This fall, I finally got around to having the roof repainted and passenger side electric windows repaired.
Wednesday, October 20, 2021
Wednesday, February 03, 2021
Restoration of Headlights: 9 Month Update
After having sat out in the sunshine, wind, rain, freezing temperatures, my 2004, F-150 headlights developed a caked on a layer of oxidation. I had to either replace my headlights or restore them. I tried using hacks I had seen on YouTube. Oxidation came right back in a few weeks. I bought a kit from and followed the instructions and the oxidation came right back.
I was watching a live stream from Griot’s Garage Griotsgarage.com . They teamed up with the manufacturer of coating company Cerakote. Here’s the link to the product. Ceramic headlight restoration kit This company is a leader in weather resistant ceramic coating on military systems and many consumer products. After they showed the steps on how to restore an oxidized headlight, I was skeptical. Me: “That looks too good to be true.” I commented on the video, describing the failed attempts and that I was going to just buy new headlights. They read the comment live and said they would send me a kit for me to try. Well, it arrived as promised. The winter weather and family responsibilities caused me to have to wait. Yesterday, it was 50° and windy, but the sunny. I jumped outside, setup my iPhone and followed the directions.
Took about 45 minutes. I can not be more impressed with how it worked. I will post videos when they are uploaded to Google Photos.
9 Month Update:
I’m going to need to do the process again! The lenses have looked really clear until recently. I am going to buy a non severe or regular kit instead. I want to see how long this lasts. I may go ahead and replace the headlights and apply a ceramic coating on them. Not sure what to try next. I’ll post images when it stops raining hopefully tomorrow.
Thursday, August 30, 2018
Monday, June 13, 2016
Sunday, February 21, 2016
Sunday, July 06, 2014
Build a Bug Out iPad Mini: My Digital Survival Library
- The Boy Scout Handbook
- How to Stay Alice in the Woods
- Wilderness Survival by Gregory J. Davenport
- U.S. Army Survival Manual
- Back to Basics by Abigail Gehring
- Basic Safe Travel and Boreal Handbook by Mors Kochanski
- Outdoor Survival Skills Larry Dean Olsen
- Build the Perfect Bug Out Bag
- Shelters, Shacks, and Shanties by D.C. Beard
- Wild Edibles by Sergei Boutenko
- The Trapper's Bible by Dale Martin
- Harvesting Wild Meat by Stephen Coote
- Food Storage for Self-Sufficiency and Survival by Angela Paskett
- Backyard Foraging by Ellen Zachos
- The Hunter’s Guide to Butchering, Smoking, and Curing Wild Game and Fish by Philip Hasheider
- Build Your Own Underground Root Cellar by Phyllis Hobson
- Recipes and Tips for Sustainable Living by Stacy Harris
- Urban Foraging by David Craft (Kindle version)
- All New Square Foot Gardening, Second Edition by Mel Bartholomew
- There There Is No Doctor by David Werner (Kindle version)
- Outward Bound Wilderness First-Aid Handbook: Fourth Edition by Jeffrey Isaac
- The Survival Medicine Handbook by Joseph and Amy Alton
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Friday, February 15, 2013
Sunday, February 10, 2013
Sunday, August 19, 2012
Saturday, September 24, 2011
Tuesday, July 19, 2011
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
What Trucks are For
Being able to slip on a trailer hitch and move stuff. Not just stuff that fits in the trunk. Moving more stuff than can fit even in the bed of a truck, but a large trailer. I learned something- I now know why people buy larger engines and F250 or F350. POWER. I did not really need more power with my F150 and this trailer filled to its capacity. There are not many hills in Eastern North Carolina. However, if I needed to pull that loaded trailer to the Mountains, this would smaller V8 would have been under powered. Day in and day out, I really have not use for anything more powerful. Bottom line, I picked the right configuration of power and seating capacity.
Monday, August 03, 2009
Thursday, January 01, 2009
New Year's Day 2009 and Planned Obsolences?
Washed the F-150 this week. It looks so clean. Had one issue this week that I had to note in this blog. Sunday night, I had to run buy some cat food and a pizza at Food Lion here in Chadbourn. The weather had been very mild for a late December weekend. Temperatures had reached 72-ish. As I cranked up the F-150, and threw her in reverse for the short run to the store, I thought about how nice it could be to feel the wind in my face. So, without even thinking about it, I pushed the electric window buttons in the down direction and the passenger window lowered and I heard a slamming like noise. Out of the corner of my eye, I realized that the driver side window had just fallen down with a metallic thump! I tried to roll it back up. No response. $%!&.
