I'll start this here, even though it may have some thing not related (trucks, equipment, cranes, logging....). I not too fond of threads by 'ILoveMe' that are pretty much " I'm sorry, I can't hear you over the sound of my own awesomeness ". So if nobody is interested believe me when I say I'll understand. But, yeah, I've done a lot of really interesting & varied stuff over my career and I'm looking forward to some really cool things coming up. Ouch, my arm. Patting yourself on the back isn't as easy as it used to be. OK, here goes- I'm pretty stoked right now. I FINALLY got rid of my lowboy (10 months for sale!) so now I can say I'm out of OTR trucking and going back to fabricating/repair/mobile service. That's the full circle part- 30 years ago I started doing it as a 'side job' and now decided to just go full time. The trucking thing didn't work out for me, loved the driving all over the country but no $ in it anymore & too much admin/compliance/cost BS being an Interstate Carrier with your own #'s. I still have to sell the Kenworth, but I'm not worried about that- it's kind of the holy grail of trucks right now & I need to do some work to it before I sell it & hold out for the $$$$. I had the trailer listed "or trade for service truck" ended up trading for one & getting a bunch of cash too. I'm still a little giddy over that deal. The service truck is just like most of the other rigs I've had over the years- start with a POS rig with solid bones & build it to what I want. I really enjoy doing it, though it's kind of sad when one of them goes down the road- like the trailer this weekend "dang, that's a nice rig- I put a lot of work into that". I'm sure I'll feel the same with the KW. So if anyone is interested, I'll show progress on the service truck project & projects after I'm done with it. And maybe some "jobs/rigs from the past" stuff.
Heck yeah, I enjoy seeing the customization of people's rigs. I'd love to do some modifications to my international 4700 but I just don't have the money or the time right now with building a house.
Absolutely, I'd like to see it take shape. I know what you mean about being awesome. Oh wait I mean I know the feeling of not coming across like a pompous narsassistic a$$hat! I debated before I started my own thread. I'm actually up to something myself, similar to you, that should prove interesting. Good luck!
That's what I ended up with- 2000 IH 4700 I'm headed out this afternoon for step #1- steam clean the you-know-what out of it. When the guy offered it as part trade I had to really think about it as it had 3 things going against it- Crew cab Little crane- Auto Crane Econo-Crane (2000lb) 3/4 lid over the body (Knapheide) When he told me how much $ he'd give to make up the difference I said "SOLD!". And it was time for that wagon to GO AWAY. So far though I'm feeling "I can make this work". Crew is kind of nice, thinking of taking the seat out of the back & making a little "office". The little crane & lid- we will see how that works out, I don't really want to do bigger stuff and it would be nice to have a dry area to work. If it comes to it & it just doesn't work I'll cut the lid off & buy a bigger crane from Ritchie Bros. On the plus side: ex-SoCal muni rig with only 2100mi on it since 2014, air brakes, BIG Boss PTO compressor, T444E so it's pretty much the same as my 2001 Superduty, Allison auto, and 25,500GVWR so no more IFTA, drug testing consortium, etc.
The trailer-
I actually like the crew cab! I got the bigger motor a dt530E and a md3060 allison with air ride. I'm curious how that T444E engine runs, I've found myself looking for some more oomph going up some hills but i never felt like I didn't have enough truck to stop anything I was hooked too. I did have to go to the local transmission shop to get 6th gear unlocked. I think we need some pictures though!
I'm pretty sure it won't be like the 550 CAT in the KW. Or the Superduty with the same engine. Hopefully not as bad as the little Isuzu turbo diesel 4-banger box van I had, that thing was a slug.
Day 1 & the spiral notebook is getting filled up with need-that's & want-that's.
Not bad at all. Don't forget to make sure the wheel chocks are in their little cubbyholes! Safety first! If the motor runs worth a flip it won't be too bad getting around. My poor old F-350 was waaaay overloaded and it wasn't bad. I never did weigh it, figured pleading ignorance was my best bet if the man ever wanted to bother me.
Cleaning it today I noticed it's got a CARB-compliant Donaldson DPF retrofit system on it. Top of the to-do list new muffler & going right in the scrap bin.
Burn the trashcan afterwards. Forever unclean.
But..but...the children! I found a monitor unit for it that must have been attached to the dash that was stuffed under the floor mat which, coincidently, all the little red warning lights stay on. It will be interesting to see what all horse manure is involved with this system since I've never seen one installed. I'll take a regular 'ol muffler as I have never seen one that required warning lights.
No its certainly not either of those. I think that the IH version was a more reliable motor as well. Do you happen to have an exhaust brake or transmission brake? I had a switch that was disconnected on mine for the exhaust brake but the transmission brake actually works pretty well! I'd like to try and get the exhaust brake working again so that I could have the option of using either one. Definitely need to ditch that emissions garbage. The truck will live alot longer without it! Do you happen to know what HP numbers you're looking at?
The tag is punched 190hp Lots of bodybuilder switches on the dash- I have no idea where they all go right now! No trans/exh brake. I drove a Freightliner with an auto & trans-brake pedal (left foot feed style)- the trans temp would go to the moon when you used it. I'm not a huge fan of the 7.3's so I ask myself "how do you keep ending up with them"? Who knows how much damage was done running it with all the DPF system warning lights on. Wonder if a 3406e 1MM would shoehorn in there.... My buddy stopped by yesterday afternoon- "What have you gotten yourself into now? You getting into the tree business? It looks like a chip truck with that lid." He went away shaking his head. Yea, well I'll show you when it's done. Some kind of friend you are.
