Playing in Richfield

Last weekend we decided to go visit my sister, Amy Jo, in Richfield. It is about 1 ½ hour drive north east from Cedar City. In our little truck with the trailer and go cart behind us, it took about 2 hours to make it there. When we pulled up all the kids came running out to meet us. Mariah said, "Look Mom, Thomas brought a little Jeep." The kids were facinated by the go cart. The next morning we went out to the dirt hills to play with the go cart. The dirt hills are 5 or 6 blocks from Amy Jo's place, so it was really nice. In Cedar, when we go out to play in the hills, we always find a nice tree to put our chairs under and enjoy the shade. Richfield is baren. It did not have a single tree out in the hills. There was only one house with in sight and they had a tree but it was fenced off. We put our chairs in the shade of Amy Jo and Skip's van. We took turns riding with the kids and having a great time. I let Mariah drive, while I controled the gas and the brake. She got the hang of it and did pretty well. She was just barely tall enough to see over the front of go cart. I also let Chace drive, but he was too interested in looking at me to pay attention to the road. I told Amy Jo that he must have thought that he was on a hot date.
Jennifer took Weston for a ride and when she got back the go cart died. I tried to start it back up, but it had no juice at all. Almost like the battery was gone. I looked under the cart and sure enough the battery was gone, leaving nothing but the bare wires. The platform that the battery sits on is just wide enough for the battery. It has a half an inch lip around it. Jennifer must have hit a bump just right and the battery fell out. After hanging by the wires for a second, its own weight tore the clamp right off the battery and left it in the dirt. After we found the battery back on the trail, we got it hooked back up and we were off again. To secure the battery, we found an old fence half buried in the dirt and used some wire cutters to get a decent size piece. We wrapped that around the battery and the frame. We played until the sun got too high and we lost our shade from the van. We went back to Amy Jo's to have lunch and rest and wait for it to cool down a bit. The kids would not stay off the go cart and played in it pretty much constantly, even though it was strapped to the trailer.
Later that evening we went back to the hills to play again. We got the go cart unloaded from the trailer and Mariah all seat belted in, then the go cart would not start. Mariah was very disappointed. Jennifer, Skip and I checked everything that we could think of, but could not get it running. All three of us probably checked the gas tank twice. Just as Jennifer and Skip were walking back to the van and going to call it a night, I noticed something on the instrument panel. The go cart is equiped with a kill switch. When the kids were playing in it, they must have flipped the switch. I turned it to the run position and the go cart fired right up. If there is something that kids can play with and mess up, they will do it. Oh well. No harm, no foul. I beat all of them later.
We had a nice time in Richfield and look forward to the Jenson reunion that will be held there next year. Jennifer and I even got a chance to visit the KOA. It looks good.

Go Cart

I bought a go cart the other day. A man and his son came into Jiffy Lube a week ago and had a go cart for sale. They said that they were moving back to California and did not want to take it with them. I decided to buy it. I took it over to Rad Motorsports and had the owner do some adjustments on the carburetor and everything else. He told me that I got a pretty good deal on it. I paid about half of what it is really worth. I even got a little trailer as part of the deal.

I still think that it is funny that Michael and I have practically the same truck.
Except that mine is cooler.

Seth enjoyed being out in the hills and loved throwing dirt all over himself.

Michael did not know that I had a go cart. We told him that we were going to go out in the hills and play around. He was thinking that he did not want to go on a nature hike. We told him that we do it all the time and it is fun, and so he came along. Jennifer and I live in an apartment and do not have a spot to park the trailer. One of my co-workers at Jiffy Lube said that I could park it at his house as long as I want. Once we pulled up to his house and loaded the trailer, then Michael caught on to what we were doing out in the hills. We played for a few hours and took turns sitting with Seth. Three Peaks recreation area is mostly sand and does not have many rocks. It was a lot of fun to fish tail through the trees. Don't worry Dad, we stayed on existing trails (for the most part).

Changing Fluids

My little brother, Michael, came down to Cedar City for the weekend. He has a 1997 Ford Ranger with 150,000 miles on it. We went into Jiffy Lube and changed his rear differencial fluid and manual transmission fluid. My boss, Tyson Redd, let us do it for free and Michael gave him some Bubblishis bubble gum. The rear diff did not look too bad, but it was still good to change it. The manual trani fluid was as black as could be. As I pulled the drain, the fluid came down on a rag on top of the bin and splashed all over me. It got my face and in my mouth. I got oil all over my shirt and shorts, but did not get my G's. I wore an old shirt just in case. We also changed Michael's dash lights just like I did to my truck. I will let you know later about our other adventures this weekend.

Dash Lights

I had this last Saturday off and I wanted to do something productive with my time. I decided to change some of the bulbs in my truck’s instrument panel. A few of the bulbs went out a while ago and I have been meaning to do it for a quite some time now. Also my check engine light is on and has been on since I bought the truck. The check engine light is on, because the oil pressure gage broke and the truck thinks (if a truck could think) that there is no oil in the engine. The previous owner put in a second oil pressure gage but did not tie it into the computer. I would like to live along the Wasatch front soon and I know that if a vehicle’s check engine light is on it fails an emissions test automatically. I decided to fix the problem by taking out the light bulb in my check engine slot. I took everything all apart and replaced all the bulbs with new ones and everything works great now.

The first step is to take off all the bolts on the bottom of the kick plate. You will need a 7 mm socket for this job.

Then remove the kick plate. There are bolts at the bottom, but the top is held in with some push clips. They are inserted at a downward angle, so you have to lift up and out to get it off.

Next remove the radio housing. It does not have any bolts holding it in, just push clips. Use two flat head screw drivers to get under one side and pull it off. Don’t worry you will not break it.

Next remove the plastic cover that goes over your instrument panel. There are three screws at the top of the panel and two at the bottom.

Remove four screws that hold the instrument panel in place. Once again they are 7 mm heads.

Remove the entire instrument panel and unplug the three wire connections on the back. Remember where they go. It shouldn’t be too difficult; they are all different sizes and will only fit back into their proper holes.

Then on the back of the panel you will find all the lights. Twist to remove each bulb. I recommend replacing all the bulbs, since you do not want to do this all over again next week.

The final step is to put it all back together. Hope you remember how. It took about an hour or so and was kind of fun. The best part is that I could have spend $20 at the auto parts store buying the light bulbs, but I went to my work and bought the bulbs from them for $1.75.