I drove to the store, got out and left it unlocked. That was not smart--in our neighborhood, stunts like that can result in a theft. I went about my chore with only one thing on my mind: My F150 had failed me. F.O.R.D.-- Fix Or Repair Daily. That is what my friend Robert Bullard has always said about Ford products. He is a fan of GM products. I would have slurred- "See! What'd I tell ya?" I was hoping he would not be a the grocery store and see my window rolled down like that.
Well, needless to say, I was upset. When I got home, I told my wife. See immediately told me to put something over the window to keep out the rain. It had not rained in several days, but I did not want any varmints to get into my truck. I draped a tarpaulin over the door and closed the door. Monday morning, it was raining. Since we had the week off, I knew I needed to try to get the window repaired. I searched the Web for forums on customer complaints and How To sites for tips on what my problem was. It was pretty clear that electric window regulators were a common defect in Ford vehicles. I priced the parts. They ranged from new- $190 to rebuilt- $163. I read several accounts of people paying another $200 labor to have it installed. It was just after Christmas and a cheap built electric window was going to cost $400 to repair. I know why people use duck tape and plastic on their windows now.
Around 10 am, the rain tapered off to a drizzle. I put on my rain coat, and hat and headed to find out what the window was going to set me back. My first stop was the Tire Barn. I have been a long time customer and trust their expertise. When I asked if they could repair my window they said sure. They then told me that they would have to take it to the body shop and if I wanted to, I could just go straight to them instead. I figured that might be a smart move. My next stop, in the drizzle with my window down, was the body shop. I was greeted friendly. Man, that place was busy. No clue of an economic depression around them. Unless you think about it that people with jobs want must do everything they can to keep them and in rural areas like Chadbourn, with no subways, city buses, and not bike trails- the car or truck is how we get to work. No car=no job.
Well, back to the repair saga. The nice people at the body shop- Southeastern Paint and Body, owned by Kevin Harrelson, jumped right on my window problem. One of their skilled technicians was assigned my case. I did not get his name. Nice manners, he moved his mobile tool cart out of the shop to their carport area. The carport did little to slow down the wind, but protected the work from rain. The technician popped off the door panel like it was the skin on a banana. He must have done that dozens of times. No schematic, no wiring diagram, no instructions. This brings me to education: prior knowledge. What skills did this guy have that made it fun to him to snap off the panel to access the piece of crap regulator that had broken? He was understood the electrical and mechanical layout of Ford doors. He was a master with his tools. Everything was in a specific location. It reminded me of the guys on the Discovery Channel that build the custom motorcycles, who are they...Pauli and Pauli Jr.? Anyway, he confirmed the window could be fixed with replacement of the regulator and that the glass was not broken. The shop manager asked if I wanted him to check on locating a replacement part. I agreed to have him call and check on a price. He called a local Ford dealer and asked how much it was going to cost. They gave him a price of $173. Well, from my online research, I knew that was a great price. The online places would have tacked on shipping and handling cost to their prices. Before I agreed, I sent my wife a text message to tell her how much the parts would run. My wife asked me to contact the Ford dealership and see if the defective window was covered by warranty. I opted for not adding the expended warranty. Extended warranties require $200 deductibles or more. My factory warranty had run out back only seven months ago. So, it was coming out of my pocket.
I made sure the guys at the body shop knew, that warranty was not going to pay for this and that I was a "poor school teacher". I had on my ragged coat and worn out khaki pants. When they figured up the labor and parts and told me they could have it ready Monday by 3 pm, I was smiling like a fat baby with a dry diaper! I drove my F150 home in the rain to await the parts pickup and their lunch break. Around 12:30, the manager called and said the parts had come in and they would be ready to install it at 1 pm.
I keep my broken part. Not sure what I am going to do with it. I need to check to see if the core can be returned for a credit. Maybe tomorrow, I can call the Ford place and see if they buy them back. I know they are going to say NO! If as many of them break as I assume, based on the comments from the guys at the body shop, their must be a surplus of crappy built electric window regulators some where. I need to get my science students to start thinking about how they could someday design an electric window that is not made of material that breaks right after the warranty runs out. Maybe this how FORD can save the company. Micah M. White in his blog http://www.adbusters.org, outlines some very thought provoking ideas. Maybe it is time to go back to building cheap cars and trucks that have planned obsolescence, or was the electric window regulator designed to keep the parts departments and body shops in business? Not too many folks can ride around in the winter with their window open.