And make sure to carry a cone to put behind the rig when you stop at MickeyD's. You learn something new every day- I thought those rubber triangle thingy's were for holding down tarp corners when it's windy. I'll come up with some use for those- maybe put doors on & ice in the bottom + a half-rack for those hot days.
Ooh switches are fun. I think you are supposed to add lights, winches, sirens, and chicken lights for all those switches. I've never driven a truck with the peddle like that. Mine sounds like its air controlled? I've never looked into it to figure out how it works. I can't get any of my temp gauges very warm. They do all work though. I was thinking a M11 but hey why not go for broke! The lid may be challenging for loading something heavy, but I'd rather have a trailer for something like that! If you could put a little bench in there to work out of the elements it sure would be worth it!
Is the little back door for the bed just the steel x frame lattice door, or is there a actual roll up or swinging doors also. That would really help with redneck's bench idea, keep you out of the rain/snow. I've got a little crane boom on the back corner of our ford superduty (450). It barely got a 6v92 with allison attached up into the bed, but it did get it in there. (I think mine is a 4,000 max capacity) I also noticed that most of the trailers out west are mechanical detach, and here in the midwest most have hydraulic detach. I could see the mechanical saving weight, but needing a pretty flat spot to hook and unhook? I've never run a mechanical. I share your opinion on transmission retarders, I've only run them in cranes, and that's the fastest I've ever seen a temp gauge go up.
Transmission retarders were common on fire trucks when I worked there and if you had a big enough cooler on the 4 digit series transmissions, they would stay cool even on long grades. And we have some long ones here. The old 3 digit transmissions had much smaller cooler hoses and could be heated up faster. Anyway I doubt anyone who was so cheap to spec a T444E instead of a 466 would have opted for a transmission brake.
A lattice door only. I may do something different there later. So far the big "Hmmm..." with the lid setup is where to put the welder. Econo-Ton IIR so only 2k/lbs. Enough to pull your pants up and that's about it. Pretty much the same as a HGN on the flatness. Just getting back under it loaded in the mud/snow can be a trick. Mostly HGN's out here too, that's part of the problem I had selling it- they're really Ag trailers & that's who I ended up selling it to; someone who is moving their articulated JD tractors where they have to take the outer duals off & load on the f/r decks. The advantage to that MGN is 29'6" in the well + 10' front deck + 8' rear deck, a 48' trailer, and 5-7000lbs lighter than most HGN's.
I am still 'Shopping' for a decent truck and trailer assembly so I can justify another track machine(SHHHHHH! she may hear the letters typed) while being able to work my machines elsewhere(Br In Law's farm) but that is possibly a really good dream! I am Jealous!!
I swear I saw that truck listed on CL for a while, I remember the enclosed bed. Good mobile parts room you got there! Build the truck you want! I am jealous of the crew cab some days thats for sure
You probably did- it came out of a farm in Albany. You may see my old wagon running around down there now. I've got plans for the crew cab now that I've been working on it. I came up with an idea for a little desk & chair, blackout tint the windows, storage, etc. Plus having lived out of a sleeper I'm taking all that stuff out of the KW- inverter, coffee maker, microwave (maybe), and get an air mattress. If it is ready & I get in on the Wyoming breakdown job this winter I'm sure I'll be liking the lid & big cab.
I had a cancellation yesterday so I got started for real. After some farting around and chin scratching I decided get the cab squared away first, though I did take the big hose reels off the back- looks better already.
Took the seats & floor mats out. Yuk. The antenna for the AM/FM was leaking on the passenger side & made a bit of a mess. Got that sealed up, some rust damage but nothing that can't be fixed.
That's better
Now the wiring, what a mess!
I decided the bench front seat isn't going back in- I'm taking my (almost new) really nice air-ride out of the KW and getting a passenger non air-ride. That adds walk through to the back also. If things go the way I want I'll be spending some time on the road might as well be a comfortable as possible.
Why is it old mechanics trucks wiring is abused to beat hell? Have seen that in many shops.
Sloppy wiring drives me nuts. I try to do stuff so the next guy doesn't go "*** is this mess?". I've even got a Brady wire marker & label the wires. Someone, somewhere, sometime, has thanked me for that. A little better now.
Having had a truck that came from a dealer, I can only guess that they don't get paid to make changes or repairs. That or they do a bush fix and never go back to repair it properly. I'm a stickler on wiring, correct gauge, all tied up, conduit, fuses or relays etc. I don't like doing it to start with so I sure as heck don't want to do it twice!
WTH is that Scotchlok doing in the center of the picture then??? I don't think I ever used one of those without regretting it. Straight in the trash.
Not me- the line that was tapped off it is redone right. I should pull it off & seal the wire up though.
I thought it looked like a pretty neat wiring job before fixing, now it looks like its ready for a engineering room. I know what dmiller is saying about mechanics trucks and their wiring, except I have a crane that has that issue. It's got wires running in it everywhere. Half of them aren't being used, the 1/2 that are, aren't factory. I have it kind of working, except no dash interior lights (I can see oil pressure in the reflection of the headlights), and for some reason, the front right turn signal comes on when I hit the brakes. Fortunately we don't travel much at night, and I'm so slow, I rarely use the brakes. I really like the clean up on the cab, next you'll be swapping the aluminum rims and the chrome stacks from the kenworth.....maybe some air ride to go with the seat? There's a certain satisfaction in fixing something up.
