Toilette Trouble

The toilettes in the cabin backed up for the third time since my family left in March. So, we finally bit the bullet and called in a professional plumber to diagnose the problem. After rooting the sewer pipe to clear the obstruction, the plumber sent a camera down the line to see exactly what had been causing our problem. We found a spot that looked like the sewer pipes had become offset from each other, creating a large lip that collected solids.

I spent a couple days trying to find someone with a backhoe that could come dig up the pipe so that I could fix it. I didn't want to have to dig it up by hand. These are the Rocky Mountains. There is no soil. But, no one was available to dig a hole for me for at least a week so I decided to hire a friend and dig the hole by hand.

The plumber had marked the location of the offset pipes, so using a pickaxe and a couple of shovels, we started digging. It was hard work. One of us loosened the rock and soil with the pickaxe, then the other cleared away the loose earth. We had to dig down three feet to get to the pipe and ended up digging a hole four feet wide and six feet long.


When we got down to the pipe, the source of the problem was apparent. Two pipes were connected using a flexible rubber coupling and the pipe closest to the house had sagged several inches. The pipes never actually disconnected (the cut in the coupling in the pictures is from me).




A flexible coupling is really the wrong thing to use for this application, but the best I could do was reset the sagging pipe and replace the coupling. I supported the connection with a four foot long 2x6 that extended on either side of the joint and packed the dirt underneath it with a sledge hammer to keep it from settling in the future. The toilettes are flushing like normal again and hopefully we don't have to deal with this issue again.

The job wasn't over after I fixed the pipe. I've always believed that "the job's not done until the cleanup is done," and there was still a lot of cleaning to do. Since we'd had to plunge backed up toilettes filled with sewage water a few times and bacteria grows readily on surfaces contaminated by sewage water, I had to clean both bathrooms and the kitchen thoroughly. I spent two hours bleaching every single surface, including the shower, sinks, toilettes, and floors. My eyes and throat burned by the time I was finished.

Now, the toilettes work and the cabin is cleaner than it's ever been.

Winter Park

Warning, there are graphic pictures in this post.

Shannon and I went to Winter Park for a day to have some summer fun. Winter Park has North America's longest alpine slide, a mini golf course, a giant maze, and several other summer time attractions. I was looking forward to the alpine slide because it's a lot of fun and I hadn't been in years. We played mini golf, but that was somewhat disappointing because the course is falling apart and hasn't been maintained and there were little hooligans running around everywhere, jumping on holes in front of us and yelling and screaming. The giant maze was more fun that it had been in past years because I didn't get stuck in it for half an hour. The alpine slide was every bit as fun as I remembered it... until the last run.

On the last run down the alpine slide, I got an exceptionally fast cart. I was having a great run until I kept too much speed leaving one turn and entering another. I lost my balance and fell sideways in the track, catching myself with my knees and elbows, which slid down the plastic track at about 20 mph. During the fall, I hooked the underside of my right knee over the outside of the banked turn. That probably kept me from face-planting in the middle of the track, but resulted in a large burn on the backside of my knee. This picture shows the burn on the back of my right knee a few hours after it happened, when it was still fresh.


I righted my cart and rode to the bottom of the track, slowly. One of the track attendants noticed my wounds and pointed me to a first aid shack they have at the bottom of the track specifically for people like me. The burns weren't really painful, yet, but I decided to clean and bandage them properly. The spray-on antiseptic nearly crippled me when it hit the back of my knee. It burned. Bad.

That night I took the most miserable shower of my life. I had fresh abrasions on both elbows and both knees, so I couldn't stand under the water. When my the back of my right knee got wet, it felt like someone sprayed me with acid. That night's sleep wasn't much better. I had re-bandaged the abrasions to keep them from sticking to the sheets, but every time I bent my knee, it burned intensely. This picture show the burn after it has scabbed over with my hand for a size reference.


