What a day yesterday! A beautiful Fall day here in Oregon, out in the countryside at Jsweezy's shop. I tried to get a shot of the hills out back because they looked like a painting, framed by J's huge open back garage door, but just then my phone's camera died. What a great place to work. Thanks for sharing your time, talent, and tools with me, J. So glad to count you as a friend. And not just because I'm envious of that shop.
So... Here in Oregon, we're lucky to have friends to play musical chairs with. MG put a stunning new rear axle in his rig and we put his old/newish one in mine. I decided on a limited slip differential in the rear, having weighed the lsd vs locker idea till my head hurt. So, using lots of brains and a bunch of brawn moving those monsters, Josh got out the old and put in the new. Rides great, hit some gravel on the way home pulling out in traffic and felt it kick in. Really happy and looking forward to keeping out of trouble with less slip.
Had been holding on to a pair of 1der's seat swivels and those went in as well. They look and feel great and, maybe it's just me? But it feels like I'm sitting just a tad higher, which I like. Can't wait to get my table setup going. With both seats swiveling, we can have a party with passengers in the Siennas.
Just this week, got my new leather seats back from the shop and I'm really pleased with the job. I chose to reupholster the stock seats because 1) I like them, 2) I wanted swivels, 3) the stock seats are new 2014 and 4) I got sick of researching aftermarket seats that never seemed to fit the bill. I found a guy here, Mike Weiler of Bright Upholstery (
http://www.brightautoupholstery.com) and he matched the color, texture, and stitching on the Siennas to a "t". Interesting guy, a bit of a curmudgeon, but did fantastic work.
In all, a great week and feeling good. Sharing pics below:
The setup:
Wrangled out the old axle:
In with the new and a bigger spare:
Tightening everything up:
New leather seats:
Great stitching job:
Dual swivels:
Nice finish on these:
Driver swivel:
Passenger swivel: