Legend has it that in the late 1700’s, the Queen of France, Marie Antoinette, said this when she found out the peasants were starving (and another version is said she spoke these words as a last reprieve before losing her head).
Did she really say that? Do we really care? Why are we even talking about 18th century France, I thought this was a Jeep build?!?
The reason I bring it up is due to the slight similarities between this supposed saying and my current circumstances. You see, the significance of this saying is that the Queen was so disconnected from her people that she did not realize it was not simply that one food was absent and could be replaced with another, but the fact that there was a shortage of supplies in general. There was no food!
I do not think of myself as your queen, nor you as my subjects. Please do not start a revolution against me and expect my head. But I must point out that you are my audience and I do owe you something as your entertainer.
Now, it has been five months since we were last here, and believe me, a lot has gone on! So much in fact, that I have neglected to place a timeline of happenings here for you to keep up with. I do not expect you to be merely satisfied with cake, you deserve more than just that!
But where do we start? A wise man once said “…at the beginning. And when you get to the end, STOP.” Okay, so that was Tweedledee and Tweedledum that may have said that, nonetheless…
Last we spoke, I was talking to Craig about my front end build. Spoiler alert! He declined. I am still trying to figure out what to do about that front end. I do not know enough about castor and camber to be able to just start welding up a front end. Plus, I only have a little Lincoln 110, and my electricity is fickle.
You see, the way my house is laid out, the junction box is on the opposite side of the house that the garage is on. To make matters worse, when they built these houses, they never expected anyone to do anything except park a car in them, so there are only two outlets – one on the ceiling, for the garage door opener, and one on the far wall, which already has a power strip attached to it.
All of this means the welder has to be plugged into a 50′ extension cord. Now, for those who may not know, electricity does not like to travel very far. Especially through a small 14ga cord. That means breakers pop. That means you get terrible welds. Now I get to gouge most of the welds I already made and weld them up again, with proper electricity.
The good news is, we figured out how to mitigate the problem. I will be running 6ga wire from its own breaker at the j-box to a small outlet box inside the garage. I will have a heavy duty, super industrial extension cord that I can use to bring clean electricity to the work space. As far as the welder is concerned, it is plugged into the wall receiving electricity straight from the source. It does not realize it is being extended, and that is okay with me. As long as I get to weld without popping breakers, as long as the welding machine is happy enough to let me do my job, I do not care what it thinks.
I would prefer to rewire the garage for more outlets, but that is not in the cards as the landlord has made it clear that everything I do, has to be able to be undone when I leave. Hence the super cord.
Where does that leave the little monster? Right where it has been – in many pieces, mostly on its side in the garage. I am, however, cleaning out the garage to better accommodate a workspace… not to mention the other truck I bought. What? I did not say anything about another truck!
FrankenJeep 