"Dodge" Is In The Garage

I got my wish for lots of rain. We are currently in that typical summer pattern, where it rains almost every day. As you know, I was hoping the rain would bring Gary into the garage to work on me. Well, he's been working in the garage a lot, but "Dodge" is the one who's been getting all the attention. I have no problem with that. After all, "Dodge" is my tow vehicle. Without him, we wouldn't be going camping anywhere but here at home. Gary and I REALLY depend on him, so I'm happy to see him get some much needed repairs done before our camping season begins this fall. On the agenda for this round of repairs, was front suspension work. "Dodge's" upper ball joints were worn out, and his upper control arm bushings were looking pretty terrible as well. Instead of replacing the individual parts, "Dodge" got completely new upper control arms. These new arms contain all the parts that needed to be replaced. From what Gary tells me, it's much easier to simply bolt these in, compared to removing and replacing all of the individual worn out parts. I'm all for simplicity, so that sounds logical to me. Things went smoothly with this project, and I'm glad for Gary's sake. The temperatures have been hovering between the low and mid 90's in the garage, and his temper tends to get shorter as the temperatures rise. I didn't have to listen to even a single swear word, and that's unusual for this time of year. There was one additional piece to replace on the passenger side of "Dodge", and that was his shock absorber. Gary had replaced the other three shock absorbers last year, but whoever it was that replaced the shock absorber previously, mangled the top of the mounting stud. That made it impossible to remove without removing the upper control arm. Since the arm was being replaced, it was the perfect time to take the Saws-All to that mangled stud, remove the old shock absorber, and replace it with a new one. New tires have been ordered for "Dodge", and he will get a front end alignment too. Once all of that is done, he will get a complete rear brake job, and then he will be ready to haul Gary and I and all of our camping supplies to any place we want to go. I am SOOOOOOO anxious to hit the road!