Neat, Brady BMP-21 can print heat shrink. One more thing for wishlist.
Stupid IH has stud pilot wheels/studs & hub pilot hubs! At least they are outboard drums. My buddy said I'd be ahead and less work taking 2 axles off the Kenworth, shorten, and day-cab it & putting the box on and then scrap the Cornbinder. He probably has a point, but I'm not very smart.
I actually had that thought too, but I wasn't going to suggest it.......You could even leave the sleeper for your office/ bunk, but you didn't hear that from me. Plus it would ride nice, have big power. Probably has APU unit for some 110 tools. Wait, we're fixing the international. Quiet well sealed cab that doesn't sound like you're being drug down the road in a tin can (remember I own a international 8100- so I know their cabs ), and did I say the kenworth would ride nice? Warm sleeper cab that wouldn't let in that wyoming wind and snow......... If you leave the sleeper on, you wouldn't probably have to shorten much, just pull the front drive and the cheater, and a new driveline.... Or even have the gap between the utility bed and the sleeper, for the big welder and compressor. Big knuckleboom crane? Possibilities are endless here, don't sell the kenworth yet! keep having fun.
Sounds about like what I'm kicking around. Can't seem to find what I like so I may just bite the bullet and build my own.
Not too much today. Cleaned up the rust, treated, & primed the floor & covers. Backed it out onto the gravel & cleaned the top of the trans & such so improvise a seat. Pretty sketchy using a chair with wheels. I'd do the KW in a second as I really like that truck but it would be a sin to cut it up. I'd be better off to sell it & take some of the cash and buy something else. Nothing that requires IFTA, drug testing, etc. to cross state lines. I'm done with that.
If you want to cross state lines in that IH, you'll need IFTA and apportioned plates, etc. CDL starts at 26,000, all that other stuff starts at 10,000lbs GVWR. Some states won't bother you, some will. SC won't notice you, NC will park an f350 pulling a welder until it's all straight, and a driver with a class A shows up, if the trailer is over 10,000. I'm
Pretty sure no IRP or IFTA 2 axles and under 26k The drug testing is an easy one for them. When I got my L1 inspection last June during their "Blitz Week" he asked for proof I was enrolled in a consortium. One of the locals here got hit with that- $7,000 fine and an on-site audit. I'm going to put it on my prorate anyway, I don't have to do the ridiculous emissions testing here if I do that.
You know, I think you are right, on IFTA at least. Seems like it starts at 50k gvwr. I quit crossing state lines with my big stuff a few years back just because I found the difference in what I made wasn't worth the hassle.
Yesterday was busy, but not on the "new" rig. Cleared some old "projects" out of the shop that were just taking up a lot of room. The guy drove 6 1/2 hours one-way to get the stuff! He's happy & I'm happy + more $ for me to spend recklessly. It's amazing what you can sell on Craigslist. I did get the rust in the cab mitigated & the floor mats & seat back in. Not enough room in the shop for the KW and the little truck and I've got the KW torn apart getting it ready to sell. The weather here is going to be really stormy for a bit so I took the crane off and start the rebuild on it in the shop- I really need to focus on the Kenworth and get it gone.
Took the little crane apart today. Not as bad as I thought it would be. Replace some limit switches & bearings, blast on a coat of paint & should be OK. The swing worm gear motor is giving me fits getting it apart though, better look at the exploded view before I explode it with a big hammer. Yup, that bearing is shot.
Looking like progress to me!
Not a lot of progress, you know what they say- life is what happens when you are planning on doing something else. I did get the little crane rebuilt. Not impressed with AutoCrane- this model at least. Not connected to this project but I had an idea & I'll probably find out " everyone has one of those!". I had a little fix-it field repair this week that the worst part of it was crawling under the rig in the gravel & mud & puddles. I'm going to buzz together a lowboy creeper with 10" pneumatic tires & see how it works. Screw that tarp/cardboard BS.
Tried a similar creeper some years ago, just my weight and being as it had to be low to ground it got stuck in the muck pretty quick where I had to scoot OFF of it to get out from under, went back to the tarp creepers after.
The best off-road creeper I've found is corrugated plastic sign board, I have an old real estate sign, 4' x 4' x 1/2" thick that works excellent, has some cushion for rocky ground also!
I got the DPF retrofit out and the new guaranteed to promote climate change muffler in. Fired it up last night & sounded a LOT better. Hopefully no engine damage.
Just because I'm curious, is there a market for the used DPF? I'm sure it was expensive when they originally had to put it on, I didn't know if there was someone trying to make something calif. compliant, they could buy your old one and install it? There's probably a bunch of paper work and you have to be a "registered" installer or something. On the creeper thing, I've got a "Bone" style creeper, they make a off road one of those. I have the standard one and it rolls really well. This is the one I have: https://www.amazon.com/Enterprises-...coding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=DGS1JSB60SPRERY6E3VA I've also used plywood and tarps, also fridge box, but never the sign board, I'll have to look into that. We had to do a third member in one of the cranes on site, and I used plywood under the floor jack to install the third member in the dirt/ mud, and two sheets of plywood really helped keep me out of the mud.
