20 years of incrementalism or Blackjacks 98 SE
- Thread starter Blackjack
- Start date
Upper doors made it in today. Too dark for outdoor pic’s tonight so get some tomorrow.
My better half told me she ordered something off my Amazon list for my Birthday which is next week and I came home to this. Any guesses?
Bad time to try for an outside pic but here it is anyway.
So the Mrs ordered me the Bestop Highrock Universal Rack and Rack bracket kit. Previously when I ran a half top I had taken a hitch rack and modded it to sit on top of the belt rails. But this while useful was quite heavy and overkill for what I carried so I wanted something lighter and not attached to the belt rails. This looks like it should fit the bill. I mocked it up real quick as I have other things to finish up before locking it down. One thing I noticed is that I will definitely be changing out the hardware. I will show why later. One thing I do like is the spacing from the tonneau cover. It looks like I should be able fashion something to stow the half doors on the bottom when I want them off.
Buttoned up the rack install for now. Bestop designed it to be used with 97-02 bar padding so I used a bit of heavy tool drawer liner to make up the slack. Not sure why they had to use this long of hardware so I might have to change it out later.
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Just for kicks I tried the window bag from the Rampage frameless top and as luck would have it the upper door halves fit. Now I just have to make up some straps and add some foam to the cross tubes.
Decided to thumb my nose at old winter and will probably get kicked in the balls for it but I needed to get the pizza cutters off. Quick trip to the beach to catch the sunset.
My kid has graduated to a DSLR so I am going to carry her old Canon ELPH for the season. Still have to get the settings figured out. And as tempting as it is you do not want to try and wheel on the icebergs. Good way to have a very bad day.
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Thanks. Hopefully we will be seeing a lot less going forward. We could use a good summer up here.
Have you been getting heavy precipitation this winter like the rest of the west coast?
Interesting enough our winter has been pretty average but everywhere around here has been pretty heavy. Anchorage hit their average winter total by new years and places like Juneau had some big storms hit them.
With the weather getting warmer and thinking it’s time to get out better get to laundry list of repairs and maintenance after the winter. First thing up is cooling system maintenance. Have had an intermittent squeak from the accessory drive for a bit now. Figured it was probably time to change the water pump and I was correct. Bearing was on its way out. Not too big a deal other than the power steering pump bracket is a bit of a pain. Also looked for an upgrade for the belt and it was suggested I try the Continental OEM grade belt. It feels good and hopefully it works better the the previous belts I have tried.
The motor on the old 3.0 Taurus fan is finally giving up the ghost so it needs attention too. A friend here on the forum had a 17 inch Derale two speed fan laying around and graciously offered it up. So in the morning I have some parts to grab but I think we can make it work just fine.
That’s never gonna work….
But the coffee was delicious!
Gonna give it a go this way. If I can’t get enough pull I will re-examine and try something different.
For the fan I used stainless screws that I tapped the flatbar and sent home with some red loctite. This way they act more like a stud and should be more resistant to loosening.
Fan is on solid. Just need to redo the wiring and put it back in the rig.
