Operation Phoenix

macleanflood said:
Still no word from UCF. Called Wednesday and today no answer. Left VM no return call. Just sent sales an email. Order was placed Jan 8th.

Went scouting for trash. Did 125 miles of FS roads and a little freeway. Vibrations aren't much worse than before. Drives 75 no issues.

Had a high idle issue. Found the vacuum line from the intake to the evap solenoid had pulled loose installing the motor mounts and spacer.

Found a 26' Tahoe RV and a Pioneer pickup camper. Plus five more RV debris piles... essentially dumped parts leftover from scraping frames.

And a Honda Fit on its roof, sans engine and transmission. And a couple of large, occupied encampments.

Yesterday I fixed my driver's door latch...screws were bottoming out before tightening on the door. Added a washer and a lock washer, lubed everything up and reassembled. Works great now...no more leaning into the door to open.

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-Mac
Click to expand...

You and your crew are going straight to heaven for the work y'all do. Thank you.
 
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Rickyd said:
Is that state or federal land? I'm surprised they don't get run off by the authorities
Click to expand...

Federal. US Forest Service. According to the FS (our local FS folks) they need guidance from the department of justice and their office of council to decide how to interpret and enforce laws... it's a schedule of rules. They do this review every two years. The last one was late 23...before the Grants Pass decision about reasonable accomodations overruled the Boise decision that you can't crminialze homeless.

Bottom line our one LEO has been instructed by national Forest Service policy to do nothing about unhoused until more guidance is received.

We've spent at least a hundred grand last year in FS funding...252,000 lbs of trash and 43 vehicles...25 of those required asbestos tests aka RVs. This number is roughly 1/3 to 1/6th of what for profit contractors would charge.

If you extrapolated those numbers nationwide...and understand that the FS explicitly states they don't have an unhoused problem or illegal dumping problem...and even when we clean these sites they're still tons of micro trash, defaced trees, campsites, trees, roads.

I have a pet theory that every major fire in the west in the last twenty years or so was started by unhoused folks.

The costs are staggering.

And we're the worst solution to this problem...

-Mac
 
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macleanflood said:
Federal. US Forest Service. According to the FS (our local FS folks) they need guidance from the department of justice and their office of council to decide how to interpret and enforce laws... it's a schedule of rules. They do this review every two years. The last one was late 23...before the Grants Pass decision about reasonable accomodations overruled the Boise decision that you can't crminialze homeless.

Bottom line our one LEO has been instructed by national Forest Service policy to do nothing about unhoused until more guidance is received.

We've spent at least a hundred grand last year in FS funding...252,000 lbs of trash and 43 vehicles...25 of those required asbestos tests aka RVs. This number is roughly 1/3 to 1/6th of what for profit contractors would charge.

If you extrapolated those numbers nationwide...and understand that the FS explicitly states they don't have an unhoused problem or illegal dumping problem...and even when we clean these sites they're still tons of micro trash, defaced trees, campsites, trees, roads.

I have a pet theory that every major fire in the west in the last twenty years or so was started by unhoused folks.

The costs are staggering.

And we're the worst solution to this problem...

-Mac
Click to expand...

Every job that goes overseas just makes it worse. This country needs to take care of itself. Most of these people want decent jobs
 
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My Dicknos arrived! I'm so excited!

UCF finally shipped my skid and allegedly it'll be here next Monday.

Let's see what $2 rock lights can do...

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-Mac
 
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macleanflood said:
Spent about four hours in the shop. Cut an inch out of my fuel tank skid. Changed the speedo gear... wasn't that far off from my previous gear for 33s but since the o-ring appeared to be leaking seemed to be the Jeep gods sending me a message. Knocked a ton of fine dirt and sand down. Drove down to the logging scales...4380 lbs...down 20 lbs from either the mostly empty tank or the dirt I removed.

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-Mac
Click to expand...

Such a smart mod! I might take you up on your offer to help me do the same!
 
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It's been a crazy week. Ordered back to the office next week. Hinge pin on the dump trailer sheared...had to torch out the old one and replaced it with a 1" 4140 pin.

Finally got around to starting the Jeep after installing the skid plate... horrible noise...fan hitting the shroud. No big deal... unbolted the fan, notched the shroud, reinstalled everything...went to adjust the shroud and realized I'd notched the wrong way... unbolted everything, notched more...no bueno...ended up having to not h around the lower hose. Wondering if I need to seal up the 1/2" gap at top with some foil tape.

Celebratory parking on the gravel pile.

Back to shop construction...

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-Mac
 
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Ok...got the shop lift installed and wired up after two month deployment to...get this... Operation Phoenix in LA working on the Palisades Fire.

Used the lift to evaluate and set bump stops post body and engine lift. Went with about an inch.

My jounces were shot, had some hard Energy ones...went with them for now.

I hate pulling springs. Lift made it much easier.

Also pulled the skid pan, replaced the exhaust hanger bushing and pushed the exhaust up another 1/8" for a touch more skid plate clearance.

Couple more things I might try and get done...want to bend my shifter back, maybe rock lights, grease everything and check differential oil.

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-Mac
 
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