Knowing How vs. Doing It

 

Knowing how to do something and actually doing it are two completely different skill sets! That life lesson was driven home in a convincing manner today.

The rock guards on my FJ Cruiser have been bothering me for quite a while now. They are badly rusted with quite a few holes where the rust has eaten through completely. They look horrible on my not so shiny silver FJ and if I were driving across a scree field I am certain they would do nothing to protect my rocker panels!

I have been wanting to replace them for quite a while, but each time I have checked prices, I have decided to hold off until some rich uncle leaves me a considerable estate.

Of course, I do not have any rich uncles, and if I did I am certain that their estate would pass to some of my numerous cousins scattered around the country. So when I saw an online advertisement for a set of rock guards that were within my price range I ordered them right away. They arrived yesterday and I decided to install them today.

I considered taking my truck to a mechanic to have the rock guards installed, but after looking over the instruction I made the decision to do it myself. After all, it only involves inserting and tightening a dozen or so bolts and washers. No need to spend a $100 bucks or so when I can do it myself in just a few minutes.

At least that is what I told myself! The first thing that I neglected to consider is that I am well past the age that rolling around on a driveway in December is not perhaps as simple as it sounds. An even if it is simple in concept, that driveway is a bit chilly! Actually rolling around on the driveway underneath my truck was not as painful as it was to actually lower my body to the driveway in a semi-graceful manner. Well forget graceful - just getting down there was a major exercise in pain!

And of course, getting down was even less of a problem than getting back up - and I had to do that quite a few times because the tool that I needed was never the tool that was in easy reach. Up and down, up and down..., there are yo-yos that make fewer up and down trips that I did today!

But it was a simple task once I had gathered all of the requisite tools and managed to lower myself into position lying on the concrete alongside the truck. All I had to do was unscrew the sixteen bolts that attached the existing rust eaten rock guards and replace them with the twenty-four bolts required for the new rock guard. Piece of cake!

At least it was until the bolt head separated as I attempted to remove the first bolt! Now I had a headless bolt firmly and deeply blocking the hole that I needed to install the new rock guard. Now I have dealt with broken bolts before, but that was long ago. I no longer have the tools to remove a broken bolt, and even if I did have the needed tools, I could not count on being able to do the work lying on my back on a cold concrete driveway and trying to drill into the body of a headless bolt with rust and debris falling into my face and eyes!

So I decided to bypass the stuck bolt for the time being and move on to the other side of the truck. Eventually, I got the passenger side rock guard installed and two of the three supports installed for the driverside guard. The passenger side looks quite a bit better than it did with the old guard. The driverside looks a bit dangerous with the supports jutting out. The effect is sort of like the extendable hubs that I remember from seeing James Bond movies where the bad guy pulls up alongside James Bond and then Bond presses a button and the hubs of his Aston Martin extend and chew up the bad guy's car.

In fact, one of the supports was exactly where my leg would be as I climbed into and out of my truck. Since I am a bit clumsy (understatement!) anyway, I decided to uninstall that support for the time being. Tomorrow I will try to find a mechanic who may be willing to extract the stuck bolt and finish up the installation for me.

That is IF I CAN GET OUT OF BED TOMORROW! Right now every muscle in my body feels as though it has been mistreated. I am not certain that I will be able to move at all tomorrow.