2Heeldrive - Walk it off Wimp!

Notice:

1. When I was born, I was given a choice – a big dick or a
good memory….I don’t remember what I chose.

2. Your birth certificate is an apology letter from the
condom factory.

3. A wife is a sex object. Every time you ask for sex, she
objects.

4. Impotence: nature’s way of saying, “No hard feelings…..”

5. There are only two four letter words that are offensive
to men – ‘don’t’ and ‘stop’, unless they are used together.

6. Panties: not the best thing on earth, but next to the
best thing on earth.

7. There are three stages in a man’s life: Tri-Weekly, Try
Weekly and Try Weakly.

8. Virginity can be cured.

9. Virginity is not dignity, it’s lack of opportunity.

10. Having sex is like playing bridge – if you don’t have a
good partner, you better have a good hand.

11. I tried phone sex once, but the holes in the dialer were
too small.

12. Marriage is the only war where you get to sleep with the
enemy.

13. Question: What’s an Australian kiss?
Answer: The same thing as a French kiss, only down under.

14. A couple just married were happy with the whole thing.
He was happy with the Hole and she was happy with the
Thing..

15. Question: What are the three biggest tragedies in a
man’s life?
Answer: Life sucks, job sucks and the wife doesn’t.

16. Question: Why do men find it difficult to make eye
contact? Answer: Breasts don’t have eyes.

17. Despite the old saying, ‘Don’t take your troubles to
bed’, many men still sleep with their wives!

Just wanted to share so hters can have a good laugh.. Enjoy!

4X4 Manual to Automatic Transmission Conversion

Manual to Automatic Conversion (with a bit of humor)

When we got this truck we didn’t know what was wrong with it, only that it would not move. We got it started and quickly figured out it was something in the transmission or transfer case. It ended up being a toasted output shaft and coupler. This was cool to us as my wife has bad knees and couldn’t push the damn clutch pedal anyway. For that matter I could barely push the manual clutch to the floor. So off we went into the hell that is a manual (SM465) to automatic (TH350) conversion. I decided to go with a TH350 instead of a TH400 because I felt the little small block had enough work to do pulling around a over 5000lb truck without making it do even more work by running the power robbing TH400. If I had a big block in this truck my decision would have been for the TH400.

Looking back this was not such a bad little adventure. I didn’t know what I was doing and nobody I talked to could give me a straight answer on how to make the swap. I wasted months chasing my tail looking for the marriage unit that would hook up the mighty New Process Model 205 transfer case to the TH350. I looked in the junkyard and all over on the web with no luck. I found out the part you need to ask for is a stock Chevy 1979 or 1980 K5 Blazer transmission to transfer case adapter and Power Sleeve.

What you need:

1979 K5 Blazer transfer case adapter unit – $252.00 Trans Parts Inc.
1979 K5 Blazer Power Sleeve – $65.00 Dealer
Transmission dip stick – $7.50 Trans Parts Inc.
Transmission kick down cable – $7.50 Trans Parts Inc.
TH350 Transmission – $63.00 from the junkyard (got it on a ½ off day)
K5 blazer TH350 short 27-Spline output shaft – $Free at junkyard with the transmission
TH350 rebuild kit – $89.00 Carparts.com
Book on how to rebuild a TH350 – $12.00 at Pep Boys
Torque Converter – $Free with transmission at junkyard
Flex plate $12.00 from junkyard
Floor Shifter – $45.00 off of ebay
27-Spline Input Shaft for NP205 – $101.25 Drive Line Service
Gasket and seal kit for NP205 – $21.25 Drive Line Service
Transmission Cooler – $10.00 at junkyard
The total cost was about a little over $700.00.

How I did it

Remove all the manual stuff and the transfer case. The worst part of this was getting the clutch pedal assembly out. What a pain. All the other stuff was real easy.

Support the engine with a jack. I used a block of wood under the rear of the engine as the jacking point.