My favorite "off road" creeper is the cardboard cube Cat uses to keep parts on the cute little pallet. Thick enough it'll offer some padding and also it'll keep you dry unless it's an absolute mud hole. With a little practice you can slide it and yourself just about anywhere. If it's especially rocky and you're sitting it's mighty comfy folded over. Best part is.....it's free. Although if you buy enough crap at Cat you need a pallet you've already spent a good bit of the man's coin. Every filter trip for me to keep all my Cat filters and oil stocked runs about $2,500......
When I was on the farm I used a rubber windrower belt, it was 4' X 12' because it was either mud or cattle crap to lay in. Now that I have a shop most of the time cardboard thou do have a creeper that gets used once and a while. Depending on how much room I have under what ever I am working on. It is easier to get up off the cardboard I think.
My buddy asked if I was going to put a Plexiglas shield & some gloves like they use in blast cabinets to keep all the **** that drips off the rig after it has been running in the goo before it broke. Corrugated plastic sounds like a better idea.
I think the window for the CARB Bus/Truck retrofit is closed. Plus the gov't did/does easy-squeezy financing (with our $), but it has to be at an "approved" installer. What a racket.
I have piece of 1/4" plywood that i laid down some fiberglass cloth on. It's light and pretty durable.
Had the service truck in the nice warm shop the past few days. Got a lot of stuff done underneath & started working on the cab interior again. Pulled the dome light, fixed the roof mount antenna that was leaking above it, and started cleaning up the dash & wiring in new switches, and........***!? Baby mice are literally falling out of the dome light hole on me! #@*%$, I knew I should have dropped the headliner first thing. Frickin' mouse house up there. Shop vac eviction.
Little buggers can get in some impressively tight and seemingly inaccessible spots.
My outdoor creeper is a 2.5" thick sheet of that flexible styrofoam type stuff. It's about 3'×3'. Soft and its thick enough to keep me out of the mud. Insulates me from the -40 degree dirt too which is nice.
You guys got me thinking & I've got a bunch of plasti-form out back left over from my concrete days. It's like Teflon slick & light so it might work pretty well. That reminds me I've got to get all the cretard equipment gathered up and sold, never going to use that stuff again. Not much progress on the service truck, the Kenworth is taking a lot longer getting it ready to put on the market than I wanted & I've got to go to my California house next week to do the pre-winter work (one more thing I need to sell...).
Went to fire the IH up today & let it run for awhile since we've got some snow. Would.Not.Start Like it was only firing on one hole. Sput-sput-sput. It's not run very smooth since day 1 but, what the heck? Hooked the MD up and......no codes. After some searching found the injector harness plug was almost out & full of water. Cleaned, dielectric, fired right up and now it runs smooooooth!
Nothing new to report on the project. The trip to California wiped me out & then a slew of little jobs came up. Still having an issue with it starting after it's been sitting a few days and cool temps. If I had to guess that #$*@ing DPF running with the " Danger! Danger! " idiot lights on sooted the **** out of the engine even though it wasn't for very long. No codes & nothing obvious showing on MD when it's running. The next step on it is paint. And I really dislike painting. Not so much the painting itself but the prep. I'm going to try a new product so we will see how it goes, if it works as advertised in the spec sheet it shouldn't be too bad. I need to get the Kenworth gone and get it in the shop and I'm still working on that- probably would have been faster if I hadn't taken a lot of good stuff out of it to put in the "new" rig. Seat, stereo, radio & antenna (keeping the Anytone for sure), Stahl boxes (lift axle controls were in there so re-locate that mess), inverter, inside/outside temp gauge, Garmin Dezl......
Not service truck project related, well kind of- "Kenworth project done first" I'd like to pop the guy in the nose that designed the rocker panels on the split fender T800. The passenger side no problem zip-zip-zip it's off. Drivers side not so much- it's 3" longer and you have to pull the fender to get to ONE of the itty-bitty fasteners! Doing this exhaust isn't fun to start with.
The FedWrex delivery guy I've had for years always gets curious when he starts delivering a lot of stuff & he's a gearhead- does all his own work on his big bread vans himself. "Whatcha got going on in there?" At least the KW pile is getting smaller. The service truck pile is pretty big & getting bigger. All the paint showed up yesterday so no excuses there anymore. I scored a pair of Alcoa polished fronts this weekend, those BUDD's are getting harder & harder to find.
thats the theory Im working on with my C3500
I ran into a guy I've known for 30+ years at the NAPA this afternoon that has a local equipment/truck shop. We got to catching up & he asked what I was up to so I ran through it....his eyes got big- he's getting out of doing mobile work the first of the year due to age/health but is keeping his shop going and is looking for someone to do his customers mobile work. We will see how that works out, I did like the hourly number he's been charging though. He was stoked that I had some dealer level stuff to work with as where we are at to get to a dealer is a pretty good trip & a hefty bridge toll. I'd better get off my rear and get this service truck put back together. Finish the A/C rebuild in the Kenworth tomorrow, exhaust & seat when those parts get here & then it's off to the races. Maybe this change is going to work out after all. Wouldn't that be nice.
My favorite delivery guy dropped off the mufflers for the Kenworth yesterday and was complaining about how one of his rigs is really down on power throwing a MAP sensor DTC and he's taken it to one of the bigger local diesel shops 3x so far to be "fixed" & every time it's come back with the same problem. What's up with that? I thought if you charged someone to fix something you fixed it, or something like that. I said bring it by & I'd hook it up to see what's what.
