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January 28, 2003
Hooray for me!
As some of you know, I drive this 1987 Toyota truck -- Toy. It is a nice truck, but there is was a thing that drove me nuts about it, the cover. Toy has this hard cover over the bed, which used to be nice but the roof leaks and the back window had been broken out. On top of that, you can barely see out the back, plus with a cover you have to be on your hands and knees when you go into the bed of the truck and truck beds aren't exactly carpeted or anything. So I had this rust-causing, ratty looking, inconvenient truck cover on an otherwise kinda neat small truck.
Anyway, So I finally broke down and did something about it. Toy is now topless.
Frozen bolts, stuck cover
When I first got the truck off my Dad, he told me that the cover looked to be stuck on so I didn't worry about it for a long time. Then last week the truck was in the shop, so I asked the guys if they could remove it. The guys said it would take a long time, so I told them not to bother. I can handle the cover, I thought.
On the drive back from the shop one of the side windows fell off, now the thing looks really ratty. But I'm okay, the thing's stuck on right?
Rouse plays mechanic
Tonight though, home from work I flip out and decide that enough is enough -- besides the guys at the shop put a lot of that spray on stuff for tough bolts, so maybe they are loosened up a bit. With a clamp and a socket wrench I get one off pretty easy, then one sticks.
Shoot. I mess with it but I can't get a clamp to hold to keep one end of the bolt from turning while I turn the other end. I even get the Dremel out and try to saw off the top of the bolt, but the durn over-engineered piece of steel refuses to give. I quit working on that bolt and get the others off. It is dark by now.
Heave ho!
I don't want to go around driving with only one bolt holding the top on, so I lift up the side opposite the frozen bolt, figuring that the truck frame would give last and that the bolt or the cover would be the looser. I tear a big hole in the aluminum cover, but I get the dang thing off. Finally!
I was so happy, I went for a drive around the block. If it wasn't bitterly cold, I'd probably get Toy washed this weekend. Well, it doesn't take much to keep me happy, I guess -- which is probably a good thing.