theboondork's RV blog

Tools.... You know I love em

9/9/2021

Most of my pictures don't represent anything I'm doing at the present time, but I think they deserve a click anyway.

Boondocking on the South Platte.

Another busy day today, and thanks to the cooler weather, I was able to get started on some of the things that have to get done to be able to live for an extended period of time in the bronco.

During my trip to Deckers a few days ago, I noticed that the stepladder I recently bought is sometimes too tall, and the bronco door hits it when I try to open or close it. [See picture below.] Depending on where I park, the bronco's back door can be higher or lower by a considerable amount if the ground is not flat. And in Colorado, the ground is seldom flat, and if it were, Colorado would be named Kansas.

I have attempted to solve this problem by sawing 4 inches off of each leg of the stepladder. I'm hoping this solves the problem, but I won't be able to tell until I've parked the bronco in various locations.

Another project I started today, but will probably take quite a while to finish, is sorting out the various tools I will need to keep the bronco and truck working and leaving behind tools mainly used for the Arctic Fox.

Some decisions are easy such as I won't need tools to work on drum brakes and bearings that only the Arctic Fox uses. Or a grease gun that I only use to grease the trailer. I may or may not need many other tools depending on whether or not I want to spend any time modifying the bronco while I'm traveling. For instance, I've considered adding a couple more solar panels, since there's no such thing as enough. But the roof is noticeably heavier to crank up to camping position than it was before I put four 100 W solar panels on it, so I'm not sure if adding a couple more would be a good idea.

I don't think I will want to modify the bronco because I would really prefer to live in a hard-sided truck camper instead of a pop-up like the bronco. But since I'm in the process of changing my full-timing life, there's no telling what I might want to do. So making decisions about what tools I may or may not need to take is difficult.

Theboondork

These are the overly tall steps that I use to get in and out of the camper when my coming and going is temporary, such as returning from the grocery store. When I'm going to stay someplace for a while I put out my folding steps. I don't know if cutting 4 inches off of each leg is going to fix the problem, that's the four pieces laying on the ground. But I'm pretty sure I made it better.

Wagon wheel technology.

4 Comments

Judith

9/9/2021 08:26:54 pm

So you continue to be hard at increasing the livability of the bronco. I have no advice or ideas or evaluations to offer about that, but I was fascinated by the rocks in your photo while you were on the South Platte.
Having grown up here in a very geologically boring area...all the rock layers are always horizontal. Always.
Well, sometimes erosion and other things give them a little interest. But that big formation in your photo is almost horizontal, though on a bit of a slant, and the stuff underneath is a disorderly mess. In my next life, I'm going to be a geologist. Anyway, that's a lovely sky the rocks are sitting under.

Tom

9/9/2021 09:17:04 pm

Most of the rocks in Colorado are on a slant to one degree or another. If you recall my pictures of the Red Rocks amphitheater in Denver, you will notice a lot of those rocks are severely slanted and some are almost perpendicular to the ground even though thats sandstone and as a sedimentary rock started out flat on the ground.

They say the mountains are nothing more than flat ground being pushed up higher and higher by plate tectonics, but I don't believe it for one minute. I've been living in the Colorado mountains for years and my house is in the same position as it was when I bought it 30 years before. But now that I live in a house with wheels it does move every once in a while so I suppose that could be because of plate tectonics.

Now I have to admit there are some pretty big hills that I used to climb without any trouble at all, and now I couldn't make it to the top even on a good day. And the only explanation I can think of is the hills are being pushed up higher because of plate tectonics... And come to think of it, plate tectonics moving the ground around, could be why so many old people are falling over all the time.

Tom

Larry Worsham

9/10/2021 05:57:23 am

Have you looked at those suitcase solar panels.....

9/10/2021 08:06:59 am

Not very carefully, but I see them every once in a while quite often with the Van folks since they don't have much room on the top of their vans for panels to be permanently mounted.

I think suitcase panels would be kinda a last resort for me. Because there's so little room in the bronco and the backseat of the truck they would increase my almost insurmountable storage problem.

And one of my biggest complaints about a pop-up camper is having the annoyance of putting the top up and down whenever I want to run to the store. And anything that would add to my irritation of coming and going, such as packing away ground-based solar panels would be an added problem.

But having enough electricity is extremely important to me, and is the key to my comfort while boondocking, so if I had to use suitcase solar panels to stay comfortable I definitely would.

Tom

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Tools.... You know I love em

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