Drove into Bend and met Bob, a mud guy with a sweet diesel 60. Unfortunately it was in the shop, so he took me to his friend Russ' place where between the two of them they have 9 land cruisers, 3 boats and a few other toys. Oh yeah, they have a shop the size of a barn to play with them in as well. I met Russ, a very cool guy with a lot of cruiser knowledge, and Bob and I proceeded to try and tackle my leaking powe steering box. JT had given me a powe steering box, and when I finally got mine off the frame and disconnected, I realized it didn't fit. Why Toyota felt the need to change bolt patterns from one year to the next I will never know. Likely just to mess with me. We debated for a while as to possible solutions. It was the input seal that was leaking, and JT's box was tight, so we figured we could swap one for the other. After fashioning some SSTs (Special service tools; devices so cunning in their unnecessary complexity that Toyota forces you to either buy them from the company or become Macguyver to come up with solutions) out of household appliances and small woodland creatures, we got the input seals off of both boxes and replaced mine, along with some hoses that had seen better days. The end result is that the leak has slowed down, but not stopped, and we took JT's box which started out tight, and turned it into a leaky one. So.... I think we came out ahead, and JT does get a box back (Bob is going to give it to him at Cruise Moab, an event at the end of April that I had been planning on attending before the theft pushed the trip schedule back).
With the work complete, we decided it was time for burgers and beers. Jon, aka High Desert, met us at the Bend brewery in town, and we had some good beers while talking cruisers and life in general. All three are great guys, with a love of trucks, the outdoors and Oregon.
I followed Jon home to spend the night before heading out the next day. I met his wife Janis and two daughters. Both of them are just making college plans, and there was a lot of excitement in the air. I got to listen to Natalie's piano practice, and to hear that Hilary (I know we spoke about one l vs. two, but I can't for the life of me remember which it was - sorry) got on the cross country team at Oregon State (edited - sorry for the OR crowd). All in all a great group of people with which to spend some time.
I didn't take any pictures, but the next two days more than make up for it.
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