Last week we had a malware attack on the blog, right during an out-of-signal stint at Mt. Rainier. The resulting pandemonium has wrenched the schedule a bit and induced more stress than we care to admit.The good news is that we have the malware removed. The bad news is that doing so left huge parts…
If you’ve been following us for awhile, you’ve probably worked out that we are Mormons, or more properly, members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. If you haven’t worked that out yet, Hello! When we talk with others about religion, questions often arise about the difference between what we believe and what…
Our Airstream has 4 stabilizers that we used when parked to keep it from moving around. Many folks use a power drill and bit to run these up and down, but I prefer to assign that job to my kids, who don’t have enough chores anyway. This leads us to the crank: stored in our…
Sam,
I know what you’re looking for, and I have the solution sitting in my toolkit…
1) A 3/4″ 6 point socket, like the one in this kit. http://goo.gl/oJnA8h
2) A bent flex-head ratchet. http://goo.gl/KhOIkO This will allow you to put the handle parallel to the stabilizer jack screw and “crank” it quickly with both hands like the current handle when there’s no resistance, then flex the head to be perpendicular to the stabilizer jack screw and use it like a regular ratchet for the last little bit where you need a little oomph. (It’ll totally make sense once you’ve got one in your hands, I promise!)
3) A ‘wobble’ extension of a length to suit your preference.
In use, you fit the 3/4″ socket on the end of the wobble extension, and that gives you about 20* of ‘play’ for the extension, then the flexhead ratchet is bent, so that you can crank it quickly down, then unflex the head and crank the stabilizer jack down taut.
I don’t remember where I got my bent/flex ratchet, but it’s the tool that I use more than anything else on pretty much every project.
The wobble extension + flex head ratchet set lets me get a socket (or allen key or screwdriver bit) into places that would otherwise be completely obstructed by other ‘bits’…
You shouldn’t find too many issues with your setup, at least it shouldn’t break!
We use a combination of the crank and power drill. With the power drill my wife can go around and crank the ‘corners’ down quickly. I follow behind and give each one about 1/4 to 1/2 turn to tighten them down. We do the reverse to take them up.
However you are much younger and do have access to some extra assistance…ReplyCancel
Some of our fellow travelers have been busy, and have put together the Family Adventure Podcast. They interview families that have spent significant time traveling with their kids. Many of their travelers have been boat families, sailing around the world for extended periods. They also include RV families, and aim to include all sorts of…
We’ve always kept a clock in the kids bedroom. When Rachel was little, we bought a digital clock and covered the minutes with a piece of black construction paper and some tape. We taught her what a ‘7’ looked like on the clock, and it became a rule that she couldn’t get out of bed…
Any idea how the malware got there? Any tips for us other bloggers? Glad it’s taken care of and mostly working again. I was thinking about trying out some balanced rocks as well. I may try using some super glue to give me a helping hand 😉
Our WordPress install is a little messy for a few reasons, which is part of the problem. We’ve done some housekeeping removing old blog installs and updating plugins. I’m sure the hole was an older plugin that wasn’t updated. We have added some tracking and testing plugins to warn us if we have an issue, and we’ll be much more responsive in the future!
Also, at the weight of these rocks, I’m not sure super glue would help much!