Day 1879

 I woke up at 8 today, did the pet stuff, and then went back to bed for an hour.  Then it was get up and have breakfast.

It was cold again this morning, so I spent some time surfing.  I just cruised through YouTube again.  I'm ignoring the outside world.  It warmed up pretty quickly, so I went out to the garage.  I started by installing the mirror on Ellen's bike.  It looks pretty nice.  Then I moved on to hooking up the new FM antenna.  That didn't go so well.  I ended up climbing all over the attic looking for a good place to put i.  I ended up with one that wasn't perfect, but "pretty good".  

I installed the tail light extension cord on my bike.  It works fine

Then I got to work installing the center post base on the cargo carrier.  I got out the drill press and drilled a hole in it to mount the post.  That press is VERY heavy.  Then I attached the base to the carrier.  I had to get out Dad's old vise to crush down the u-bolts.  I also had to use the Dremel to cut a couple of links in the expanded metal.  The result looks very sturdy.

It was just after noon, so I didn't want to stop for lunch.  I took all the stuff out to the trailer instead.  Some of the bolts were too long to work, so I cut all eight bolts (it looks better) and installed them on the trailer.  By that time it was after 1 and time to eat.

I had a sandwich for lunch, relaxed a little, and then went out to the finish the job.  Tightening the bolts didn't go well.  My 1/2 in wrench didn't fit the nuts on the "5/8" bolts very well.  Finally I wised up and got a 13mm wrench.  It fit perfectly.  The assholes that wrote the instructions didn't give the right bolt size.

The rest of the install went well except for some problems installing the pins on the Clevis pins.  They were this weird design that required two pliers to install.  When I was done the ramp wouldn't stay down.  I had to mess with the springs (as per instructions) to get it to work right.  In the end it works fine, but you have to hold it when lifting or it will band into the back of the trailer when it goes upright.

The last thing I did was paint a bunch of rusted spots on the ramp.  Essentially everywhere they welded the expanded metal it was rusted.

The antenna wasn't working again.  I tried to fix it, but no luck.  I'll probably buy a tuner.

Ellen fixed ham and mac and cheese for dinner.  After dinner I ordered a few minor bike and trailer things.  Then I watched bike videos for the rest of the evening.  One had a neat mode to our bikes that I'll do to Ellen's if she finds it hard to steer it