Fixin-it

Ok, I loafed some this morning, although I was waiting on the new washer and dryer we bought last weekend to be delivered. Last ones we bought were in Perryton, TX… 22 years ago… they had been repaired a couple of times and now the set knob on the washer didn’t work right and I could see every weekend doing the wash on the electric bill? (another new thing we can see our daily electric use here on the web)…
Anyway this afternoon I jumped on a fix that I swore I should do last year but just never got to it…
The story goes, for the jeep to be towed, I had a blue-ox hitch that mounts on the motor home. On the old one it just plugged into the receiver and matched up real good with the tow plate mounted on the “bottom” of the front bumper of the jeep… was not exactly level but close… unfortunately the new motor home ( not really new he have had it since 2005)… set so much higher that I had to get a 8 inch drop extension for the receiver to get it near level. This is the hitch drop thing…….

it cause things to be 8 inches lower but also about 12 inches longer

Well that much lower and longer made the safety cables drag as well and they would drag under the damn thing no matter what I tried… I crossed them and tried everything but in moving they would fall-down and get under the extension then when we pulled through a dip or close spot… you guessed it they would all drag on the ground…

Here one of the cables is almost pinched in two

So, I figured that if I move the hitch hook on the jeep to the top of the bumper I could get rid of the drop and reduce all the dragging of the extension as well as reduce the distance back a little as well. Sounds easy and it was relatively since it was a jeep. I had to take the hooks off the top (in 9 years have never use them?) and take the hitch mount off the bottom and reverse them so the hitch mount was on top and the hooks on the bottom… Well the hooks take a T-55 Torx… but they are “hammer” tight so I had to revert to the 12-volt hammer tool that I used to change tires – finding that tool is more useful that I have thought. It is way slower than the air variety as it has to build speed to a certain level before it throws the clutch and ”
Wham” it hits the head… but it worked where my 18-inch handle with all that I could muster would not loosen things up… Anyway it all worked out and only took about 2 hours to get all the pieces swapped out and remounted and tightened up – including the break switch pull that is supposed to set the brakes on the jeep if it pulls loose. That little switch had to be moved to the top of the hitch as well. I looked and looked to get a spot so it would be hidden but nothing was really available so I just mounted it on the top. So now the mount looks like this:

Moved to the top

Also note that when the hooks are moved to the bottom they no longer have two holes on them so one is mounted sideways (just an idea). I am sure if I were really using the hooks that they should have two screws holding them but like I said, I have not used them in 9 years, and I am not sure I will.

After this little chore, I did a little “garden” work and got some wire baskets ready for the back deck and the flowers to fill them this spring.

Tomorrow? we better get on the tower installation – if the guys shows with the Hole digging machine.