What was your prep for today?

[Poppy]

My front door is 150-200 feet from where I park my GC Jeep in the driveway. I bought one of those large golf umbrellas at the Home Depot for about $8 and I keep it at the front door. I wanted to get a Jeep logo'd compact umbrella to keep in the car, but they were 3x the cost of a similar un-logo'd one, so I scratched that idea. I bought one of these instead.

Amazon.com

Well... my prep paid off in spades yesterday.
We had torrential rain yesterday for a half an hour at a time, interspersed with heavy rain. Flash floods abounded.

The compact umbrella, is small enough to store in a pocket in the door. It opens with a push of the button and is not unwieldy in size as I'm trying to get out of the car while grabbing my brief case. It is large enough to offer protection for short distances, even in heavy rain.

 

[Poppy]

A couple of weeks ago I bought a pair of front tow hooks for my Jeep Grand Cherokee. I finally got under the truck to unclip the front bumper cover and bolt them in place. With my recent move, I gave away most of my tools, including my floor jack. As a result, when I got under the truck the lip of the bumper cover was only about 4 inches from the tip of my nose.

I gathered up the tools that I brought out, and put them away.

I took it to a local mechanic, and fortunately one of his bays was empty, and he could take it in right away.

Now I have a pair of tow hooks installed. Now, if I put something on the roof rack, I am prepared with front tie off's. I find it amazing that the Jeep doesn't have good tie off locations.

 

[bykfixer]

Good idea @Poppy.
Trailer hitch on the rear?

 

[Monocrom]

This is going to seem very minor, but the little things matter.
Bought a 10-piece Husky file (variety) pack last week. Actually, eight pieces with two red plastic file handles. According to the literature on the back, you're supposed to remove the handles and re-attach them on the small or larger files as needed. One, that makes zero sense because whose going to constantly swap out file handles back-and-forth as needed? No one. Two, with anything that is friction-fit, the more times you remove and fit the item, the less secure and more loose it becomes. Ideally for the tightest fit, you want to fit it once, and leave it alone.

So, eight files. But two are needle files that have stubby handles attached. Picked one large file for the large handle, and one for the smaller one. Pounded both in for a tight friction fit that won't be going anywhere. One is a 4-way file, so literally no place for a handle. That left me with three. One large file, two smaller ones. Went on eBay, bought a couple of Nicholson plastic file handles with inserts. Each handle comes with four hard plastic inserts. Giving you a universal fit regardless of what shaped tang your particular file has. Put the tang in the right insert. Then the insert into the handle itself. Pound it in! Wow, that's a tight fit!

Thing is, I realized that once the large file was taken care of, two of the other three black inserts were ideal for the two smaller files. One of them fit the round file, the other one fit the chainsaw sharpening file. Unintended, but I ended up using just the inserts with the two remaining files. Worked out perfectly! Wrapped the chainsaw sharpening file insert in woodland camo duct-tape. Left the other one alone. One handle with four different inserts took care of the three (for lack of a better term) "naked" files. And, I still have another handle with four more inserts left over. This worked out great. My prep. was basically making sure all of my files in my toolbox had handles. Yeah, minor thing. But who wants to use a tool that is going to stab them in their palm during use?

 

[The Hawk]

A couple of weeks ago I bought a pair of front tow hooks for my Jeep Grand Cherokee. I finally got under the truck to unclip the front bumper cover and bolt them in place. With my recent move, I gave away most of my tools, including my floor jack. As a result, when I got under the truck the lip of the bumper cover was only about 4 inches from the tip of my nose.

I gathered up the tools that I brought out, and put them away.

I took it to a local mechanic, and fortunately one of his bays was empty, and he could take it in right away.

Now I have a pair of tow hooks installed. Now, if I put something on the roof rack, I am prepared with front tie off's. I find it amazing that the Jeep doesn't have good tie off locations.

View attachment 66989

Jeep looks sharp!

 

[Poppy]

Good idea @Poppy.
Trailer hitch on the rear?

You mean like this?

