I would like to move along a '71 Camaro but it definitely wouldn't suit your needs. lol. If someone had a decent International Scout body we would probably turn lose of the Camaro for it.

Sounds like that Explorer has one of the higher geared rear ends, which would explain the lower tow rating on the sticker. VIN number will tell everything about it. Ford is good about having every aspect of the VIN correspond to its components.

I would be more then happy to trade it for a 71 camaro. It would even be worth the 1/4 mile walk because it wouldnt make it past the mailbox. I want to say its the 3.73 ratio. Been reading on how to swap it from a bronco 2 or a ranger. Its getting a major look over tomorrow by a guy that will only touch old fords and diesel otherwise he is a 4x4 jeep specialist. I read something about some bolt on things but they sound like custom bores are required and im not sure putting a 4.0 mustang engine might be more cost effective down the road. Goal for explorer is spare vehicle/main vehicle till i get an engine in the 250 and from there im hoping with a 4 inch lift and bigger tires it will still be under the 7ft 2 inches for the va parking garage because its so much easier to park in denver then a 4 door truck with an 8 ft bed and a bumper that pushes the front out another 3 feet. The 4x4 truck and off roader shows are real big in the region and as long as i dont break the body the exploder has major potential if i paint it and add a nice bull bar and wench. Body and frame are sound. Body has 2 rust spots 1 ding interior is furry from spider but almost perfect. Oil leak on the valve cover and the gauges dance. Very fixable. All the specs are in the owners manual and i have that but being way into fords i already did the vin lookup.

I really dont understand adjustable bands in the tranny though. Thats completely new to me. And under the hood is kinda scary. Not like the truck scary but i knew how to keep my 81 gm running and this has way too many things you wouldn't find in a tractor.

Anything i could find here that would actually do what i needed was way more then i had. Found lots of older trucks i could afford but 2wd single cab or no title. Couldn't even find a suburban that wasnt substantially broken. Also we have no public transportation so i couldnt get very far. It was between the explorer, a cherokee that needed major front end work, or a mazda something that had a driver's side door that didnt open. Everything else in the 2k or under range was bad heads or blown motor or blown tranny. I think i picked the best of the 3.

I haven't made the decision yet but as I look at what needs to be done on the Jeep I have to start thinking about a different vehicle.  Well, shoot, it's a 98 Jeep with 275,000 miles on it with less than $1,000 in repair bills - that's ignoring tires, those aren't repairs.  All told, she's had a good ride and we'll go for a few more before I turn her out.

With these roads down here she needs shocks all the way round and I know @Lostmaniac can relate to that!  The state inspection has never covered the catalytic converter except in the metro areas but my OBD2 program tells me that I need to replace it and an O2 sensor (and there are two but it doesn't tell me which one ... both??)  Maybe I'm just (un)lucky, the mice have run around in my car and the radio is a sometimes thing (but with only one NPR station who's to complain?) and the switch for the heater fan is a less then sometime thing ... but nothing fatal, so far! (( knock on wood!!!! ))

So far this winter we've had a few cool nights, like into the high 30's, but so far nothing that's breaking pipes.  I had to have a friend do that for me!  I had one slow leak that was under the edge of the trailer so he crawled in, took hold of the pipe to see just where the leak was and it helped him find it  -- it burst at the leak!  We got that fixed and also a smaller, slower leak so I'm good in the water department again until we hit the 20's ...

Since no one else has had anything to say for the past week or so and we're all too rapidly approaching the end of the year with all it's holiday, I figured it was time to drop in and chat a bit.  Have yourself the best of the holiday season if'n I don't have a chance to say "Howdy!" between now and next year!

We had an eventful last few days. My uncle and his new girlfriend came and it was interesting. We accidentally went offroading today. I say accidentally because wv and most places would call that a 4x4 road but not colorado. Did the witches canyon/pentetite canyon circle. Went to the old wagon wheel tracks from when this was still mexico and they took oxes up. Saw a few of the petroglyphs. And speaking of shocks, it was one of those things the explorer would have handled like a champ AND had the right tires but my uncle took the rental grand cherokee with the very wrong tires up there.