Planned Obsolescence is real. There many books and articles about this topic. If my public library has them, here are two books I may read that deal exhaustively with the topic:
I drove to the store, got out and left it unlocked. That was not smart--in our neighborhood, stunts like that can result in a theft. I went about my chore with only one thing on my mind: My F150 had failed me. F.O.R.D.-- Fix Or Repair Daily. That is what my friend Robert Bullard has always said about Ford products. He is a fan of GM products. I would have slurred- "See! What'd I tell ya?" I was hoping he would not be a the grocery store and see my window rolled down like that.
Well, needless to say, I was upset. When I got home, I told my wife. See immediately told me to put something over the window to keep out the rain. It had not rained in several days, but I did not want any varmints to get into my truck. I draped a tarpaulin over the door and closed the door. Monday morning, it was raining. Since we had the week off, I knew I needed to try to get the window repaired. I searched the Web for forums on customer complaints and How To sites for tips on what my problem was. It was pretty clear that electric window regulators were a common defect in Ford vehicles. I priced the parts. They ranged from new- $190 to rebuilt- $163. I read several accounts of people paying another $200 labor to have it installed. It was just after Christmas and a cheap built electric window was going to cost $400 to repair. I know why people use duck tape and plastic on their windows now.
Around 10 am, the rain tapered off to a drizzle. I put on my rain coat, and hat and headed to find out what the window was going to set me back. My first stop was the Tire Barn. I have been a long time customer and trust their expertise. When I asked if they could repair my window they said sure. They then told me that they would have to take it to the body shop and if I wanted to, I could just go straight to them instead. I figured that might be a smart move. My next stop, in the drizzle with my window down, was the body shop. I was greeted friendly. Man, that place was busy. No clue of an economic depression around them. Unless you think about it that people with jobs want must do everything they can to keep them and in rural areas like Chadbourn, with no subways, city buses, and not bike trails- the car or truck is how we get to work. No car=no job.
Well, back to the repair saga. The nice people at the body shop- Southeastern Paint and Body, owned by Kevin Harrelson, jumped right on my window problem. One of their skilled technicians was assigned my case. I did not get his name. Nice manners, he moved his mobile tool cart out of the shop to their carport area. The carport did little to slow down the wind, but protected the work from rain. The technician popped off the door panel like it was the skin on a banana. He must have done that dozens of times. No schematic, no wiring diagram, no instructions. This brings me to education: prior knowledge. What skills did this guy have that made it fun to him to snap off the panel to access the piece of crap regulator that had broken? He was understood the electrical and mechanical layout of Ford doors. He was a master with his tools. Everything was in a specific location. It reminded me of the guys on the Discovery Channel that build the custom motorcycles, who are they...Pauli and Pauli Jr.? Anyway, he confirmed the window could be fixed with replacement of the regulator and that the glass was not broken. The shop manager asked if I wanted him to check on locating a replacement part. I agreed to have him call and check on a price. He called a local Ford dealer and asked how much it was going to cost. They gave him a price of $173. Well, from my online research, I knew that was a great price. The online places would have tacked on shipping and handling cost to their prices. Before I agreed, I sent my wife a text message to tell her how much the parts would run. My wife asked me to contact the Ford dealership and see if the defective window was covered by warranty. I opted for not adding the expended warranty. Extended warranties require $200 deductibles or more. My factory warranty had run out back only seven months ago. So, it was coming out of my pocket.
I made sure the guys at the body shop knew, that warranty was not going to pay for this and that I was a "poor school teacher". I had on my ragged coat and worn out khaki pants. When they figured up the labor and parts and told me they could have it ready Monday by 3 pm, I was smiling like a fat baby with a dry diaper! I drove my F150 home in the rain to await the parts pickup and their lunch break. Around 12:30, the manager called and said the parts had come in and they would be ready to install it at 1 pm.
I keep my broken part. Not sure what I am going to do with it. I need to check to see if the core can be returned for a credit. Maybe tomorrow, I can call the Ford place and see if they buy them back. I know they are going to say NO! If as many of them break as I assume, based on the comments from the guys at the body shop, their must be a surplus of crappy built electric window regulators some where. I need to get my science students to start thinking about how they could someday design an electric window that is not made of material that breaks right after the warranty runs out. Maybe this how FORD can save the company. Micah M. White in his blog http://www.adbusters.org, outlines some very thought provoking ideas. Maybe it is time to go back to building cheap cars and trucks that have planned obsolescence, or was the electric window regulator designed to keep the parts departments and body shops in business? Not too many folks can ride around in the winter with their window open.
