Boy, talk about some crazy weather lately. I know there is all the hype about global warming and all, but over the past couple of years, I haven’t noticed it. Especially through the winters.

Last year, we were away for Christmas to the interior of BC, it was one of the coldest, snowiest winters I can remember since the blizzard of ‘96. I haven’t shoveled that much snow in a long time, thankfully one of the snow plow drivers took pity on me one evening and gave a quick push to the large pile of snow at the end of our driveway. I still owe him a beer or 12.

This past weekend, we experience some severe heavy rains, of which I haven’t see since ‘94. These rains caused flooding and bridge/highway closures among other things. It was to the point that the mayor of Courtenay declared a local state of emergency. I was one of the unlucky people to be caught in the slow traffic.

Today, another storm has rolled in to our area. It has been a bit cooler the past couple of days and we have had some brief spats of snowfall out here in Cumberland in the evenings but nothing too crazy. Today, after the winds and rain picked up, I noticed there was snow mixed in. As soon as I was half way up the highway connector, it was completely snowing, and not just lightly either, very heavy.

At the time I am writing this entry, it is still snowing heavily and has been for the past 3 hours. There is about 3″ of snow on the ground and still accumulating. I don’t know if this is a sign of what’s to come this winter, but I suppose it’s time to get prepared.

I am definitely not a snow-scrooge, other than shoveling too much of this heavy wet stuff, it does help to get the holiday spirit going. Sadly we are also dealing with a patio door leak that has done some damage to our house and we’re waiting on the repairs to start. Hopefully it won’t be too hectic.

Until next time…

I finally ordered the new brake assemblies this week and have now got them installed on the axle. Rather than order individual parts to fix the old Atwood brakes, which would have been a nightmare to find parts for, I decided to just go ahead and pay the few extra dollars and replace the whole assembly from the axle flange out. All that’s left to do on the axle is install new brake lines then it can go back under the trailer.

I was heading outside to let the dog out anyways so I figured I’d throw the axle up on the workbench and have a closer look. This lead to getting some tools out and seeing if a few days of soaking in penetrating oil would make it easy to get the brake assemblies off.

Well, it turns out, that was a success. I have removed all but two of the backing plate mounting bolts. Considering that I had only soaked the curb side, I didn’t even think I’d be able to get any of the nuts off on the other side. THe other two are soaking right now, and I’ll likely let them soak for a day or two before trying again. I did manage to scratch my arm when the wrench slipped off trying to get the last two nuts off so I figured that was a sign to stop.

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I was able to reassemble the hitch this morning for a final test fit to make sure all of the parts fit in their respective homes. Now I just have to get to the store to get some Never Seez and new mounting bolts/washers for the master cylinder and this part of the brake project will be done. At least until I have to connect the new brake lines, as I am sure I’ll be modifying the front shield to make it fit due to a slight change in design, more on that when I tackle that task.

For now, a few shots of the test fit.

Well the used parts came today and I got to work on prepping them for paint and installation. Unfortunately I won’t be using the inner slide I ordered as it has a through bolt that has broken off and is seized in place. I tried to get it out but that just ended up making things worse. No problem, since the inner slide I originally had is usable.

I spent most of today stripping paint off a bunch of the smaller parts and painting them silver. I also prepped and painted the new shock.

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Tonight I put the first two coats of paint on the trailer jack. I’ve also managed to strip 95% of the old paint off the hitch assembly the past couple of evenings. Tomorrow I’ll pickup some fresh silver paint and hopefully get a coat or two on the assembly.

I’ll also be picking up some parts from the post office in the morning, hopefully that will get the ball rolling and see the hitch assembly complete and ready for brake line installation next week. After we return from a weekend away over the Thanksgiving long weekend, I plan to attack the axle and brake assemblies in an effort to have that disassembled before the end of the month and have new parts on order.

Considering the brake system was not my original winter project, and just a small maintenance task, it’s grown in size, but most of that is my own fault due to wanting to get some fresh paint on the parts. This takes most of my time, but good preparation ends with a decent paint job, not that I’m after perfection.

I still haven’t taken any new pictures but hopefully I’ll get a chance to snap a few pictures tomorrow in the daylight.

Since I’m waiting on parts and I haven’t moved the axle up on to the workbench yet, I thought I’d take the hitch jack apart for servicing tonight. It’s not in bad shape, a bit of lube on the bearing and the threads and it’ll continue to be operational for years to come.

I also stripped all of the paint off in preparation for a fresh coat of paint, though I’m not sure if I’ll use the black or silver on this part, I do intend to keep the silver on the main hitch coupler, but this might be a nice bit of contrast.

UPDATE: I’ve posted some pictures after painting the hitch jack.

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