I had an unusually productive day today. After sleeping in and then making breakfast for the family, I did some work on the truck. Snow had been in the forecast for the previous night and all day today, but it never came, which allowed me to get quite a bit done. I replaced the inside door handle that had broken off a couple of days ago, and I fabricated a spacer to help take some slack out of the cable that runs between the door handle and the latch. I’d done this exact repair about six years ago, but recently the old spacer must have fallen out, which made opening the door difficult enough that the handle broke again. It went much more smoothly this time since I learned a lot the last time I made the fix.
With Traci’s help, I removed the driver’s side door and “adjusted” the hinges that had gotten bent when the wind slammed the door open during my Capitol Reef trip last month. I was going to try to loosen the bolts that held the hinges to the body, then slide the hinges back 3/16″ or so before tightening the bolts again, but even with the door unbolted from the hinges I couldn’t get to the bolts with any of the wrenches I had. I just couldn’t move the door out of the way enough because there wasn’t enough slack in the wire loom between the door and the body. Instead, I used a 4-pound sledge and a big chisel to pound the hinges back into shape.
I also changed the oil in the truck. It wasn’t quite up to 3,000 miles since the last oil change, but I’m going on a road trip soon and it needed to be done beforehand. When I finished up with the truck, I went for a 3-mile mountain bike ride, but the sun was already down by then and I didn’t want to ride the city streets in the dark. I went home and fixed dinner and ate with the family, then took Torrey out for a 2-mile walk/jog. When I got home I cut my hair and shaved the squirrel off my chin (hahah, if you’ve seen me lately, you know what I’m talking about). If I can get as much accomplished tomorrow as I did today, I’ll have a pretty relaxing week ahead of me before it’s time to hit the road.