those in CA.

Her mom went out to visit (my BIL's nasty wife). Rained the entire time she was there, which messed up her "beach" plans.



Funny stuff....

 

If you can, save the straps. Very desirable out here..

 

We have a lot of crying and fit pitching (protesting) here lately.

 

I just bent my own out of 1/8" x 2.5" plate. My frame had rusted around where the one end sits inside the frame rail.

 

That'll work. And when making something like that with bigger radius' you can chuck a piece of pipe in a vice to bend the strap around.

 

Wow, that is a lot of snow.
What kind of plow did they have?

 

Caltrans has a couple big snow blowers up at Norden. They have some pretty cool stuff in that yard. They opened the gates to let us through in the dump trucks one summer.

 

This past Sunday found me making a bracket for the remote engine lube-oil filter. It's made to use the same mounting spots of the former transmission fluid heat exchanger.

 

Great idea on the placement.

 

Over the past month or so, the truck has gotten a lot done.

I started by replacing the head gasket back in late January. When I bought the truck, it hadn't been driven in some time. My guess is that the old gasket just dried up. I didn't have any machine work done, as the head showed no warpage outside of the acceptable limits per the FSM. No leaks after about 2,000 miles.

Then, I dove into the front end. I had terrible vibrations while driving, and needed to fix the leaking gear oil due to a failed inner axle seal. So, the truck got new U-joints in the front, new axle seals, wheel bearing re-packed with valvoline heavy duty grease, new wheel seals, new rotors, and new brake pads. Next, I hope to look into servicing the drums in the rear, and checking the clutch packs in the rear diff for wear, similar to what NJTman did awhile back.

 

Oliver asked me to post this photo. He will fill you in.

 

Thanks T-man!
I just thought you DTR'ers would like to see a picture of the old 1st gen plowing some snow.
I have gotten 24 inches of snow in the past 30 HRs. It is time to fire it up again and do some more plowing tonight.

 

With this crazy weather I have been riding my motorcycle all winter except for 9 days, this morning it got down to 19* and cought me off guard, didn't have the truck plugged in but even with no grids I opened the door reached in and " BOOM " fires right up.

they really are somthing eles these old cummins engines.

my truck does sleep in my barn but still it had to be 25* in there.


after I sold my 4,000lb truck camper I bought a 2017 24ft TT, my truck was built to haul the TC and the empty ride was brutal, I could take it but my wife had almost refused to ride in it, so last weekend I pulled 2 springs out of each side, ( I had added 2 full length springs to the pack ) droped the rear down about 1.75 inches and made an huge difference in the unloaded ride, now I need to load the motorcycle in the bed and hook up the camper to see how she does, I have air bags if I need them but with the load equalizer hitch I don't think I will.

I was actually to the point of thinking about selling her and buying somthing newer, now I will hang on to her.............and the truck also.

 

That last sentence made me spit my coffee out farmboy! Hilarious!

Oliver - cool picture. I like the chains (cables?). What size tires and did you have ballast in the bed? Any trouble pushing 24"?

 

Wow,
All this talk about snow
And it was almost 90* here today in Southern California.