Safe Arrival in Burbank

Whew, we made it!  Horses are all settled in at LAEC and we got everything unpacked.  The weather here is pleasant, mid 70s or so and lows in the upper 50s.  But the smog is very thick.  You don't really notice it so much when you're in it, but when you come down into it from the mountain you can see how it just sits around LA.  You can barely see the mountains around LA in some places because of how thick it is.  Yuck!

After feeding the horses and stopping at the local Starbucks, the day started off with a somewhat unscheduled trip to the local Ford Dealer in Bishop, after a somewhat scary incident coming down a grade in Nevada that I thought involved my brakes (scary mostly meaning "involving loud grinding noises under the truck when brakes were applied").  I was afraid something was wrong with the truck brakes and that is a BIG problem when you are going down any kind of grade with a heavy load pushing you down it.  So after consulting my panel of experts (you know who you are!) I stopped in to the Ford dealer and asked them to check it out.

Thankfully the mechanic said the brakes looked great.  I'm thinking, they should, since I just had them replaced a few weeks before this trip!  However, he asks me, when did you have work done on the driveshaft?  I'm drawing a blank, I know I've heard that word before but it's been at least a year.  Turns out, the carrier bearing on the driveshaft was on backwards.  I had to appreciate the guy's dry sense of humor..."I'm just a Ford mechanic, but when "FRONT" and an arrow are printed on it, and it's facing towards the back of the truck, that's probably not right".  LOL  Because it was on backwards, there was too much play in the driveshaft and it would make occasional noise when I was driving it.  He thinks there was enough play in it that when I pushed on the brakes going down hill it shoved the carrier bearing forward into the driveshaft hence the loud grinding noise.

Thankfully there was no major damage to either part, and it only took him a half-hour to take it off, clean it up a little and put it back on right.  He also noticed I had a new transfer case, and I told him that yes, I'd had that replaced about a month ago.  He's like, you know they have to take the carrier bearing off to replace the transfer case?  So now I know why the truck started making funny noises after I had that transfer case replaced.  Sometimes it would clunk a little, sometimes even grind, in varying levels of noise and at various times.  I knew something was wrong, and I knew it had something to do with the transfer case, as it was a noise I had never heard before I had that work done.  I had taken it in to my mechanic a couple times to try and figure out what was going on, with no success.

So now I'm pissed at my mechanic in Boise for screwing up, but thankfully the truck is fixed, no major additional damage was incurred, it didn't take long, and we're ready to get back on the road.  Plus I feel a whole lot better knowing the brakes are good as that was my main concern.

The rest of the drive is without incident.  The truck hauled great and had no problems the rest of the route.  We have one light day tomorrow where we can all get a little rest (although I will ride the boys) before the FEI jog on Thursday.