Spider actually does a fairly good job keeping the explorer warm with her body heat. 3 nights in a row out to dinner and multiple hours just hanging out in the car. I did put splinters vest on him. He hates it but he really thinks he is part husky or wolf or gsd and comes in shivering.

Supposed to go down to 6 tonight. And i saw some shit that we could get somewhere between 0 and 20 inches of snow and 90 moh wind gusts starting tomorrow night.

Bought a gorilla cart to bring the wood in, directions weren't too bad but it didnt include the wrench and shows a pic of 2 different sized adjustable wrench. As someone with almost every sized head for several sized ratchets, what was so hard about labeling the size of the nut. Took 45 mins to find the correct size. But it should work better then setting a tote bin on a walker. Because to make a short story shorter, the bottom rippeed off the wheelbarrow when i overloaded it. And bringing in 5 pieces of wood at a time is tedious so use # 2 for the walker with the seat.

Anyway happy past and future holidays cuz there were so many between Thanksgiving and new years. And a few days after that if you're doing the rc 12 days.

Doesnt it suck when the vehicle is on the verge of not being worth fixing. I know the ball joints are on the way out. I might get a year out of them. Between cost of parts and labor the explorer will have all the good parts stripped out and get crushed.

I think my distance perspective is screwed. My uncle wanted to go to the elk ranch and asked how far it was. I said just a few mins down the road. I was later informed 11 miles is not "just down the road"

"Elk Ranch" is that anything like the Bunny Ranch here in Texas??

ETS: Ooops, wrong ranch in the wrong state. The bunny Ranch is over in Nevada, it was the Chicken Ranch here in Texas and I'm trying real hard to remember the name of the reporter who put it down.

Nope grande natural is a usda elk and bison ranch and meatery.  they also run a petting zoo to an extent. The elk are tame and will come up to the fence and you can pet them through it.

Okay, that's the last doggy bed I'm buying for these two.

Over the past couple of years I've bought a heat transfer / sleeping pad ... they ate it! Just glad that there wasn't anything bad in the gel.
Then I bought a raised pad, Avalanche could lie on it but no, that isn't gonna happen, he sleeps on the floor.
Then I got hold of a nice soft pad, I was setting on it one time while I was breaking up boxes and it's really comfortable. ('course getting up off it [on the floor] was interesting!)

These dogs are gonna drive me nuts ....

I stopped buying dog beds for Ami after the first year - he shreds them. Z'ev would leave a crate pad alone and would sleep on the sunroom love seat without damaging anything. But what the favorite is, hands down, is the old moving blanket i keep folded double in the back hall outside our bedroom sort of forms a cafe wall in two sides and closed door one the third. For is closed because Ami has a habit of shredding bed pillows of they're in his way when he's on our bed

Hip any better, Al? I've been pleasantly surprised with my knee. Since coming back from our trip, the knee has given very little aggravation. In retrospect, i think the baskets cyst and effusion were a result of me being stupid: coming down the stairs in the dark with magazines, papers left on the stairs to be taken up for filing. They were on the third step from the bottom, i stepped on them with my left leg which then slid to the bottom while my knee hyperflexed. The only reason I didn't fall was the wall is only 3 feet from the bottom of the stairs and I caught myself on that. But. My knee really, really, really doesn't like to been much more then 90⁰ and I think my heel almost touched my butt

Hah!  I turned around to get up to fix supper and Sky is laying on it.  Looks up at me and then just 'collapses' on the bed.  I'd really like to let her stay out overnight but if I do I have a wet spot in the kitchen.  

Hip is gradually getting better.  A friend (who's the husband of the woman who owns the place I normally eat) commented about my not limping as much as I had been.  He is right, I'm not limping as bad and there are days where I don't think about it ... and then there are days where I get up and it's sore and stay sore 'most all day.

That 'slide' down the stairs sounds like it hurt like ... blazes!

Just realized that I haven't wished you a 'Happy Hannakkuh' this year.  Like everything the holisays have slipped up on me!  However I did get one nice card from some folks whose pups wished me "Happy Howlidays!"  I'm gonna have to find some place different to put their cards ... but I can't throw them away.