Let the truck sit for at least 3 months while you chase your tail looking for advise on how to do the swap and finding out what parts you will need will need. Go the local 4×4 “experts” and find out they don’t know nothing ’bout nothing.

Half ass figure out what you are doing and start buying stuff.

Go to junkyard. (on ½ off day if you can wait) Find a 4×4 Blazer with a cracked (ruined) TH350. Find perfectly good TH350 in a van two isles down. Pull transmission from van and then drag it back to the Blazer to compare the two. See the Blazer transmission has a different output shaft. Tear down the Blazer transmission in the dirt in 105 degree heat to get to the output shaft. Find an almost new flex plate and torque converter on a gutted old farm truck and grab those too. Note: Make sure when you loosen the last bolt on the torque converter that your head is in it’s path when it lets go so you can have cool scar on your forehead to talk about later. Make sure you get all the bolts that go to the flex plate and the torque converter or you will probably end up cutting some longer ones down make them work.

Buy book on how to rebuild a TH350 from Pep Boys.

Get a TH350 rebuild kit from www.carparts.com

Tear transmission apart and throw old output shaft in the trash. Make sure you do this before you realize that the van and the Blazer had a different type of bearing on the output shaft forcing you to go to Trans Parts and get the right one.

Take at least a week to put the transmission back together. Note: DO NOT lay finger on the transmission unless you have had at least two beers to settle your nerves. Worry about whether you did it right for the next couple of months while you look for a transfer case adapter.

Call Advanced Adapters and try to get the adapter you think you need. Find out you have been smoking crack and that the only thing you need from Advanced Adapters is . . . nothing.

Call Drive Line Service and get a new 27-spline input shaft and a gasket set for the NP205. Have a friend help you pick that cast iron beast up and put it on the tailgate of the truck for a proper teardown and shaft swap. Drink two beers and start tearing it apart carefully. Realize there isn’t a damn thing in there you can hurt and begin to work more aggressively.

After calling everyone you know besides the dealer and getting prices from $300 to $500 dollars for the transfer case adapter break down and have a buddy (Rick at Trans Parts) order it from the dealer for you for about $250.

Have your wife get the power sleeve from the dealer for you.

Go to junkyard and find a transmission cooler. We ran 3/8 aluminum line from the transmission through the frame rail up to the cooler and back. You’ll need a small tube cutter and flare tool for this.

Flush the torque converter with some fresh fluid and then mount it and flex plate up to the motor.

Install the transmission into truck. It’s real heavy for one person to do. But after it sits on your chest for a while and it gets real hard to breath you will find the motivation to get it up there.
Attach the transfer case adapter to the transmission and then install the old cross member and the old transmission mounts. No drilling is required, nor are new transmission mounts or a new cross member. This is contrary to popular belief.

Mount the NP205 and then install the drive shafts. Yes the drive shafts bolt right up See the difference in the length of the adapters? Well that makes up for the difference in the length of transmissions and the stock drive shafts fit perfectly.

Fill the NP205 with nearly a gallon of gear oil. Man that thing is huge!

Install the dip stick, kick down cable, and vacuum lines. Throw about 4 quarts of AFT in the transmission not knowing that it actually takes about 11.

Install the shifter of your choice, or budget in this case. Here is the automatic shifter in the mounting location we choose for it on the floor. I put it a little too close the transfer case lever but it works just fine.
Fire it up and check the fluid.

Road test it.

When we first drove the truck the transmission shifted so smooth you could barely even feel it shift. After about 300 miles it started shifting a lot firmer. I guess it had to break in a little. We are very happy with the results of this conversion.

Pasted from

I found this article in the New York Times, and thought it was a good one.. Enjoy!

