Christmas Present

The wife unit got me a Kobalt 1/2" cordless impact for Christmas this year. I already have a 1/4" impact, 3/8" drill, flashlight and three batteries.

I wont go into details on why these are great tools, there are plenty of detailed reviews on the internet for them. What I like about them besides how powerful they are, is how cheap the batteries are for them. The smallest battery is 1.5Ah and sells for 10.99. These are so cheap that people are buying them to take the 18650 battery cells out of them for projects, tactical flashlights, etc. There are six of them in the 1.5Ah battery, made by Samsung and generally sell for $2.50-3.00 a piece. I'm sure whomever is making these for Kobalt is getting some volume discount but it appears to be a loss leader to me.

What I do know for sure is I can buy four of the 1.5Ah batteries and it is half the price of a single battery for most any other quality brand cordless tool. The battery cost is why I never had cordless tools before, I just don't use them enough to justify a $80.00-90.00 battery that will go bad in 3 years.

Now that I have them I do use them more than I thought I would, especially the 1/4" impact and the flashlight. Even with the small 1.5Ah battery the life is pretty impressive. Plus for the cost you can have more than enough extra batteries charged and ready to go.

Old Trucks Alive

A few weeks ago we decided to park Matty's Cavalier. When the throwout bearing slave cylinder went out, we pulled the engine, changed the clutch and slave cylinder. A few weeks later the transmission started leaking out the input shaft. With the mileage the car has on it, its most likely the input shaft has a grove worn in it. I cannot find a new input shaft and they don't make sleeve kits for it. A used transmission for the car is over $500.00, so he is currently looking for a new car.

In the meantime we brought the Silverado out of retirement. He has been driving it for a few weeks now and this morning when I went to run some errands I realized I had never take a picture of it with my new truck. It looks so small next to the GMC.

Some day I hope to get in a situation where I have a shop, I would like to do a mild restoration on it.

Rental

I have been traveling to Rockford IL for work, every week for the last six weeks. During that period I ended up putting about 700 miles a week on rental cars. I usually end up with a Hyuanda Elantra or a Nissan Altima with an occasional Malibu, the only one I actually like getting. Going into this I did not realized that you can be a Hertz Gold Member simply by signing up to be one. The change in how I was treated at Hertz was night and day once I signed up.

This week when I showed up the Manager was all excited to show me he had a premium rental for me at the same cost as my normal rental, it was a 2017 Mustang GT. Me not being a Ford fan at all was less than excited but with the alternative being one of those horrible Hyuandas, I took it.

Five miles into the drive I was ready to take it back, the wind noise coming from the passenger side was like the window was cracked 1/2 open. It was loud enough that I pulled over, looked at it, Googled the window sync procedure for a Mustang and tried stuffing napkins in the seal. In the end, the best fix was for it was turning up the nice infotainment system to a level that I couldn't hear the wind leak anymore.

The Hyuanda waiting next to it.

Its nice having a rental with remote start in Rockford when the temperature is below 20.

 The car ended up getting about 26mpg average for me, I really don't do much in town driving during the week there. I will admit I had fun driving it, the exhust tone on the car was awesome and the rev matching made it sound even better. The car felt very heavy to me and even in sport mode settings it was a bit piggish around corners with the rear of the car feeling mushy. Unfortunately for the Mustang my other car is a Corvette and well at least against this Mustang there is no comparison.

When I returned the car, the Manager came out again. He all excited wanting to know if I liked the car and enjoyed it that week. I told him no not really, I complained about the wind noise hoping that would end the conversation but he pressed on. I then went on to explain that my daily driver was a Corvette to which he responded "Oh I see" and walked off like I just kicked his dog. I fully expect to have a Hyuanda waiting for me next Monday, thats ok because I still hate Fords.

Bed Cover

I've been looking at bed covers for quite a while now, not really finding one that I liked. They all have pros and cons, the biggest con being the expense of them.

