81 BJ42 - I have to bring it home and pass inspection

[45Kevin]

Excellent.

I'll be sitting on the side of Crowchild just north of the Stony Trail interchange t 8 am. I'll be on 146.455 and my cell is 4o399O5345.

I'll wait for 10 minutes or so.

 

[NoeyR]

Congrats on the 42 Kev and on getting home safely. All the best!

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Excellent.

I'll be sitting on the side of Crowchild just north of the Stony Trail interchange t 8 am. I'll be on 146.455 and my cell is 4o399O5345.

I'll wait for 10 minutes or so.

Kevin, I'll be driving the Matrix. The rad in the 42 is both plugged and leaking and could go at any time. I never did fully get rid of the high temps. Thats what took me so long, I had to stop and cool off. I had the heat on full, all the windows and vents open and I drove as slow as I could. I will have to go through the whole cooling system and look for issues. At least the pump and stat are new. I'm thinking flush the block real good, recore or replace the rad and replace the fan clutch.

Anyway, if the Matrix can't get to where we are going I'll need to park it somewhere.

 

[Radd Cruisers]

Good to hear you are home safe and sound....

Rob

 

[crushers]

btw, your phone is good to 36V ...
same with most GPS units these days.

glad you made it home. 24 hrs eh? probably a very relaxing ride in a tin can. those rattling 3Bs are great for colic kids and grumpy old men.

 

[45Kevin]

I'll wait for ten minutes or so at the side of crowchild and then if you come in your car we can leave it at the staging area.

No problem at all.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Ok, I'm here.

 

[bikersmurf]

Glad to see it went to a good home... Looking forward to seeing what you can do with it.
I talked with the owner Rob got it from when he had it listed for sale... Seemed like a decent guy, and took good car of it. I couldn't do the truck justice... So I passed on it.

 

[tmarx]

Just got home.

Congrats

 

[Falco80]

Wow, what an awesome landscape for an adventure in a new 40! Beautiful scenery right there! Congrats on a safe journey.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Thanks guys, it turned out to be the adventure I wanted it to be. I have some video and stills that I am processing. I'll post it up when I get it done.

Saturday I followed 45Kevin out to the bridge building site in Waiparous that the RMLCA is doing to eliminate a water crossing of a fish habitat. Several of the club members and volenteers had already done a lot of earthworks for the abutments on Friday. We split into three groups.

The three Kevins (myself, 45Kevin and "Coastal Kevin") along with the backhoe operator Dave and 45Kevin's niece Jen started the north side abutment assembly. Chain saws, backhoe, drills, ready rod and 16' 8x8 lumber = good times

Peter and Carrie headed into town to get a few supplies that were needed.

Cody, Mark and a volenteer co-worker of Peter's who's name has escaped me took off in two very well built 80s to fetch the 40' long main I-beams for the bridge. Think about that for a second. 2200lb forty foot long and almost two foot tall I-beam. Two 80s. Several kilometers down a trail I would't take my wife's Rav4 down. We were wondering if they were even comming back as we ate lunch. When they finally showed, I think it was like 1:00ish, we heard about a broken birf and repair and some tricky driving to get the beam down the trail.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

So by late afternnoon we had finished the north side and needed to relocate across the river. By now the beam crew had gone off in search of the second span.

With the south side properly located we set to work in the early evening. I caught a ride out to my car with Cody around 7:00pm after he returned with the second beam. Those camping near the site worked on. I did pass Bruce on his way in on the trunk road as I was going out.

The goal for this weekend was to build the abutments and get the main beams set in place. As I write this mid day sunday I would expect things are on track. The next scheduled work weekend we will not have the backhoe so all the heavy lifting needs to be done today. We will add the deck and complete the structure by hand.

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Anyway....... Enough distraction. I have to make this 42 pass our mandatory "Out of Provence" inspection to get it registered in Alberta. Mechanically she should pass as is. She's got a working horn, wipers and park brake. Decent brakes and windshield. Almost all the lights work. I need a headlight and to fix the right signal short. She's got "new" exhaust front to back. The inspector won't care that she runs hot. But as far as I know the grapefruit sized holes in the body and the lack of sheetmetal to place your feet on are an automatic fail. Something about exhaust gasses entering the cabin is their reasoning I believe.

So, if I am to patch these holes I am going to to it right the first, and only, time. A proper prep, welded patch, primer, skim filler, sealer and even some color matched spot paint. If I can see the rust and it is through the metal I will be patching it. So far all damage will be patched except for the front floors. They will get pre-made replacement panels.

Any minor non-structural surface rust will get cleaned and re-sealed for now. There will be a full frame off in the future but for now this rig is a driver.

Last night as the sun retreated I pulled all the floor coverings, jumpseats, seatbelts and rollbar out.

Oh, I'll need to fix the fuel and odometer gauges too.

 

[crushers]

oh oh ...
"fix it right the first time"
that could lead to ...

 

[Awl_TEQ]

Yes. Deffinitely a challenge not to keep going. As I look around the rig I have to keep telling myself "I'll do that later in the frame off"

 

[cody c]

Great pictures Kevin, I was hoping to have some time working on the abutments to see how things went together but we were pretty busy bouncing down the trails all day with the huge I beams.

The axle and pintle hook system went well though. Somebody is going to have to do a write up to make it easier for other off road groups or clubs to take on a project like this.

For those that arent familiar, the bridge build is to help keep trails open by helping to protect a sensitive sub species of cutthroat trout: Westslope cutthroat trout - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[Traveller]

Still waiting for te film....

Mike

Sent from my iPad using IH8MUD... fun starts where the road ends

 

[Awl_TEQ]

​

 

[crushers]

4 core rad
rebuild the water pump
serious flush of the block
proper gauges

????

 

[Capitalguy]

Really enjoyed your story and the pictures, good luck with the old girl