That was about ten days ago. The burns on my elbows and left knee are healing well, but the burn on the back of my right knee is still pretty painful. It has scabbed over, so every time I bend my knee, the scab wants to break and pulls at my skin and leg hair. I've only got about a 45° range of comfortable motion. One final picture shows the scab as it is now, but it's pretty gross, so you have to click the flickr link to see it.

I hope it's healed completely before my family reunion at the lake, so that I can go swimming!

Heavy Duty Track Bar

About the same time that I was working on Shannon's car, my Jeep was having some trouble. Whenever I turned, the front end popped and the angle of the turn would change slightly. For a while, I couldn't figure out what was going on, but I finally asked Shannon to look under my front end while I turned the wheel to see where the noise was coming from (don't worry, the Jeep was off and not moving). By that time, it had gotten so bad that I could feel the pop when I turned the wheel. It turns out the culprit was a worn track bar relocation bracket. I did some research online and found out that that was a common problem with lifted Jeeps. When people go the cheap route and use the stock track bar with a relocation bracket, instead of getting an adjustable track bar, the stock one often wears out. Here's a picture of the stock track bar and relocation bracket.


This is a close up of the relocation bracket. It moved a little each time I turned the wheel, causing the popping in the steering.


I did a little more research and settled on replacing my stock track bar with an Iron Rock Off Road Heavy Duty Adjustable Double Shear Track Bar. Iron Rock Off Road is the same company that I bought my slip yoke eliminator kit from. It's a really great company that makes quality products and has great customer service (that influenced my decision).

The new track bar required that I also change the bracket that mounts to the frame rail on the driver's side. This picture shows the original frame side track bar bracket.


Overall, the installation was straight forward because all the new parts were bolt on. Of course, doing the work in a slanted driveway added a bit of a challenge, because the track bar had a lot of pressure on it keeping the body from shifting over the axle. I had to lift and support the front frame rails and lift and support the front axle with blocks of wood to keep the body and axle from moving with respect to each other when I removed the track bar.

As soon as I decided I was going to replace the track bar, I started PB Blasting all the bolts twice a day (PB Blaster is a penetrating catalyst that breaks the rust bond between the threads of nuts and bolts). After dealing with Shannon's car, I was terrified of breaking another bolt in a critical or hard to reach spot. Most of the bolts and nuts broke loose with a wrench and a BFH. There were two bolts that were a challenge to remove. They were both very rusty and threatened to break. Luckily, after a generous treatment with a propane torch on both nuts, both bolts broke lose with little fuss. After examining one of the bolts, I realized I was pretty lucky to get it out without breaking it. I think the only reason it didn't break was because it was a high strength, 10.9 metric bolt. You can see how corroded it was near the head.


I replaced those two bolts temporarily with 8.8 bolts available at the local hardware store, while my 10.9s are on order.

After the stock track bar was removed, installing the new one consisted of bolting on the new frame-side bracket then adjusting the length and installing the new track bar, which went smoothly. This picture shows the new frame side bracket and heavy duty track bar.


This picture shows the axle side of the new track bar, sans relocation bracket.


After I installed the new track bar, I went for a short test drive. The steering felt great and tight, compared to being loose and "floaty" before. I parked the Jeep on the only level piece of concrete in town and measured to make sure the axle was centered under the body. I had to lengthen the track bar 1/8th of an inch to get centered, but now my Jeep handles great. The new frame side track bar bracket lowers the track bar mounting location 3/4", which has pretty much eliminated my bumpsteer, too. I do have to get an alignment done now, because the old track bar didn't have the axle centered, so my steering geometry is a little bit off.

East Coast Car Work

After I got back from Texas, Shannon and I decided to tackle some work on her car that had been neglected for a while. The ABS (anti-lock brake) sensor on her right front wheel was broken and needed to be replaced and her front rotors were warped and need to be replaced. Unfortunately, Shannon's car spent most of its life on the east coast, so it turned out to be the job from hell.

