Well, yesterday. Something epic happened yesterday.

When we moved to our house a couple of years ago, we kept the 4 wheeler with a snow plow attachment because the driveway is just to big to want to do with a shovel.

The 4 wheeler is a lot of fun. I hadn’t been on one since I was about 14 (and that wasn’t a good experience). In the last couple of years we’ve gotten some great use out of it.

However…. a couple of weeks ago, when we had a massive storm, the cable from the winch broke. No cable = no plow. Not good for the supposedly 8 inches from that storm.

I thought I fixed it a couple of nights ago (new snow storm)… but putting little bracket thingies on a wire cable is a lot harder than it looks. I think I didn’t have the right tools, and I know I didn’t have the right strength… and so once again, the plow was unusable.

The right answer, instead of trying to use the old cable, was to get a new one. The old cable was frayed, and the end didn’t have an appropriate loop to failsafely secure the hook (that hooks on the plow, or anything else).

Fortunately, I found ONE replacement cable in the entire area. This was a rope (designed for ATV winches) instead of a metal cable… and then I spent about six hours replacing the cable.

Job 1 was to take the old winch out. Online there are plenty of videos showing how to replace the cable without removing the winch, but I didn’t know what model winch I had, and there are enough nuances that I felt I needed to see the whole thing. Turns out, there was no way I could have fit my hands where the winch was to remove the old cable even if I wanted to… it’s pretty tight in there.  This took… too long. But I got it out.

Job 2 was to remove the old cable, which is like a metal rope with slivers all over the place. Good thing I shot my arm with a nail gun a couple of years ago while building my chicken coop… which means I am up to date on my tetanus shots!  Then, I put the new rope on… not once, but three times! Once while the winch was out (shouldn’t have done that), then a second time after I put the winch back. But, I forgot to put one key fixture on, and had to take the cable out, put the key fixture on, then put it back on (for a third time). Now I know that I can replace the rope the next time without taking the whole thing apart.

Job 3 was to put everything back together and clean up the mess. This is the most harrowing of the three jobs. Back when I was a kid I took apart a watch and wasn’t able to put it back together. This scarred me and has made “putting it back together” a seemingly impossible task. But, amazingly, I was able to put it all together without having any left over hardware. This truly was epic.

Also to be noted was that I had and could find all of the tools I needed for this entire job. I did not take one single trip to Home Depot.

So yesterday, February 6th, 2019, man card was punched. And today my body is sore :p