A fault that is Related to a MAP but is in essence NOT the actual sensor will throw the code. Same on autos and the old DDEC systems when I was in the garage. Have to be careful as that shop was 'Probably' throwing parts at it to make it go away, a glitch in the circuit, a bad connection in a harness, a blown gasket giving a false low indication of boost vs demand or another component in the system dumping intake air, almost as much of anything other than the sensor in that circuit can do this.
That's kind of what I told him. Maybe best plan is to spend some time and track down the real problem rather that driving it through the parts store and clearing the DTC again.
OK, how about some ideas? That gate thingy is giving me fits on what to do with it. Should I- Keep it. It adds to security a little, but doesn't do anything about road spray & dust getting in there. Going to be a PITA to repaint it and get it working smooth. Cut it out and leave the back open. Not too much big $ (tools) going in the covered area other than the welder. Mostly hoses, 5-gal buckets, etc. I thought about using some aluminum plate like equipment vandal guards. Kind of a hassle in the field, but would be easy to put up when not in use & leaves the opening totally clear. Fab up a door. Problem I see there is #1 it would be in the way when it's open and #2 after a few trips off-highway unless it was built like a bank vault door it would probably get torn off in a fit of rage because it wouldn't open/close.
Id atleast junk it. It would be nice to have that mostly dry and out of the backdraft from behind the truck.
I junk that thing too. Guaranteed to always be in the way. That bed looks like it could stand to have one of the standard half height tailgates like a reg service body, just to keep stuff from rolling out. On a side note, that background looks awfully close by to my neck of the woods. Near Albany, south valley?
That's where it came from originally- Albany. The picture is one they sent me when we were doing the deal.
I would scrap it and get a custom cover with heavy boat vinyl made up for a couple hundred bucks to keep the weather out. Something easy to flip up and over then drop back down when you're done.
Perfect. Some big Murphy fasteners like a winter front on a truck. Done.
Got the service truck in the shop today and started on the cab roof paint. Helpful tip for today- DON'T get an IH crew cab. The seams leak. Grind everything out, soak in rust treatment, seam sealer, paint. I hate doing this much paint sanding in the shop but it's raining. Once I get the cab sealed up & painted I can do the box out back. Called the local tarp shop that did my trucking tarps- $67.50 in any color they have. Winner.
Wow! that's cheap, good for you.
I was going to put a plug in for Colby Canvas just so i can talk about a hillbilly from Missouri trying to 411 Colby Canvas. I'm still kicking myself for not getting my phone out and recording this exchange.
Hate to say I would opt to a heavy canvass tarp made up by the closest tarp shop to fit, slide rod at the top, snap hooks corners of bottom.
I shot the paint of the cab roof this morning. I'll pass a couple of things along since I was using a new to me tool & paint product- I got an LVLP gun to try out on this project. A-W-E-S-O-M-E! Everybody needs one. Shot a 1/3 gallon of paint and no overspray cloud in the shop! I mean literally NONE ! I probably should have shot a coat on a wheelbarrow and read the directions or something before I did the roof of the truck as there is a pretty steep learning curve to get it to do what you want. I did a lot of research into paint for this project as I wanted a single step that could be applied at lower temperatures and higher humidity. I ended up getting Rust-Oleum 1500 System fleet paint. This stuff can be applied from 32*-107* with the temp/humidity spread being just greater than 3*, and it says it's ready for service in 4 hours! So far I really like it. It's not legal to use in California and a couple of other states, so I figure it must be good. Everyone have a Merry Christmas!
Crummy that cab roof repair looks top shelf! I am pretty sure it will hold up much better than the original. Yesterday was paint day for me also. (I know plenty of good painters, I am not one of them...can't even spell HVLP). I have been fighting the corrosion / rust issues also for about 3-4 months now. I now know why people buy service trucks already spec'd and built. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as far as the "build part", and am looking forward to the "set-up" part of the endeavor! Regards, Bob
You both have done some slick repair work, ought to be proud of the accomplishments.
Ha! Me too! If it doesn't start peeling off before I get the gun cleaned up I'm happy. True story- after a woman ran off on me (many years ago) I traded the engagement/wedding ring to a buddy that was a painter and getting married for a paint job. Built not bought. At least that's what I keep telling myself. Thanks. The only problem is I can't meet my own standards- "I could do that better than I did..." and then keeping myself from doing whatever over and NEVER getting something done.
Very nice!!
Up for lunch. It's great having a Shome. Got the Plasma Wrench out this morning & cut the gate out-
...and that goofy jumping jack carrier thingy that I was pretty sure I was going to bust my shin on eventually-
That's better-
What did they ues the torpedo tubes on the bumper for? Good work.
Good riddance to the "thingy!" Why two light? holes on left, nary a one on right?
I'm guessing they were for gas bottles??
Traffic cones probably. They are going away too, I have a plan.
Chaff launchers to hide from police radar??
Raining so I'm in the shop polishing up the KW getting it ready to go away. Pull 8 wheels off to polish, then tanks, etc, etc. Did I mention I dislike polishing? I just got a call from a buddy saying a big ol' crane crashed on I-5 locally and has it all blocked so I had to come upstairs & see what's what. Bad day for the crane driver.