Replacing the rotors went smoothly, but the bolt that attaches the ABS sensor to the steering knuckle broke off. I drilled part of the bolt out and tried to use Easy Out bolt removers twice, but both times the Easy Out broke off inside the bolt. Easy Outs are extremely hard steel, so you can't drill them out with normal drill bits (I probably dulled several of mine trying). You have to use a Dremel with diamond coated bits to remove the hardened steel. I burned through about eight of those throughout the process. At 8 bucks a piece from Home Depot, that would've gotten expensive. Luckily, Harbor Freight sells 16 packs for 7 bucks.

In the end, I decided to drill all the way through the stuck bolt and tap new threads (inside of the old bolt) for a new, smaller bolt. (I didn't make any more attempts to remove the stuck bolt. I'm pretty sure it was fused to the steering knuckle) It took three days of work, mostly drilling and dremeling the stuck bolt and Easy Outs out, and two trips to Denver (an hour away from Silver Plume), but Shannon's ABS seems to be working fine and her car no longer vibrates madly when she brakes. And I learned some hard lessons about east coast cars and rusty bolts.

Summer in Silver Plume

When I got back from Texas, summer had finally made it to Silver Plume. It's been sunny and in the 70s every day. All the trees and shrubs are green again and it is gorgeous in the mountains.

H-town

I just got back from a 13 day trip to Houston to visit some friends. It was a welcome vacation because it had been so cold in Silver Plume all spring. It snowed the night before we left. It was sunny and in the 90s the entire time I was in Houston, which was awesome, considering we'd hardly had a nice day in Silver Plume since last September. I spent a lot of time relaxing by the pool and hanging out with my friends from co-oping in Houston.

On the weekdays, while my generous hosts, Nathan, Kelly, and Pete, were at work, I spent time researching jobs and going on walks with Nathan and Kelly's dog, Winston.

I had a great time in Houston, but it made me realize how much I miss all my friends. It also made me appreciate the fact that they all have real jobs. I'm definitely ready for one.

Road Trip

After my dad came in town, it was time for a break from all the work. Shannon and I (along with her dog, Bandita) packed the Jeep and headed to New Mexico early on a Tuesday morning. Our first destination was Capulin Volcano, an extinct volcano in northeastern NM.


From there, we headed back to Colorado on our way to Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. Driving through southern Colorado was very cool. It's a lot different than northern Colorado, where I live. It's very dry and desert like with a lot of red rocks and dirt.

Just before the sand dunes is Zapata Falls, a 30 foot waterfall recessed in a crevice.


We were there early in the season, so half of the waterfall was still frozen.


Great Sand Dunes Nation Park was very cool. The dunes are huge! We aired down the tires on the Jeep and drove through the sand in the National Park. Driving through dry, fine, loose sand is a challenge! We stopped halfway through the park to climb around on the dunes a little.


It's really hard to climb up a sand dune because for each step you take upward, you slide about half way back down in the sand. The scenery from the top of the dune was pretty amazing. We were standing on top of a giant sand dune with the plains between the front range and the Continental Divide to the west and the densely wooded front range to the east.


After driving through the sand in the National Park, we took a moderate 4 wheel drive road through the national preserve. It was a fun trail to drive with several creek crossings and spectacular views.


One section of the trail went through a portion of the forest that had been burned in a forest fire last fall. It was surreal how much damage had occurred and how little had grown back.


The rest of the pictures from Great Sand Dunes are on flickr.

On the last day of our trip, we stopped a few touristy places we'd heard about. The first was Bishop Castle. This is a castle that one man (Jim Bishop) started building in 1969. It's still not finished because Jim is the sole builder and does it only in his free time (he has a full time job). He lets the public climb around on it for free and it is pretty impressive. You can climb all the way to the top of the tower you can see in the picture.


The rest of the pictures of the castle are on flickr and are definitely worth checking out.

We also stopped at the Royal Gorge Bridge, the world's highest suspension bridge. The bridge was impressive, but kind of a disappointment because they've built a theme park around it. It's a huge tourist attraction now and you can't get cross the bridge or even get close to it without paying 25 bucks to get into the theme park.


From there, we headed back to Silver Plume.