For the last month and a half, I’ve been fixing everyone else’s shit. Nephiew’s car blew a head gasket, so we ripped that apart and installed a new one. Sister’s car had no heat, chased that down. Sister’s porc roof supports rotting, replaced/repaired that.One thing after another after another, after another. And shit at Chez Og going to hell in the meantime.

So yesterday, my first day of not-fixing-other-people’s-shit in six weeks, I decided to tear into the Exploder and see what that front end vibration is.
Now, it’s been doing this for a couple years, so it’s nothing major, but it’s annoying and I want it to stop. I suppose it’s most likely that it is a CV joint, so I yank the front axle out and replace that, about a four hour job working by yourself that ends up in- you guessed it, the same damnable vibration. So the last thing it could be, I figure, is the actual wheel bearing, andf t5hose die so rarely that I was unwilling to spend the $165.oo just as a diagnostic, but I figured it was time. So I rip the farging axle apart AGAIN, and proceed to replace the bearing. THis time it works, and I’m going down the road in blissful quiet again. Still, big PITA and eight hours of work (and $200 in parts) I would have preferred to avoid. At least I didn’t pay some shop $1800 to do it. Then I made the nephiew clean my garage, which was tasty. Now all I have to do is survive next week and try to get a deer. Or, hopefully, three.