I5 is takin a beatingup there.. must be close to where the amtrack fell on the road?
Crane dolly's are a great way to make axle weight, but they are not a safe solution. Canada did a study on them after they have had several accidents up there, and the engineer's came back with the same answer. The tail ends up wagging the dog, and once the dolly comes free, the turntable allows it to swing too freely. There's two or three a year that I see in the crane magazines gone over, a kid in arizona was killed last year with one. I ran a 85 ton for a while that got the dolly broke loose on, the boom came around on that one and killed the guy in the lower cab who was driving. Hope the driver is okay. Sad to see 500,000- 1,000,000+ laying on its side. If its 200 ton plus and pretty new, its more like 2 million. I hate to polish too crummy, I actually don't do it, I just wash and clean them up, but it does make it look nice if you're trying to sell.
40 or so miles north. Trains, cranes....what's next? The news said no injuries, hard to believe looking at it. It ended up facing south against the fast lane guardrail going northbound. No boom dolly & not too big a unit- one of Barnhart's Demag AC155's. I'd have to say must have been mechanical failure to crash that hard.
Looks like a straight road. Probably some jackwagon in a car driving like it was nascar. It's no fun being out there on 5 in a big rig.
I hated working inner city, had to move seven 53 foot NEW trailers back to Fruehauf in 1989, had bad alignments and dragged like no wheels. They would NOT let us do the realigns so 14thst. to Market hang a right and go to Duncan at Vandeventer(new IKEA sets across Vandeventer there). Then had to blindside back the trailers into then all the way thru the building to the opposite end. Did that for four days, P&D, third day was not so good. Got to 14th and Market, moved to right lane then swung OUT into mid center lane to make the turn trailer slider all the way forward. Cab was around 10-15 degrees off straight and t/s flashing. Started to go as light turned and thought the trailer was gonna flip on its side. Then bang back to flat. Stopped, walked around the truck, old Black man sitting behind the wheel of a flattened Buick 225, ran across the hood just ahead of the w/s. Tore the bumper off the trailer. Cop was standing there, was sitting behind me when the IDIOT darted on the shoulder, in between me and the curb but had to stop for the rain manhole, perfect placement. Cop about pee'd himself, could barely talk to the poor bugger without laughing, got me a insurance card number and wrote the guy a ticket for driving off the pavement, sent me on!! Guys at Fruehauf could barely stand up laughing so hard.
I'll be soooo glad when the service truck is up & running. Went & did an emergency field repair today, got done & loading up the tools- one of the pry bars is missing. One of my biggest fears is leaving a tool on a truck/trailer and having it bounce off & through someone's windshield. Scoured the rig I was working on, underneath, EVERYWHERE! Still hasn't turned up. Now I've got to take everything out of the pickup (in the pouring rain) & hope it's there.
I'm derailing my own thread. I got a voicemail from a guy that wants me to "drop the 800hp marine file" in his 435hp 3406e and "there's $300 cash in it for you if you can do it today". Heh. Good to start the morning off with a laugh.
That's job security too, for when he calls back about busted u joints, smoked clutch, and crunchy rear ends noises.
Problem there is I doubt he'd have any money after doing everything else it takes to and make that hp. " What? But I saw on the internet and the guys at the lunch counter said... ". A buddy of mine recently got the 2018 truck he'd spec'd to pull his 70t 8 axle & got in an on-line fist fight with a guy that (seriously) wanted to convert his Volvo line haul truck "to get into heavy haul". I'll do road truck/trailer work for guys I know, but coming out of the industry I've got less than zero interest in doing any work for the average Billy Bigrigger. Rant over
In 'The Day' I cannot tell you how many guys asked for Cummins Button changes, stingers, any way around the max RPM on engines. I would adjust or eliminate the Aneroid mechanism/adjustment on SOME engines, would even drill out the 'ball' and remove a few thou of shims on a PT throttle, would swap injector sizes for DD's and set the governor on old Macks a 'Taste' high but never would I give as noted "Billy Bigrigger": any form or fashion of bump ups.
I also cringed every time a 'Herder' would wander into the shop spewing "I ain't got no power". Ask if the engine was not making high rpm or if the truck was having trouble making hills, always No as response. So asked what they meant, "Need more RPMs as can't hit 70mph", Damn truck gots no power". Could not relate Speed is NOT Power. Morons.
The fastest I've ever gone is 65 and that is plenty fast enough. Just think about all those shafts spinning, those tires whizzing along after they have been through who-knows-what, and how long it takes the brakes to bring that whole train to a stop if anything should go wrong. Much happier having a speed limiter or governor around that speed so I don't get complacent. Oh yes and smokey and his ticket book.
I might not be the fastest, but I always make it to the bank on time.
I'm really starting to dislike this T444e/7.3 & International 4700. I think it may have been designed by a dyslexic monkey. Still having problems cold start & found burnt connector at that stupid valve cover gasket slash electrical connector. Got a kit (with glow plugs while I'm in there) and went out this AM to whip it out. What a f'n nightmare! I'm still not done with it. I'll take the 3406e any day- I could replace 8 injectors, rebuild the Jake, and run the overhead in the time it's taking me to do this.
Never seen a 8 injector 3406E, you find a new model?!
Worked a couple leasing companies, drivers for the customers were the worst. They wanted Cadillac trucks for their company's squealing Jeffersons($.05s), they were the most likely to write up EVERY trip for lack of power as the trucks rented were very 'Frugal' and "SLOW" being set to never challenge highways maximum speeds! Bunches of twits and truck herding Billy Bigriggers.
