Jesse James is a total badass

So a lot of people will have opinions about Jesse and his previous discretions; however, I still like the guy. I follow Jesse on Instagram and he starts sharing these awful pictures of his finger being cut off. It took me awhile to even realize it was for real and not some sort of stunt because it wasn’t picked up by any media outlets for quite some time after. So the guy is in his shop, cuts off the top of his finger, finds it, brings himself + finger to the hospital (all while sharing pics on Instagram) and then returns to work the next day, never missing a beat....

New drivetrain for the Moose (?)

Since the drivetrain in the Laplander was toast we decided it would be easiest to try and do a heart transplant rather than revive the old, tired motor and driveline that was in the Laplander. A friend had a donor 1999 Jeep Cherokee which had a rotten body, but good driveline. We got started prepping the Jeep and pulled the entire driveline out of it. The plan was to take the entire driveline – engine, transmission, transfercase, and axles as well as the wiring harness, gauge cluster, and whatever else we could salvage. Unfortunately the Cherokee driveline was far...

Body off the Laplander

Got to working on the Moose yesterday – pulled the top off of it. Here is a preview of how it’ll be run for a while (topless):   Lowered it down the hill beside my house so we could take the body off (the body weighs a ton!) and store the body / cap under my deck until we are ready for it.   We were initially using the longer boards to pry the body up from the frame and then there are smaller boards we used to block the body against the frame as we checked for clearance and disconnected linkages, wires, etc. There was also some liberal use of hi-lift...

Disappointing discoveries in the Lapland...

One of the upsides of the Laplander purchase was that it came with lots of extra goodies including a set of FJ40 axles which I was told had 4.11:1 gearing in them. A friend and I pulled the FJ40 rear axle out last night and disassembled it. Unfortunately the gears are 3.7 and not 4.11 like I was told they were. Not sure what the front axle will hold, but I am at least in the market for a new gear set / 3rd member for the rear. Also have begun to question the previous owner’s modifications – as you can see in the picture below he chose to route wires through...

Sorting the trash from the treasure

Today I took the junk off the front of the Laplander and pulled the grill on the top – it is the vent for the heater core I vacuumed it out and put the proper grill back on (left the house duct thing off of it). I pulled everything except for the FJ40 axles out of the back of it and vacuumed out all the crap, rust, leaves, etc. and the floor is pretty good. The corners have some rust, but we could see most of that when we looked at it originally. No big surprises. I put a tarp over it for now and plan to go back on the attack next weekend – pull the axles out...

Bringing home the Laplander

I have found my trail rig. A friend pointed me at it last Sunday and I brought it home on the trailer today. It is a 1963 Volvo L3314HT a.k.a. Laplander. Production started in the early 1950′s when Volvo received an order from the Swedish Military. There were several prototypes built and the L3314 debuted in 1963 and continued on as the C202 and C303 until 1984 for both military and civilian use. The one I found is a hardtop (HT) model which is the upper end of the L3314′s. The previous owner owned 12 of them at one point, six of which (including this one)...

Best Buy Online Shopping Experience

So, this is an ongoing saga for me. I have tried twice in my lifetime to purchase something from www.bestbuy.ca and so far I am 0/2. Last year I tried to order a Logitech Harmony One universal remote which Best Buy had advertised as on sale (for a really, really great price). I placed my order, got an order confirmation and then they charged me the full price! I ended up going to the Better Business Bureau and the matter was resolved in a satisfactory manner, but it should have never gone that far. Fast forward to a couple weeks ago. I’m all gung-ho to build my...

Christmas 2012

Merry Christmas everyone from our family to yours.