Trifold / Rollup Covers:

• Pros 
• Cheap
• Light weight 
• Cons
• Cheap
• Longevity 
• Security
• Water intrusion

Hard Covers (Under Rail)

• Pros
• Security
• Can open tailgate with cover closed
• Cons
• Heavy / difficult to remove (most)
• Water intrusion

Hard Covers (Over Rail)

• Pros
• Best Security 
• Best Water Intrusion Protection
• Cons
• Heavy /difficult to remove (most)
• Limits cargo height when installed

Canister (Roll Up) Covers

• Pros
• Hard cover security with roll up cover cargo heights
• Versatility
• Cons
• Cost
• Complexity
• Loss of bed space for canister

There are literally dozens of bed covers on the market, some of which fall in between what I have categorized. For example Paragon makes a hard cover that fits under rail and folds up against the front of the bed. It was the cover I was looking at the closest. The fact that it required drilling to install was why I didn't buy it.

The cover I did choose was an Undercover Elite. The reason I chose it was, I like over rail hard covers. They offer the best security, water protection and I like how they look. This particular cover went on sale for black Friday so that sealed the deal for me, even though it was still very expensive. The benefits of this versus others on the market are one its very light weight, it weighs less than 60lbs and is quick release removable. Its blow molded plastic and very strong, it will support over 600 lbs. I has a lifetime warranty including the paint. It also has a very nice feature where the lock is programmable to the vehicle ignition key. Lastly and one of the biggest selling points for me is it required no drilling to install, and actually only took about 20 minutes to install by myself.

The steel brackets were heavy gauge and appeared to be powder coated.

The struts have quick releases on the ends and clips on the cover where they can be stowed. The cover came with wall brackets which allow you to easily hang the cover on a wall when you have it removed. It has a removable LED light with magnets and a hook so you can use it in other areas. The rod with the red handle detaches and is used as a grab hook for pulling anything that has slid forward in the bed.

The paint match is very impressive.

More Lighting

The new truck has a mix of incandescent and LED lights, for example the tail lights are LED but the backup lights are incandescent. LED's are not by default brighter but you can obtain brighter versions of a particular bulb along with different kelvin ratings.

I ordered some 6000k LED bulbs to replace the backup lights, the bed lights on the back of the cab and the license plate lights. The backup lights will help with visibility at night looking through the backup camera. The bed lights help some when backing up but are more to make the bed more visible. The license plate lights are to get rid of the only 3000k lights left on the back of the truck.

The lights I ordered for the backup and bed are 1000 lumen each, which is equal to a very powerful tactical flashlight. Another modification I did while changing these was to wire the backup lights to the bed lights. When the truck is unlocked with the remote at night, the backup lights, puddle lights, headlights all turn on. If you want the bed lights to turn on you have to go in the cab and hit the switch on the center console, now they come on with the remote. The only downside is when you put the truck in reverse the bed lights come on, I'll live with that trade off any day of the week.

I forgot to take a picture of the truck with the incandescent backup and bed lights, but here is one with the LED's in place. They overwhelm the camera sensor on my Iphone.

Awesome Light Pods

I had this week off and decided to do a small project with the GMC. In GM's infinite wisdom they decided in 2014 to stop lighting the foot well areas in their trucks. Now if you drop a something small at night on the floor it is a lot more fun to find than having a simple light to see it. I also like how foot well lighting looks when your getting in the vehicle. I had bought some LED strip lights last year for this project but the first roll was cheap Chinese and had cold solider joints causing the lights to randomly shut off or flicker. The second roll I bought was from a US distributor and had some of the same issues so this time I decided to use LED pods.

I bought this LED kit for $13.99, it had enough modules to do the interior and the bed. I'm very impressed with the quality for the cost of these modules. The modules are UL listed, waterproof and pre-wired. The kit came with a harness, additional wire, real 3M adhesive pads, and screws if you chose to hard mount the modules. This allow me to use some existing screws in the truck to securely mount the pods.

This is one under the glove box lighting the passenger side foot-well.

The light is 5000k, and looks to me just slightly yellow to the factory interior lights although that might just be the surface its shining on, its very close. For the rear seats I was able to wrap a zip tie around the seat frame tube and secure the pod just at the back of the front seat.

I used 1 module at each seat and put the remaining 8 modules in the bed in addition to the factory bed lights. The bed has areas under the rail where the steel is stamped at an angle that made a perfect spot to mount these lights.