See? This thing has me all messed up.
Says it all, 2.5 million horsepower- and fruit punch! CAUTION! STRONG LANGUAGE PARENTAL GUIDANCE ADVISED!
I feel your pain, I've got an E350 that needs glow plugs, have the plugs just been putting it off, my back hurts just thinking about it! It's not starting worth **** as of late even plugged in for an hour, I've probably lost another plug... It's been -25c which doesn't help, do have 0w40 in it. Whoever decided to produce a direct injected engine that won't start even above freezing without glow plugs was a complete moron! And they replaced the DT408 in the corn binders with this junk! I happen to have a 4700 with DT408 (great little screamer!) One day will pull my 12ft enclosed body off the E350 and stick it on the binder, hopefully soon. Your thread is getting me excited to get after it! The ford van has tested my patience since day one, can't pack all I want/need, breaking springs, 7.3 with no low-end balls, turbo doesn't light till 2 grand, gets horrendous milage, because I drive it like a screaming Jimmy, pi$$ed off, hold her to the rug! But I fell in love with the enclosed heated service body so I've put up with it... Sounds like a girl I used to date! Haha!
I can't believe all the stuff I've had to take apart just to get the valve covers off- compressor, alternator, computer... I can understand on a pickup, but good grief it's a tilt hood medium duty.
Finished up the wiring & glow plugs yesterday, charged the battery's all the way up last night. Went out this morning 28 degrees should fire right off, 'wait to start' was on the right amount of time, hit the start button...... This thing is really starting to **** me off First wont fire up, clean all harness electrical connections... Starts fine & runs PERFECT for a week or so, cold engine warm up idle speeds right, smooth as silk, no codes, run all the diagnostic tests everything is A-OK... Then it sits while I'm painting... Back to having to plug it in for 30min to start, runs a little rough... Find a wire that looks burnt R&R harness & glow plugs... That wasn't it... Start from the ignition switch & work my way out now Oh yeah, hooked up the tablet/Nexiq to see what the ECU is seeing for cold temps- and it was doing a gigantic windows update & now won't recognize the usb link. Some days I really, really hate technology.
Got the stupid tablet connected Showing 10.8v through the ECM & 6.6v cranking Hmmmmm....that doesn't seem right
Is it injecting fuel when it is not starting? What is the voltage drop across the glow plug solenoid? And how much current are the plugs drawing. The OE ones were notorious for high drop on the Fords at least. I can get a part number for a heavier duty replacement if you want. Did you verify the ECM voltage with a meter?
Yep. Not there yet. Just about there. Started with the batteries volt/load test, & work my way that direction. 12.7v everywhere so far.
I believe the T444E used the same junk GP solenoid.
Yes they're notorious for giving fits..... Any difference cycling plugs a couple times?
Voltages good, resistances good, relay is good, grounds good, wiring good, sensors good... All KOEO tests OK Relay on time not good for the temp so I "helped" it out a little- 60 sec. instead of the 20 sec. it was doing by itself Fired up, ran like **** until it warmed up, turn off & restart smooth no misses. Ran all the KOER diag. = nothing. At 169 coolant temp it went to high idle after 5 min & it shouldn't do that. No EBPV Cold start & warm up in the ECM gone haywire? Can't see what it's doing there with ServiceMaxx or MD32 "Not dealer level serviceable". I'll leave it plugged in tonight & see what it does tomorrow morning.
I thought high idle was based on intake air temp, not coolant temp.... It's one of those powerstroke things....
Somewhere l picked up 158 deg water temp on these, can't remember where I had a no start on the Cat once & it took longer to hook up ET than find the problem. This bites.
I was going to say cold warmup programming on Powerstroke was based on engine oil temp not the other two. But I could be wrong, unless I see it in a book I don't believe even myself.
One guy I know had one of these. After allot of searching there was a small ground wire corroded right at the battery. Seems to me there were quite a few wires on and near the battery.
I found it- cold idle advance is coolant temp & cold ambient protection is intake air temp + coolant temp.
For future reference I can get you a good deal on a NGD DT466 250hp, Just sayin! Haha!
After 2001 the PSD's have a glow plug driver, ie electric box for GP's. Each GP is monitored, will set a code if any malfunction. Yep, they go to a fast idle after warmup.. I woul;d have bout a Dodge/Cumins if they were not so *&^@ rackety in 2001!
I didn't plug it in last night: 35 deg coolant, oil, intake temp- fired right off: smooth, steady, no misses or stumbles, excellent throttle response. Perfect. So it seems to only happen if it's been sitting a few days which makes me think 'fuel' like @Birken Vogt asked earlier. BUT- testing it when it wasn't starting showed good voltage, cranking RPM, & ICP (it should set a 335 code if not) & doesn't explain why plug it in for 30min & it goes. Rough, but it goes. What am I missing here? This is ridiculous. I'm no super-genius but I can usually figure this stuff out. I hope someone will make me have a "Duh!" moment. I'm going to work on something else for awhile before I do something I'll regret later.
Feels better getting something accomplished today.
Duh Sometimes it's good to step away & think. Symptoms all seem to point to air intrusion somewhere.
I wonder if the high pressure oil pump is losing its prime? Requires around 300lbs to start.
