Author: rexplex

With a bachelors degree in history, I turn wrenches for a living. I’m most at peace when I hear the wind in the trees or the gurgle of a brook. I’m a believer in the Renaissance Man, as epitomized by DaVinci engineer, artist, soldier, statesman. As Heinlein said, “A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyse a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”

Door lock actuators

When I bought Fessick, none of the power locks worked (as far as I knew). Meh, who cares?
When we got back from our first camping trip however, I couldn’t get into the hatch. I unloaded everything that would fit through the back doors and disassembled the hatch to get it open and finish unloading.
Apparently, one of my children (looking at you, youngest son) had pressed the 7 & 9 buttons and locked the hatch.

New Floor for the Yurt

This is a project I’ve wanted to do for at least eight years. I finally made a round floor for my round tent.

Turning parts into ca$h

When I took the 35″ wheels & tires off, the wife asked me why I brought them home & what I was going to do with them.

I took some photos & listed them on Craigslist for sale. My asking price was high, but my understanding is that everything is negotiated on that site.

Project goals

Or What’s Fessick going to be when he grows up?

My wallet won’t support a vehicle that can’t do everything. And I mean everything.

Feature Creep

Let’s look at the airbags as an example of feature creep.

An air suspension is great for towing because it lets you have a soft luxury suspension when you’re traveling light, but add stiffness when needed for towing. You can add air at any fuel station, or even with a bicycle pump.

Brake Lights

The easiest job that requires two people.

One of my co-workers informed me that only one third of my center brake light was working.

Time for an upgrade.

Front Wiper and Washer

When I bought the truck, the left side washer nozzle didn’t work very well. It sprayed washer fluid, but when stopped, the fluid landed about 4 inches from the bottom of the glass. When moving, the fluid didn’t make it to the glass. Being that this wasn’t keeping the truck off the road, it was a low-priority repair.

After our final snow storm of the spring, the driver’s side wiper was only clearing the top and bottom third of the blade. I thought the blade had torn, so I bought new ones. Fancy, high-tech, bridgeless wipers.

This made things worse

The world’s slowest build

I’m totally in awe of those builds that just happen. Guy buys truck. Guy disassembles truck. Guy throws a ton of hardware at it. Super truck done.

This is not going to be that build.

Rules for modifying my vehicle.

Once I put on the 16 inch wheels, I was bombarded with people telling me that I was wrong to take off the 20’s.
Better acceleration.
Better fuel economy.
According to many of my coworkers, these things should be sacrificed on the altar of lifted trucks.

Upfitter panel, or don’t get ahead of yourself

Conversely, when you see a deal, grab it!

I’m a child of the eighties and as such, nothing looks more bad-ass to me than A LOT of cool switches. (Have you ever seen the space shuttle cockpit?)

At the same time, nothing looks worse than a mish-mash of unaligned switches of different styles.

Luckily, the lazy engineers in Dearborn came to my rescue.