Planned Obsolescence is real. There many books and articles about this topic. If my public library has them, here are two books I may read that deal exhaustively with the topic:
Sunday, December 21, 2008
Prices fall and now start to creep up?
After gas prices rocketed to near $5.00 per gallon, I was ready to park my truck and try to ride my bike to work. However, a morning started by a 10 mile bike ride is out of my realm of reality. I was very happy to be able to finally buy some gas below $2.00 per gallon.
This past week, evidently the Gas Company Robber Barons are back at it again. Prices at the pump are creeping up. A nickel here a penny there. Amazingly just in time to pick the pocket of travelers during the holiday season- "Ho Ho Ho! Make the Oil Companies some $$$. I am not going to drive anywhere that is not mission critical.
Tip: Drive below the posted speed limit!
HAPPY WINTER SOLSTICE
Saturday, September 13, 2008
Gas Prices Suck As Ike Blows
In response to an outcry from consumers, Gov. Mike Easley declared an "abnormal market disruption" under North Carolina law, which prohibits stations from charging "unreasonably excessive" prices and gives the attorney general the authority to investigate claims of price gouging. Well, this is just dandy! Walking across my lawn is like a stroll through the grasses of a savannah plain. Walking in knee high weeds is tantamount to a hike in a jungle. Aggressive fire ants looking for higher ground with mounds everywhere. I can not see them, but they are out there- snakes!
I am feeling sorry for myself, but I have it easy. I am glad that I am not in Galveston, TX or areas in the path of Ike. With reports of power outages that my last two weeks, my thoughts reflect to Hurricanes Fran, Floyd and Dianne-- just to name a few that damaged my home in in Chadbourn, NC over the past decades.
So, as soon as the dew dries, I will head out on my trusty lawn mower, with it dull blades, and steer across the mounts of fire ants and thrash the twelve inch tall "grass" and whatever else is in my path. The price of gas is near $4.00 per gallon in the wake of a government declared "abnormal market disruption" under North Carolina law, which prohibits stations from charging "unreasonably excessive" prices and gives the attorney general the authority to investigate claims of price gouging. I will take my camera with me to document the "price gouging" attempts in our small town. The last time this happened, after Katrina, there was a station in town that was forced by a court to sell gas at cost until their "gouging" was refunded to customers. At least that was the gossip. That is what I heard...
I am feeling sorry for myself, but I have it easy. I am glad that I am not in Galveston, TX or areas in the path of Ike. With reports of power outages that my last two weeks, my thoughts reflect to Hurricanes Fran, Floyd and Dianne-- just to name a few that damaged my home in in Chadbourn, NC over the past decades.
So, as soon as the dew dries, I will head out on my trusty lawn mower, with it dull blades, and steer across the mounts of fire ants and thrash the twelve inch tall "grass" and whatever else is in my path. The price of gas is near $4.00 per gallon in the wake of a government declared "abnormal market disruption" under North Carolina law, which prohibits stations from charging "unreasonably excessive" prices and gives the attorney general the authority to investigate claims of price gouging. I will take my camera with me to document the "price gouging" attempts in our small town. The last time this happened, after Katrina, there was a station in town that was forced by a court to sell gas at cost until their "gouging" was refunded to customers. At least that was the gossip. That is what I heard...
Sunday, June 08, 2008
Bad to Worse!
On the news last night, it was reported that the F150 had finally lost it title as the best selling vehicle in the US. The report stated that an import (gag!) has replaced it. No, I am not even going to put its name in my blog. Gas prices hover at an all time high in Chadbourn: $3.93 per gallon. It cost me $10 to fill up my gas can just to mow my lawn.
I guess we are in for a long haul with gas prices heading for $5.00 per gallon this summer. On top of that, it appears all our legislature can "afford" in the way of a pay raise is going to be 3%. What happened to the promise to raise teacher pay in North Carolina to the National Average by this coming year?
Bad to Worse?
Not really-- I have a job. It could be worse.
I guess we are in for a long haul with gas prices heading for $5.00 per gallon this summer. On top of that, it appears all our legislature can "afford" in the way of a pay raise is going to be 3%. What happened to the promise to raise teacher pay in North Carolina to the National Average by this coming year?
Bad to Worse?
Not really-- I have a job. It could be worse.
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