Kasper is the only dog that will lay on a bed, but if I put the bed in his crate then he will shred it. I don't crate him anymore but his crate is still up so I can feed him in it. He's as much of a hoover as Kye is and keeping track of 3 dogs while they eat is too much trouble so I've left the thing up, which means no christmas tree this year since his crate is where the tree would normally go and I'm way too lazy to move the rest of the house around to make space. We have 2.5 beds. One I stuffed under our bed for storage currently, then he has a bed in the living room and the half of a bed is in our room because he destroyed the insert to it but the rest of the bed sides are fine.

Welp, Sky had her two nights of freedom.  I figured I'd see if she'd figured out that she gets out if she doesn't leak.  Sunday night, no problem; Monday morning I woke up to a wet spot.  She can and will hold it if I have her crated but not if I let her out .... ramasfragit!

Hahaha you dont want to see what i did to squirt. We found exactly how big her area can be, its at the max size. Any bigger she will pee there instead of telling me she needs out. 

We got over a foot of snow last night. Dogs are happy. I cant find my wood pile though

Unusual warmth here - 51⁰ today, mid 40s til Monday than a drenching from that storm coming up the coast from the Gulf of Mexico.

Ami has no in house pee/poop issues. Thank you, thank you. Only issue with him of late is he's been hanging out on his dog house late at night instead of the grassy depression in front of the sun room. No big deal, except, i can't see him in the dog house from the porch and he's not inclined to come in the house when i call him. When he's out front, i just step off the steps, can see him, call him in and in he comes. In his dog house, I have to put on my boots and trek up the hill in whatever wind/snow/rain is gifting us. Once I get up there, he climbs out and walks beside me happily. At least he's not all wet, just stray bits of straw hanging from his feathers. But, at least now I know he's up there and not frantic that he took off, was taken out is lying injured somewhere. And, last two night? I've got his number. A few pieces of kibble in his metal food bowl and shaking it big time on the back steps gets the big boy trotting down the slope on no time I'm really not up for games at 2 in the morning

Spider will pee in the house sometimes, its out of spite. She really wants to be an outside dog when there is snow. But she does the come to the door and sit down instead of coming in. If you grab at her she jumps off the deck.  But if i open the freezer she will come in, but then expects an ice cube. 

Its been warm here also. But trying to tell the tourists that is funny. Our high was 37 low is 14. Very warm for december in the rockies. Its supposed to hit low 40s this week. 

Dr cleared me to try and do "normal" things. Im not sure if normal including ice skating and sleds though. It probably didn't include climbing to the top of the wood pile, grabbing the plastic and then carefully climbing down while holding the plast in a way to get the snow off or digging out the driveway.

Well, it looks like the past discussion has been weather and like everywhere else our December was generally warm to above warm. Our January, on the other hand, has been miserably cold ... well, cold for me ... and we're getting a seriously cold snap coming early to mid-week. The weather service is talking single digit REAL temperature which means we're looking at sub-zero wind chill which means I'm looking at busted pipes again! The PVC runs under the crossbeams of the trailer so they're exposed to the extremes of the weather. Foam insulation helps but when we start getting into the subfreezing temperatures, I don't think anything helps. The trailer is skirted but, again, at the extremes doesn't seem to do much good.

Sky and I have reached an agreement ... well, not really ... I've tried to let her stay out or the crate at night but if I do I have a wet spot - small to yellow river style - in the kitchen. It doesn't matter whether she goes out just before bedtime or not. She's started asking to go out when I head for bed and while I'm agreeable with that, it still doesn't work for letting her stay out of the crate.

@Lostmaniac, you may be cleared for normal 'stuff' (a month ago - argh!) I wish I could get a decent reading from a medic. I've talked to a couple via phone but they won't see me since they didn't perform the surgery and the surgeon who did won't see me since he didn't file the paperwork to get paid. Not my fault you don't know what you're doing!!!!
In general I'm feeling okay but after moving around very much during the day, I tend to be sore the next.

They have like 3 years to file for payment. We have had issues with jerrys knee surgery done by community care. We are convinced the knee replacement failed and the surgeon doesnt want to file for a referral extension. But all i can speak to is the incompetence of the va business dept and that all the paperwork is so vague, our country VSO cant figure it out.

