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Shaw Nature Reserve 4/21/16
We kicked off the 2016 “hiking” season this past weekend with a trip to Shaw Nature Preserve in Gray Summit MO. I say “hiking” as we mostly stayed on the easy trails as we toted the 3 wheel stroller around the park, but there were several off-road sections we (dumbly) dragged it through. Couple of random photos: This was one of the less friendly jogging stroller parts, there were a few others on the River Trail that were even messier,…
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The Mighty Merc – It’s Shocking and bumpy, and occasionally tracking the right way! (Part 2)
With the rear out of the way, it was time to knock out the front shocks, bump stops, and track bar. A little work with the plasma table and I was able to get the brackets knocked out for the track bar (reusing the old axle bracket I had):
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The Mighty Merc – It’s Shocking and bumpy, and occasionally tracking the right way! (Part 1)
I spent way more time fretting about shock selection than I probably should have given what I wound up going with. The best I can tell, I needed about a 10-12” travel shock in the rear, and an 8” travel shock up front. With that in mind, I was going back and forth between the Bilstein shocks and the Rancho shocks. I had mixed luck with the Rancho’s on the last rig so I was hesitant to go down that…
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Belle Smith Springs – 6/1/16
We wandered down to Belle Smith Springs to hike a couple of trails before they got to overgrown. We wound up not quite heading the way we meant to on the trails but ended up back at one of the best spots at Devil’s Backbone. Running the backroads: In the mini-minivan adventure mobile: Rather picturesque parking area: With all the rains recently, the creek was up quite a bit which made some of the crossings interesting: We eventually ran into…
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The Mighty Merc – Power Steering Fun!
This was one of the bigger pain in the butt parts of this project for no good reason, but we’ll get to that frustration later. I am planning on using the stock Ford pump that came with the 5.0 to power things. From what I have been able to find, this pump should flow enough and put out enough pressure to get the job done. If it doesn’t, we’ll figure out another plan.