The ol’ Honda had a frayed starting rope. I used to ignore that kind of thing. ‘No sense fixin’ ít if it ain’t broke, eh? I’d say that with country wisdom just ‘a-oozin’. And I meant it, too. But that is just procrastinating with charm, really.

And then there’s the old wive’s version that makes much more sense: ‘A stitch in time saves nine’.

Once again the old double-y’s have it.

I could have gone to the Honda dealership but that would have entailed carrying the generator into town and then picking it up again a few months later. ‘Course, even then, they’d screw it up and I’d have to take it back again. Worse, I’d be a $250.00 lighter at the very least. I have long opted to ‘go it alone’ on this sort of thing.

Anyway, ‘how hard can it be to replace a starter rope?’

A Honda 2000 looks like a big red bar of soap. But it has screws and bolts, tabs and slots, clips and cinches just like the rest of us. I’ve been getting past clips and cinches since I was 16. Nothin’ to it.

Start with a smile…………

But I looked on the net just to be sure. And sure enough, it ain’t as easy as it looks. I won’t bore you with the sequence of events but suffice to say, Sally and I worked on that little genset all afternoon and we didn’t waste a move. Well, maybe a couple (like when Sal dropped a bolt under the deck). But, basically, we just followed the steps, put the parts in a tub and then replaced the pull-cord and reversed the order of steps taken to put it together. Piece o’cake.

But there are dozens of steps! Honest to God, I can remove your appendix with fewer steps. Fewer tools, too.

You see, the whole generator has to come apart. You don’t get gensets to look like soap and have easy access as well, ya know. Ya gotta take off the feet, take off the sides, take off the ends, take off the fuel tank and disentangle the electrics. Then you take off the pull-cord assembly. Plus you have to do this with bolts and pins that are rusted. One little blighter was so tough I had to drill it out hollow, use an easy-out and then make a bolt from another (metric, don’t ya know) to replace it. No big deal but not a 20-minute task.

But it impressed Sal. That’s pretty good after 40 plus years.

Living off-the-grid means doing with what you have, making do or doing without. It doesn’t mean ‘dealerships’. It doesn’t even mean always ‘getting parts from the parts supply’. And it sure as hell doesn’t mean ‘knowin’ what you are doin’.

It means ‘gettin’ by’ with what you got.

It is kinda fun (when it works out).