And my surgeon may as well have sent me into medical bankruptcy.... 20% of a slightly over $300k bill for medicare copay.  I have the double wammy of when they checked for avn on the left side, they didnt find any evidence of it, but they did find 2 ruptured tendons. It explains alot as to why when i move too much my right hip hurts but if i move alot or sit alot or really anything the left side hurts. Its all irrelevant at the moment because until i get my truck back i cant make it to aurora without renting a car. Stupid explorer has a max speed of 45 and thats flooring it going up the mountains. Its all ok that its slow and old in Southern Colorado, cuz half the vehicles on the road are like that here, but i cant take it north of fairplay on 285 without the risk of some asshole with road rage shooting at me for going way under the speed limit, or take it safely up i25. I thought long and hard about i25 and decided it was a huge risk when i lose a crazy amount of speed going up of getting rear ended at high speed. The explorer is not made to go 75mph and especially not while going up hill.

Truck is about 8 weeks from being finished. Then i can start seriously looking for a new job. It seems like i may have to quit smoking pot because everything i am qualified for, and wont destroy my back is driving.  I might be able to get a tractor operator job without a drug test but cdot does the dot tests. 

And i really dont want to think about how off our weather has been. Wicked cold and dry and wind. -30 wind chill still and has been for 3 days, we had a 98mph wind gust with 60mph sustained winds but the actual temp has been way below 0 at night.  And i didn't quite realize how much my job is weather dependent. Wind is closing the ski areas.

We have been expanding squirts area to see how big it can get before she pees in her area. We are at 6x15 right now.  I just have dogs that wont go out at night between temp and wind and then pee on the floor in the middle of the night. I think spider is broken, she acts like 5f is too cold for her.

Al - can you get any kind of physical therapy down there? That possibly could help a lot.
Poor weather has been a perpetual fall her until the last few days of high winds (gusts approaching 60 but, nothing like Colorado!) Most of the winter temps have been low 40s day and mid 30s night. For us, that is welcome. Almost no snow, we briefly got possibly 8-10" but hard to measure, ground wasn't frozen, melted and compacted as it fell (except for what fell on lawn furniture.) Then, the next day was 40s, the high winds and loads of rain so bye bye snow. But not this week. 9⁰ tonight. 18⁰ right now. Most of this week temps are high teens, with single digits at night.

Z'ev was my in house pooper, no pee trails. Ami is good so far. He's now 11 years old. He prefers being outside in the evening/ after midnight hours. Lately, he's taken to using his dog house, I have to lure him in by blowing a whistle to get his attention then shaking his food pan with a free pieces of kibble in it. I've filled his house with about a foot out more of straw - gives him a nice, cushy bed out of the wind. But we've been having such high winds for the past several days that, being under a pine tree and old style power lines ( the kind that stay electrified even down) running across the property not fatr from his house that I won't let him stay out . Also, were surrounded by forest and there's a lot of dead ash trees out there. I won't even walk the path to the garden with these winds, don't want a branch landing on my head!

Also, Al? Have you considered putting drains in your pipes and when you know it's going to be cold, shit of the water and drain the pipe. I'd suggest heat tape but not sure you have the electrical capacity to run that. The other thing to consider - what about shark boy fittings where the freeze happens? At least easier to change out the pipe.

PT at the hospital has to be prescribed and the Dr. who did the surgery wouldn't.  I have no idea why he wouldn't but just kept telling me I didn't need it.  Insult added to injury the PT is 80 miles away one way.

I have a drain in at the end of the pipe that mostly freezes and can't get it to drain enough to not break when we freeze.  I've switched out the batteries, went from AGM (sealed lead acid) to LiFePo4 which so far have held out better overnight than the AGM's ... might be worth a try again.  I have a new neighbor who's done some work around the trailer for me.  He re-insulated that bad pipe with new foam insulation, again this'll be a "let's see how it works"

I've tried to get someone to replace the PCV with PEX since it's supposed to hold up better - but two people whi have done that have broken PEX ... not sure that's a good idea

I used PEX and shark bites when i put in the new tub about 15 years ago. The old tub/shower was an avocado green fiberglass molded thing from the 1970s. Our practice, when expecting a weather event that would lead to power outage was to fill the tubv with water. Welp. Apparently the tub had developed very fine cracks. That opened with the weight of the water. And put a huge water balloon in the laundry room ceiling. Didn't know them that latex paint would fill with water and stretch into a huge bubble. Having watched too many DIY shows on house remodeling, i decided to tackle the job myself. But i didn't want to solder anything. Son 1 told me about shark bites, they sounded doable so that what i used to re route the plumbing (directions for the new tub said to bed it in a layer of concrete to keep the acrylic from flexing so the supply lines had to be moved. I've been happy with it, no problems to date. The faucet body did have to be soldered to copper, though, so son 2 did that for me (he's an engineer, during college, he worked for facilities maintenance and learned a bunch of helpful skills!)

