All day.....

 6:45 am - Wednesday - November 23rd - GNHS - 46° F, humidity 38%, wind 4 mph out of the northeast......crystal clear, blue, sunny skies today with a forecast high of 73° F.  On this date in 2021 TLE and I had just arrived at our boondock site at Ocotillo Wells for Thanksgiving with our kids, and relatives.......↴

....the next day it looked like this......↴

.....coincidentally, we will be driving over to Ocotillo Wells today to visit with our kids as they arrive for their annual desert Thanksgiving adventure....I think we'll even swing up to Borrego Springs for some Los Jilbertos tacos, and a little junking perhaps.

Normally we do not work on Tuesdays, but we had bookings for two 4 seaters, and two 2 seaters for all day.....that's a lot of money, and we want COA* to be successful, so we reported for work around 7:30 am.  The nice thing about all day rentals is you prepare the UTV's (check oil, air pressures, etc.), take the customers through UTV operation and safety orientation, then send them off......then you have the rest of the day off until they return.....at least TLE did.  I worked until 10:30 am on COA stuff, then spent the rest of the day inspecting an 80's era vintage VW sand rail back in the shop yard....they looked something like this.....

.....I didn't take a pictures of that one, but this is what a VW sand rail looks like, and the one I'm looking at is the same color, and essentially the same setup.  It's been sitting for two years, and, according to the owner, it 'ran when parked'....the problem was he blew the bead off one side of the right rear tire, and couldn't get it re-inflated, so he parked it, and never came back to it.  This particular one has 4 wheel disc brakes (an upgrade), twin carbs (upgrade), a racing transmission (an expensive upgrade), and numerous other upgrades that escape my memory.  There is no battery, so I'll have to lay my hands on one, but I did remove the right rear tire and took it back to the trailer to see if I can reseat the bead, and re-inflate it, which I need to do before I do anything else.  I think I can get it running again, and if so would make the owner an offer.  These VW engines are pretty resilient, and it has been sitting in the dry desert air for the past two years.  The other 3 tires still have air in them, and can be inflated with no problem.  Once I get it back on 4 wheels I'll tow it up to the trailer where all my tools are to begin to revive it....

The bead is seated on the other side of the tire.  I'm using weight and sun to soften the tire, and push the rim slowly down to the tire bead....almost there.

 

.....I fiddled around with the tire until around 3 pm when our all day rentals began to return, so I changed clothes and began to wash the first of four UTV's.  'All Day' is a relative term, and really depends on the customer, and when they are ready to be done.  Some go, literally, all day, and some come back after 3, or 4 hours.  As I worked, and the sun began to edge closer to the western horizon it lit up the Chocolate Mountains to the east....beautiful!.....

....by 5 pm all the rentals had returned, been washed, and refueled.  There were no accidents, and no rescues on this day, so as days go in the UTV rental business it was a good one!

Thanks for stopping by!