BillyBob Work-in-Progress Supplement

WHAT'S NEW is a chronological listing of updates to the BillyBob site.

TRUCK LINKS including vendor sites for old parts, custom parts, and tools as well as sites for classic car and truck organizations

STORE Operating in association with Amazon.com, books, recordings and tools can be purchased.

PLANNING for the restoration including project schedule and cost estimates.

TRAVELS WITH BILLYBOB With apologies to Steinbeck, this area of BillyBob's Garage will be used to log the trips BillyBob and I make together.

WORK-IN-PROGRESS is the restoration of parts of BillyBob that I can accomplish without a garage.

PRE-RESTORATION includes log entries of minor repairs and adventures between time of purchase and the time when I started restoration, a piece at a time.

JR'S KORNER JR's Korner is the history of BillyBob before I got him authored by my brother, Wm. C. Kephart.

BILLYBOB MAINTENANCE Ever changing detailing, oil change, lube, etc. maintenance routines specifically developed for BillyBob, including required tools, materials and procedures.

PARTS SHOP The Parts Shop is a repository of How-To articles. Things that I have done over and over enough times to have developed a procedure. This gives me a checklist and saves brain cells.

STEALTH SHOP Urban residence design with large integrated shop and separate living quarters for a relative or renter.

You will need the Adobe Acrobat browser plugin to view these wiring diagrams which are in the PDF file format. This format allows zooming and panning. If you don't have this plugin, it can be downloaded and installed (free) from the Adobe site. The button below will take you there.

BILLYBOB WIRING DIAGRAM Here's the wiring diagram updated with BillyBob's current state 'cepting the third-party strap-on turn-signal director.

STRAP-ON TURN-SIGNAL DIRECTOR/BRAKE LIGHT CIRCUIT This turn signal and brake light circuit diagram shows the current state of the third-party turn-signal director wiring, which will remain in place until I figure out the problems with the OEM turn-signal director. It also shows the OEM headlight switch.

Live from Hurricane Alley

October 24^th 2005 Hurricane Wilma first showed up on most people's radar screens when she rapidly became the strongest CAT 5 hurricane ever recorded in the caribbean at 175 mph sustained winds. We watched this slow nailbiter for a week with our "fight or flight" reflexes cycling and hoping that the track would swerve away from us. Unfortunately, the weather forecasters, who I curse every week, were mostly on the money this time. My plans were to toss the parrot in the back of the Jeep and head out-of-town if Wilma looked like she was gonna make a CAT 3 landfall, hunker down at the Krash Lab "bunker" fer a CAT 2 storm or, ride it out at the Krash Pad if it was a CAT 1.

On Monday morning, when I lost power at about 7 AM, the eye was just hitting the southwest Florida coast as a CAT 2. Too late to go to the Krash Lab at that point. Steady express train sounds fer the next three hours punctuated by gusts that would vibrate the building and rattle windows and doors. "Things" would hit walls and roof and you held your breath momentarily to see if they would start a cascade.

At ten AM, it grew calm and sunny. People started to venture outside to survey damage. I had a hard time believing we were in the eye because it had traveled across the state in only three hours. Renegade had half a tree on him. I considered myself lucky that the whole tree hadn't come down but I knew I'd need two or three guys to help get the tree off after the storm. I could see a few cars that were totally crushed and the building next to mine lost a section of roof including the sheathing. The winds started picking up and everybody went back inside again.

The backside of the storm was worse and this time we had horizontal rain too. It lasted about the same amount of time and when the winds had calmed down, one of my neighbors and I had a walk around the Krash Pad complex. The tree that had been on the Jeep had blown off again. This is it beside the space where Renegade was parked. Renegade has mangled mirrors and some grapefruit sized dents in the hood along with some scratches that off-roaders around here call "everglades Pinstripes". Otherwise, he's fine.

About eighty percent of the trees in the complex were down and we couldn't get out at first. Then, one of the Tim Allen minded residents came out with his Binford 2000 chainsaw and went into chainsaw ninja mode on the fallen trees. We all stayed about twenty feet from him fer safety's sake. He got the job done, tho'. Another neighbor started up right away with "Where's FEMA and where's our water and ice?" I didn't argue with him because he's a retired firefighter dying with cancer that's probably job-related but I thought "That's our job Man, not the Feds!"

Before FEMA, during the Cold War, we had a thing called Civil Defense and I miss it. I don't know how well it worked in the cities but it was great in small towns. It was local. Neighbors helping neighbors. Volunteer fire fighters, ham radio operators and others well prepared to get things moving again in emergency situations. The other thing I don't like about FEMA is that I don't think taxpayers should be responsible for re-building Nawlins or Florida or for blizzard snow removal or anything else. That's what insurance and bonds and charities are for. Taxpayers have no choice and it's just not right that the people of Montana have to re-build Florida coastlines.

This is the marina where my boss's 27' Manta used to be stored. I understand that he had it moved to another building on the other side of the highway last year. That building is still intact. Sometimes, you get lucky.

So, I'm standing on my back porch looking at what's left of the "preserve" adjacent to our complex an' I'm thinking . . . OK. So we're without power and it's probably about 1/4 as bad as you'll see on your TV's. The media will focus it's stories on the woefully unprepared folks standing in line for something. There will be no coverage of the powerline crews out in the weeds and the poor bastards trying to get the sewerage lift stations back on line. It's very INCONVENIENT. It's not LIFE-THREATENING in most cases. I don't have TV and I probably won't get a good idea of the extent of this until I see it on the History Channel next year. Right now I got candles, cold showers and MRE's at the Krash Pad. I know that there are a lot of people out there working long shifts to get the infrastructure operating again. I know that there are convoys of utilty trucks rolling into the state from all over to help us and I thank all the people who are working the long shifts. We all complain some, it's human nature but to the constant whiners, all I can say is Cowboy the phuc up! This thing coulda been really bad. Count your blessings.