Mostly except the hot water heater to the kitchen is copper in my house. When the old sears and roebuck one melted they redid that pipe. 

I worry less about a freeze then a total well issue.  Not exactly sure why they built the house directly above the well. I guess they can access it if i want to cut out the floor in the laundry waterheater well closet. 

I filled in for a coworker a few weeks ago when he literally had a shit storm. His septic line froze and backed sewage up all over his house. They ended up digging it up and steaming it then reburying it and covering it with mass amounts of snow. 

Today was not as cold or windy and once again the snow somehow missed us.

We're good your cold tonight, Emily!  7⁰. Dripping faucets and using electric heat on part of the house we usual don't. Went into the bedroom - 55⁰. Turned on the heat, shut the door and left the room.

No y'all, we're cold!  It got down to 14 last night and this old trailer (5/19/78 completion form) just never was made (in DFW) to handle the weather we're getting now.  And my old bod may have been able to handle cold at one time but not any more.  I was 18, working in a sugar bush that was about 3/4 mile 'cross the field (er, snow covered field.)  Headed out one night after school (I was a seniour/18), stoked up the fire, emptied the sap buckets, made some coffee (and coffee made with fresh maple sap is fantastic!!!!!) and sat back to wait ... a couple hours later I went out to get some firewood and set my coffee on the corner of the table ... went out, got wood and came in to a cup of frozen coffee!  It'd gone from something like 40° to something below freezing and here I was in a short sleeve shirt!  Nope, this kid headed home in a heartbeat and felt like I was going to freeze before I got there.  (( yeh, and I'm worse in person! ))

---

These pups don't know what to make of cold.  These are snow dogs, right??  Then why do they want back in almost as fast as they want out?  

But they are going to drive me further around the bend than I already am.  Since they don't want to stay out, I'm feeding them inside ... they can't figure out whose bowl is whose and since this one still has food in it, it must be mine.  No fights yet but a couple of growls.

That coffee sounds delicious.

I've lived in Minnesota, DC etc and right now visiting Louisiana... It doesn't matter what I experienced in the past, I'm always miserably cold again. I'm sorry you're tolerance is no longer there!

Funny enough my older pup (3 yrs) comes back in pretty quickly and the younger one is leaping around the yard silently yelling "wahoo!!".

Hopefully the growls stay at growls. I've had to physically separate feeding to 6 ft because the older gal has become protective/aggressive with food...

Cold, here, too. Went down to 0⁰ last night. We're now a balmy 7⁰. These are days of "check that the heat tape is working" on the supply line to the upstairs bathroom (it has about 14" that runs on unheated under the eaves area. And drip the faucets in there for backup.

But the worst part? I have a big, wooly coated husky who much prefers outside to inside. Which usually is not a problem. But last summer he got a fist sized clump of burdocks mashed into his tail. Only way out was to cut them out. And now, the last half of his tail only has wispy long hair that shows his tail bone. None of the bushy undercoat that used to be there. So i have to worry about that large, over-furred dog getting frostbite on his tail! Not as big a problem in the late evening, he likes his dog house which has more than a foot deep bed of straw. But during the day he likes to alternate wandering the woods and fields with sleeping in the driveway. Which is packed snow at the moment. So as long as this deep cold lasts, i have to track how long he's been outside and entice him into the house. Ever since the raccoon mandated 42 day house confinement, we've insisted he sleep inside once we go to bed so late night is not an issue. And fortunately, almost no wind. That will change end of week - will be both high winds and very low temps so he'll be restricted to short stints outside.

Who knew I'd be worrying about cold with a Siberian Husky?!!?