Truck Repairs

We are still at the garage in Plankinton owned by Kyle Overweg. He turned out to be a very nice and apparently very competent mechanic. It also helped that his personal vehicle is also a Ford F-250, so there wasn't much about Dan's truck that he didn't know, right off the top of his head.

It turns out the the ABS light that has been on for the last couple weeks (Dan had it looked-at at the Ford dealership in Clarksburg before we left and they told him it was no big deal - I guess they were  wrong) was an indicator of work that really needed done. 

While waiting for the parts to arrive to replace the front driver's side rotor & hub assembly, Kyle was looking around and saw that the automatic 4WD control had been jury-rigged to render it inoperable (before Dan bought the truck), so the 3 of us took a ride around the corner to the hardware store to get a couple basic things to fix it so that we'll no longer have to exit the vehicle to manually lock the hubs each time we want to change from 2WD to 4WD (or vice versa).

After we got back & the parts arrived so he could begin to install the new rotor and hub assembly, Kyle realized that the U joint was also bad - so that is getting replaced too. Now, you may be thinking (like I was, because I'm naturally a distrustful person) that Dan is getting hosed. However, as soon as he pulled the truck into the shop, Kyle invited Dan in to observe and/or help him through the whole process. Dan has been happy to learn new mechanical things & I have used the time to take a nap and read a book on my phone. With this guy's super nice demeanor and with Dan there as the assistant mechanic, I doubt that anything shady is happening.

While the nap and pleasure reading were both enjoyable, I just realized that between the truck issues last year, the trailer problems on the way out, and now the trouble today, we have lost 2.5-3 days of hunting over the last 2 trips. That sucks...

It's around 12:30 now and we have until 5:30 to hunt. I'm still hoping the we can get out of here soon enough to get into the pheasant field for an hour or so later. As the truck is still up on the lift, we'll have to wait and see.