"A successful marriage is an edifice that must be rebuilt every day." - Andre Maurois

From a friend's Facebook page

Today was Monday. Apart from exceptional circumstances Mondays do not include work on church stuff, but focus on physical tasks - yard work, house projects, or more desirable, work on the truck. Today was mostly about the truck.

(You can stop here if truck related posts bore you. I won't be offended, and there's certainly something on Pinterest calling your name.)

I spent a couple hours sanding on the bed with 80 grit using either the DA sander or by hand. It's now ready for a coat of epoxy sealer that will prevent rust from forming on the bare metal.

I left about 10:00 and stopped first at the school where I took the paint & body classes. I wanted to ask Spencer his opinion on how best to deal with some problem areas on the bed. I'd taken pics with the iPad so he could see the damage...and the report isn't good.

Next stop was AZ Differential. I got to thinking about the gearing he said he was going to use and it didn't seem right. And after talking to Aron at church yesterday (he's a mechanic for Kenworth and well versed on all things mechanical) I figured I'd better stop in to see if I had it right.
I didn't.
Instead of the 4.03 I thought he was putting in the new differential will have a 3.42. Never mind the mechanics of the deal (which I've scrambled to grasp), he said this gearing in combination with the new transmission will allow me to go down the freeway at 80 mph @ 2000 rpm (outstanding!) and still have plenty of pop around town with good gas mileage.
He has the case ready and will start assembly tomorrow.

From there to Dunbar Spring to pick up the repaired and de-arced leaf springs. Look closely to see my ticket number hanging from one of the front springs. Hmmmm.

And from there to Joe's to get the new "T5" transmission. The stock tranny had a 4th gear ration of 1:1. That is, every turn of the engine resulted in one turn of the driveshaft. Same with the new tranny, but it has a 5th gear that's a .7:1. So to get the same out of the driveshaft the engine only has to turn at 70% of that speed.

Everything I've read says this tranny will bolt up to the engine with only minor modifications which, to a total newbie, makes for a major learning curve. But that's a big part of why I got into this. It's about the journey.

I got home to eat lunch at 2 p.m., a short break, and off to the gym.
A lot of old people are just grumpy.

Tomorrow morning - nose down on next Sunday's preps. The wind is supposed to kick up to about 20 mph with gusts at 25 mph, but temps drop some, with a late afternoon high of 85. So maybe I'll start on the cab before heading to the gym.