Center High Mounted Brake Light

Seth and I get bored sometimes, so we come up with things to keep us busy. Today's project was putting a high mount brake light on the rear of my new camper shell. It is required by the Utah Highway Patrol that all trucks manufactured after September 1, 1993 have a center high mounted brake light. If you have a camper shell which blocks the original high mount brake light, the law requires you to have a center high mounted brake light on the rear of the camper shell. I do not need a safety inspection until July, but I would rather fix it now. I also hate when I see people that have vehicles that are not in compliance with safety inspection law. Those that do not maintain their vehicles' safety features (lights, tires, brakes, etc.) do not care about the rest of us.

Seth is always right there trying to help and saying, "Dad let me see." He is a good kid and I am glad to have him by my side.

I started by hooking into the driver side brake light. The taillight and the brake light are the same bulb. I did not want the center brake light to come on with the lights, so to find out which wire sent the power to the brake light I used Dad's volt meter. It was the green wire. I stripped some of the insulating rubber off the wire and spliced in another wire. Then I used electrical tape to put it all back together.

I fed the wire through the rear fender and through a manufacturer's hole into the bed of the truck. I attached some quick connect fittings on the end of two wires. Now when I take the shell off, I just unplug the connection and do not have to take off any tape or undo wires. I asked the guy at the store if he had any blue fittings. He only had red. They will have to do.

I then found the center of the shell, drilled holes and connected the light onto the shell with two bolts. It lit up, so I guess everything is good. Now if you are behind me at night you will be able distinguish between my taillights and my brake lights.

Old Shell, New Again

Dad had an old truck shell from his '79 courier that had been sitting in his backyard for over 6 1/2 years. He meant to take it to the dump, but never got around to it. A few weeks ago he told me to brake it up and get rid of it. Then we used it for our tomato greenhouse. I told him that I wanted to cut it and make it fit on my truck. He thought that it was a bad idea and that it would not look good. He kind of told me not to mess with it. Well, he went to California this last week with Mom, Mark, Linda and Jackson, so he was not around to stop me. I told Jennifer my plan to cut it and she agreed with Dad, saying that I couldn't fix it and make it look good. I wanted to try and if it got messed up, it was junk anyway.

I started by taking it apart at the rear where I planned to cut it. It had around 150 screws holding all the trim and windows on. I was careful not to brake any of the rubber molding. It was old and brittle.

Seth was right there helping me the whole time. He held my tools and handed me things. He handed me screws one at a time and kind of slowed the process, but I like him, so I let him stay. He is helpful. He knows the difference between a screwdriver and a hammer.

The top is tin. I measured, scribed a line and pulled out Dad's tin snips. It made for a neat and clean edge. It did not have to be so perfect. The rear door and a piece of molding sandwiches the end of the tin anyway. I then used a hack saw to cut the support and trim pieces on the sides. I took careful notice of how it was put together before I took it apart. Not all the support and trim pieces reached all the way to the end of the shell. I cut them accordingly.

The length that I needed to fit my truck fell right in the middle of the tinted rear side windows. I wanted to cut them, but it would not have turned out. I took them out all together. I planned to buy some Plexiglass, but did not want to spend any money on this project. Instead I used two pieces of the scrap from the top to fill in the gaps on each side. I started to get excited as I reassembled it and saw that it was coming together beautifully.

Here you see the side rear window missing and the tin in its place.

I got it all put back together and everything looked good. I didn't know what to do with this extra stuff, so it got tossed in the garbage. Have you ever put something back together and had an extra piece and did not know where it should have gone?

Now all that it needs is a center high mounted brake light, which I will rig up, and a BYU sticker in the rear window. This project was fun, free and will be quite useful. The best part is that Dad, Mom and Jennifer said it could not be done. Well, if I could stick my tongue out at you on the blog, I would. :)-

Toy Boxes

Grandma Jenson wanted to buy two new toy boxes from K Mart. They were on sale and seemed to be a good price. Grandpa said he did not want them. He thought that they were cheap and would easily brake. Most furniture is made out of plywood and little kids will cause it to fall apart, in his opinion. I decided to make some for her out of real wood.

I did not get pictures of the whole process, but Carter says they are very nice.

I used a pocket hole jig to connect all the boards together. I used Grandpa Jenson's large clamps to hold everything tight while I screwed it together.

Things did not line up perfectly, so I did a little sanding. Grandpa's belt sander worked great.

Jennifer was helping me hold the box on its end and she kind of got injured. I don't know if she got in the way of the sander or if the sander went after her. She lost a little skin. She said it felt like a sun burn.

Grandma chose a dark stain to match her entertainment center downstairs.

She wanted them downstairs by the TV, so they would double as a bench for extra seating. I've wanted to make something like this for a while. These are my first attempt at making furniture. It was fun and a learning experience.

I thought that these days were over?

  

It has been awhile since I have had to hang laundry to dry. It has been so nice having a washer and dryer but I guess when the dryer stops working it is back to my old ways. It is a good thing we had rope and practice at making cloths lines.

Thanks to YouTube, Thomas and I were able to take the dryer apart, which was quite a task. We found that the heating coil broke and would need to be replaces. An easy fix since we already have the dryer all apart. The only problem is no one in town has the part. Thomas bought one from Amazon.com, so it will take a few days. Until then only the most important laundry will be done.

Here is the reason for all our trouble.  A new heater element on the internet would have been $64.  Sears was selling one for $125.  Thomas bought a new coil for $9.99. What a deal.

Defrosting the Freezer

 Last night I thought that it would be fun to defrost Grandma Jenson's chest freezer. It sounded even more fun since they had just left for Disneyland. The first thing I did was pull everything out and put it in coolers. I thought that it would all fit in 2 or 3 coolers. The freezer holds a lot more then I thought. It took 5 coolers, 2 baskets and a box. What had I gotten myself into? I started removing the ice with two screw drivers.  Thomas got me some special tools to make things easier. He got in his dad's carpet tools and brought me a hammer and his stair tool.  The stair tool is shaped like a chisel that is about 4 inches wide.  It worked great.  After I got most of the ice cleared away,  I found some pretty interesting things. There was a pot roast and some sausage from 1999. I also found a chunk of our wedding cake. Thomas was so excited. I was just going to throw it away but he wanted me to thaw it out so that we could sample it and remember our wedding day.  

After 24 hour in the fridge I pulled it out and Thomas was all over it. One side was rock hard and the other side was soggy. It tasted just as he remembered.

I did not sample it.

Garden

 Here is the start of our garden for 2011

We have planting it with Grandma and Grandpa Jenson. It is located in the back corner of their yard.  We turned over all the dirt with a shovel and leveled in with a rake.

We have planted peas, green beans, broccoli, lettuce, squash, peppers, carrots, radishes, and cucumbers.

 

We are using drip hoses to make the watering very easy. I have never watered this way and hope that we have positioned them to be most effective.

 We may have planted our tomatoes a little early so we covered then with this old truck shell. It should provide a little protection from the cold and serve as a green house.

  

We have only planted half of our garden so we need to get more seeds in order to fill in the rest.  We will also plant pumpkins and zucchinis once it warms up a little more.