Shocking........OMG

You still have the cost of the plugs, plus the all the labor to replace them, and put everything back in place. The rest is for inflation.
 
Forgot to ask, how deep are you burying the conduits? Regardless of what you use make sure it is water tight. Not long before I retired a customer was bringing a plant back on line after several years. Without checking they started energizing some "non-critical" circuits. A small 3/4" conduit had been opened at sometime during those years. Rain water build up, wires rotted and when the power was turned on it took out the entire breaker panel. I know it shouldn't have but there it is. Electricity doesn't always play by the rules.
 
I'll probably go down a couple feet with 2'' pvc leaving an extra pull line. I have access to a spool of a couple hundred feet direct burial 4 wire #12 cable that was excess from a previous communication tower job. Biggest challenge will be crossing a small brook that I have a bridge over.
Like I mentioned earlier, this existing cable has been in the ground since the early 1970's, so it's not real surprising I finally have an issue....happened right after a bad lightning storm hit the area. A huge tree about 200' away was hit also. Huge limb was blown apart with bark stripped off from the top of the tree to bottom.
 
Axles arrived today from NAPA. Pretty quick. Just ordered this stuff on Friday night.

Rotors, pads and sway bar links are due Thursday from Rockauto.

I'll be garage mechanic this weekend. Temps are predicted at 104F on Saturday. Things cool off a bit on Sunday at 103F according to predictions. To add to the joy, the garage faces South. I'll have to fart to make a breeze.
 
Axles arrived today from NAPA. Pretty quick. Just ordered this stuff on Friday night.

Rotors, pads and sway bar links are due Thursday from Rockauto.

I'll be garage mechanic this weekend. Temps are predicted at 104F on Saturday. Things cool off a bit on Sunday at 103F according to predictions. To add to the joy, the garage faces South. I'll have to fart to make a breeze.
Just stay away from the pickled eggs, and herring when refreshing yourself with a cold one.
 
The "cold ones" will be Lemonade, Ice Tea, Water....... the barley pops come out when done.

The breeze......still working on that.

Think I'll start at dawn.
 
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Install of axles, sway bar links and rotor/pads began Saturday at 630 am.

Driver side went reasonably well. Only exception was reassembling of the tie rod. Apparently, the stud broke loose at the outer end. Was not able to bring it to correct torque. Behaved as if the threads were stripped, then I looked deeper to find the stud turning. New tie rod outers on order. Otherwise, driver side complete.

The passenger side went smoothly.....almost. Needed to use a hacksaw to cut a sway bar link stud. The nut jammed and the stud began to turn, tried all my tricks before I brought out the hacksaw. After that install of the axle, sway bar link and reassembly went well. The brake turned into another level of frustration. 1 of the 4 caliper pistons would not retract. So, tried all my tricks to no avail. New caliper on order.

Truck has new CV axle, sway bar link, rotor and pads on driver's side. Passenger side has new CV axle, sway bar link, original rotor and pads. Pads have just over 1 mm of pad remaining.

Needs to run me until Labor Day weekend. Then I can finish the work. Tie rod outer ends (both sides). Caliper, pads and rotor on passenger side.

Temps reached 109F. Consumed nearly 6 qts of drink on Saturday. Biggest impeding issue was removing 17 years of rusted fasteners. Even the cotter pins on the castle nuts were rusted, siezed in their holes.
 
Usually those sway bar links have an allen head to hold them, so they won't spin on you. When I replaced them on my tundra I was glad toyota did this.
As far as rusted hardware on those components, it's why I now coat all that stuff with cosmoline. I've tried everything with exhaust systems including sloping never seize on all the bolts and nuts. Changing over to stainless seems to be the only answer.
 
Well.....the allen head sockets were heavily rusted. Cleared the crud out of the hex with PBlaster and Brake clean so the hex key would fully seat. Unfortunately, the hex rounded out at a pretty low torque.

I used a bit of aluminum base anti-seize on the parts. Save my good Copper base for high temperature assemblies.
 
I guess I was lucky my sway bar links rusted away within 5 years on my tundra with all the salt they use on our roads. They came off in 15 minutes. It was very strange how the toyota replacements...although very expensive, never rusted away again in the remaining 15 years I owned the truck. Was like they had a some sort of hard ceramic coating on the new ones.
 
I'm not surprised I had difficulty with the work.

The history of this truck is hard duty. It spent its life on a farm. I know how farmers work their trucks. Gravel roads, fields, pulling wagons (loaded and unloaded), maintenance when it breaks then just a band-aid. Worked hard and put away.

Its also 17 years old. Hard years in the rust belt. Oh well, its in good condition, just needing some worn out suspension bits replaced.

There are others on the forum with much older rides running on borrowed time on their suspension.
 
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