Monday, January 30, 2012

I will not rant.....

The cost of an emergency room visit?  $4800. Now that's right up my income alley. Took Deb there for more tests, and they still don't know what's wrong with her. At least she is walking (or hobbling, anyway). We have been to the hospital several times over the last 2 months. The figure above reflects just one visit. We are making it, though. At each of our sites I configure some kind of steps to get her in and out. Mostly out of scrap wood and cement blocks.

We are jacked up in my mechanic's shop, putting yet another transmission in the rig. The pathetic 700r4 tranny that came out was ridiculously undersized, and the difference between that one and what's going in (th400, with no OD) is huge. Planetary gears about twice the size. Yokes about one third again bigger.

Can you see what these bolo's did to us when they stuck this tranny in? Greed, the final frontier of the american businessman. Yeah, I was negligent (twice) by not watching every single thing these yahoo's did. I was very distracted with other things, and I offer no excuse for not crawling under there with them.
  Now I am crawling under the rig right with the mechanic, being a PITA because of all my questions about this system. It is kind of a return to old school mechanical systems, because of the lack of an overdrive.
  We are planning on resuming the trip west next month, and I betcha I know this tranny inside out by then.