That little blue connector wire is to power the trailer lights module. Instead of getting under the truck to snake a wire all the way up front to the battery, I put a quick connect connector onto the feed wire, and a connector on the positive wire to a cigar lighter plug. When I use a trailer, I'll connect the two quick connect plugs, and plug it into a 12V power outlet that is in the right side cargo area.

Jeep looks sharp!

Thanks @The Hawk
I'd like to put pin stripes on her, but both of my kids said NO! Dad, that's too 70's.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Just got a 60 watt Rich Solar panel with Anderson connectors in the mail. Was only $45. Panel fits nicely in the trunk of my car. Got an Anderson to 12 volt cigarette lighter connector to plug it directly into 12 volt stuff ($12). Had recently purchased an off brand Milwaukee 18 volt battery car charger ($20). Add in my Milwaukee Top Off, Milwaukee 18 volt batteries, and 700 lumen lantern and I should now have off grid solar power up to 175 watts A/C with options for car and home charging (have 120 volt charger too).

Small battery stations limit use by making you have to keep plugged into the solar panel. This usually limits battery capacity, often requires disposing of the whole unit when the battery dies, makes you choose between an undersized unit that charges quickly or a heavy unit that costs a fortune, and doesn't allow you to use the power somewhere else while charging another battery.

Hopefully the system I got will be much more resilient for different situations. I can charge one battery with the solar panel while using another with the inverter somewhere else. If there's no sun, I can charge with my car or a generator. If a battery dies, I can slide it off the inverter and use a different one. One part of the system fails and I'm not spending hundreds to replace it (other than the batteries, if all of mine fail). Now if I only had the money for a 12 amp Milwaukee 18 volt Forge battery or 2 I'd be set. My batteries are 7-9 years old (but still working). I'm grateful I invested as much as I did in power tools when I was an electrical apprentice.

 

[bykfixer]

You mean like this?

View attachment 67035

That little blue connector wire is to power the trailer lights module. Instead of getting under the truck to snake a wire all the way up front to the battery, I put a quick connect connector onto the feed wire, and a connector on the positive wire to a cigar lighter plug. When I use a trailer, I'll connect the two quick connect plugs, and plug it into a 12V power outlet that is in the right side cargo area.


Thanks @The Hawk
I'd like to put pin stripes on her, but both of my kids said NO! Dad, that's too 70's.

Tasteful black pin stripes look sharp on a white vehicle.

 

[Hooked on Fenix]

Went to the San Marcos, CA Walmart. Got an Ozark Trail Multipurpose Tarp Shelter on clearance for $13. This is 144 square feet (12 x 12 feet) with two seven foot poles and 6 stakes. Original price was $45. Saw they now carry Mora knives. Got a Morakniv Basic 511 C in orange for $11.32. Was tempted to get the larger one for around $20, probably a Companion. I passed. Money is too tight.

 

[Monocrom]

I know what you mean about money. My prep. was basically unboxing and examining my two Baofeng UV-5R radios.

Fully aware of the controversy behind that model.
Not stupid enough to screw around with them while switched on.
But yeah, easiest and cheapest way to get into HAM radios.
Get the gear first, then do a massive amount of research into using it.

 

[MyUsernameTX]

UV-5R's serve their purpose

I'm not loaning out a $300 handheld to some random person, a UV-5R? Sure.

Once you get more into it and get better radios, now you've got some spares

 

[orbital]

I know what you mean about money. My prep. was basically unboxing and examining my two Baofeng UV-5R radios.

Fully aware of the controversy behind that model.
Not stupid enough to screw around with them while switched on.
But yeah, easiest and cheapest way to get into HAM radios.
Get the gear first, then do a massive amount of research into using it.

+

Picked up some of these about a year ago for my two UV-5R
..the Type C charging is easier

Amazon.com

 

[Monocrom]

Thank you, I'll likely pick those up.
Also ordered two 16-inch antennas for each UV-5R when I ordered the radios. Still waiting on those. Nearly ordered the antennas with the wrong connector. Good thing I double-checked.