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: August 1, 2009
MOUNT HOOD, Ore.
While backpacking here with my 11-year-old daughter, I kept thinking of something tragic: so few kids these days know what happens when you lick a big yellow banana slug.
My daughter and I were recuperating in a (banana slug-infested) wilderness from a surfeit of civilization. On our second day on the Pacific Crest Trail, we were exhausted after nearly 20 miles of hiking, our feet ached, and ravenous mosquitoes were persecuting us. Dusk was falling, but no formal campsite was within miles.
So we set out a groundsheet and our sleeping bags on the soft grass of a ridge, so that the winds would blow the mosquitoes away. Our dog looked aghast (“Ugh, where’s my bed?!”), but sulkily curled up beside us. As far as we could tell, there was no other hiker within a half-day’s journey in any direction.
We debated whether to put up our light tarp to protect us from rain. “No need,” I advised my daughter patronizingly. “There’s zero chance it’ll rain. And it’ll be more fun to be able to look up at shooting stars.”
It was, until we awoke at 4 a.m. to a freezing drizzle.
The rain not only punctured the doctrine of Paternal Infallibility but also offered one of nature’s dazzlingly important lessons in perspective, reminding us that we’re just tenants — and ones without much sway.
Such time in the wilderness is part of our family’s summer ritual, a time to hit the “reset” switch and escape deadlines and BlackBerrys. We spend the time fretting instead about blisters, river crossings and rain, and the experiences offer us lessons on inner peace and life’s meaning — cheap and effective therapy, without the couch.
All this comes to mind because for most of us in the industrialized world, nature is a rarer and rarer part of our lives. Children for 1,000 generations grew up exploring fields, itching with poison oak and discovering the hard way what a wasp nest looks like. That’s no longer true.
Paul, a fourth grader in San Diego, put it this way: “I like to play indoors better, ’cause that’s where all the electrical outlets are.” Paul was quoted in a thoughtful book by Richard Louv, “Last Child in the Woods,” that argued that baby boomers “may constitute the last generation of Americans to share an intimate, familial attachment to the land and water.”
Only 2 percent of American households now live on farms, compared with 40 percent in 1900. Suburban childhood that once meant catching snakes in fields now means sanitized video play dates scheduled a week in advance. One study of three generations of 9-year-olds found that by 1990 the radius from the house in which they were allowed to roam freely was only one-ninth as great as it had been in 1970.
A British study found that children could more easily identify Japanese cartoon characters like Pikachu, Metapod and Wigglytuff than they could native animals and plants, like otter, oak and beetle.
Mr. Louv calls this “nature deficit disorder,” and he links it to increases in depression, obesity and attention deficit disorder. I don’t know about all that, although his book does cite a study indicating that watching fish lowers blood pressure significantly. (That’s how to cut health costs: hand out goldfish instead of heart medicine!)
One problem may be that the American environmental movement has focused so much on preserving nature that it has neglected to do enough to preserve a constituency for nature. It’s important not only to save forests, but also to promote camping, hiking, bouldering and white-water rafting so that people care about saving those forests.
One sign of trouble: the number of visits to America’s national parks has been slipping for more than a decade. Likewise, Europe and Canada have both done an excellent job of building networks of long-distance hiking trails, while the U.S. has trouble maintaining the trails it has.
One of our family’s annual backpacks is the 40-mile Timberline Trail circuit around Mount Hood, crossing snowfields and dazzling alpine fields of flowers. In years when we’re particularly addled, we hike it as many as three times. But a washout almost three years ago left part of this gorgeous trail — completed in the 1930s — officially closed, and unofficially rather difficult to get by. Here’s a spectacular trail that was built in the last depression, and we can’t even sustain it.
So let’s protect nature, yes, but let’s also maintain trails, restore the Forest Service and support programs that get young people rained on in the woods. Let’s acknowledge that getting kids awed by nature is as important as getting them reading.
Oh, and the slug? Time was, most kids knew that if you licked the underside of a banana slug, your tongue went numb. Better that than have them numb their senses staying cooped up inside.

Original Article can be found Here