Crummy says his ICP is good @ crank....still would like to see the fuel pressure and ICP #'s at cranking / no-start. Regards, Bob
I'm going to get some solid #'s next time. I'm still kind of scratching my head why plug it in for a bit & it'll start. Like it's trying to light cold on only 1 bank. Since (I think) the pressure sensor is on one of the heads it would seem to indicate it was the other side not getting fuel. I think I'll start with putting shop air to the high side & see if that shows anything first. Still starting & running perfect after sitting 24-36 hrs.
Almost sounds like a problem with the IDM, does it have the "3 box" system? Separate IDM from ECM, that may have ended in 99? I've had all kinds of fits with IDMs on my Econoline, notorious for water intrusion, would loose an entire bank while driving, hard to move 10000+lbs on 4 cylinders! The last one I popped the cover off, sprayed down with fluid film and sealed the cover with RTV, been good ever since.
It's the 1 box. Checked for moisture & resealed everything, no codes, day whatever & still start/run great. Stretching it out between starts- up to 48hrs & still OK.
Decided to be different, everyone has round lights. Going with 2 red stop/tail & 1 amber turn per side.
I see you cut out a rectangle section in the center. Don't forget to include the three little lights in the center. They're required for tails over 80 or 88", can't remember which. I didn't know about the requirement when I first got rolling last year and got a fix-it ticket.
Well, 4 days sitting and it started right up @ 43deg BUT there is just the slightest miss to the ear. Hmmm...where to start looking. I'll put that off till later sometime. I've had too many things come up to get more work done on it. I did another "weld it yourself" rake/grapple kit for a guy, not something I advertise just word-of-mouth on something I did for myself awhile back. Maybe I should just do those!
Oh yeah, I decided to re-wire it with a house battery. That shouldn't take any time at all. If I keep having these great ideas I'll never get it done.
Not service truck connected at all I just priced a new radiator for my little itty-bitty Kubota excavator- $688! Cri-mun-eee! I'm pretty sure I can make something else work for a bit less than that.
I just found out that as of 01/01/2018 you need to be EPA certified to buy bulk (over 2lb) R134a. What next. A lot of the reason I got out of cranes was " new rule today! you need a card for this, a certification for that.... " Part of the reason I got out of trucking was " new rule today! you need a card for this, a certification for that, can't go to California, ELD after 12/18/2017, UCR changes, IRP changes, IFTA changes, amber light permit, weight/mile here after this date,... " Oh yeah, and I got a letter from Licensing too- I've got to bring my original birth certificate in with me this time to renew my CDL. FFS, are you kidding me? I've only had it for 30+ years. Unreal. I'm getting a little frustrated with this gov't boot on my neck for my own good BS.
Give Radiator Supply of Oregon (877) 365-9602 a call. They have always been the cheapest option for me even with freight included.
I had a little time to get a couple of things done this morning. 5 days sitting, didn't want to start 46 deg. outside. Hooked it up & everything looked OK cranking. Cleaned some grounds on the firewall that shouldn't have anything to do with it but it fired right up, smooth as could be. Since I'm only doing one thing at a time trying to diagnose it, I'll let it sit for 4/5 days & see what happens.
Got the passenger seat installed, had to modify the mount a little. Didn't think about the seat belts on the drivers side- belts for a fixed seat don't work too well with air ride- ooooof! 5 days sitting again, 40 degrees, started up no sweat. If it keeps it up the hard/no start problem was a ground (arrow in pic) coming out of the split-loom that's all lighting & trailer wires.
As you say, makes not a lot of sense being related to a lighting ground, but if it starts good from now on... Thumbs up!
Did you say you'd already refreshed all other known ground points?
I traced & cleaned the ECM clean power from the battery. Looking at the wiring diagram, the cab ground stud shouldn't have anything to do with it so I'm a bit skeptical that is the problem.
Monsoon rain today so I'll goof around in the shop. I found some nice aluminum scraps laying around & making up a couple of dash new panels. The stock layout was a waste of usable space- the Filter Minder was in the middle of the panel I made for the switches so I moved it over above the brake valve & added the in/out temp gauge I had. I'm debating whether I want to spiff up the polished aluminum or paint them black.
Looks kind of cool. Chrome don't get you home though.
Not to criticize, but the thing that pops out at me is that all aftermarket switches are questionable to me. I would probably have figured out how to get the factory switches in the panel if they were any good. I have just had so many failures in them it looks to me like a frustration factory there when the switches start to fail.
No worries, I don't expect everyone to slap me on the back & tell me how awesome I am. Don't post stuff on the internet if you have a thin skin? There's a method to my madness there and without writing a volume I'll try & explain what I'm thinking, don't have to agree with me though. I've had too many rigs that had non-factory stuff wired (scabbed) in & when something quit a lot of stuff quit and this one is a prime example- I'm chasing wiring problems everywhere that originated from the body builders. I'm slowly getting everything that is factory back where it belonged. Now all the non-factory accessories (I came up with 12 so far that should go on separate circuits- work lights L/R/Rear, strobes, crane relay, cabinet lights, doghouse lights, radio, compressor, etc.) go in that panel from a house battery. Something doesn't work no biggie, at least the truck starts on good batteries & runs, lights work, wipers work, turn signals work. I really like the Kenworth easy reach dash panel, 2 screws & tips out with switches that are easy to access & work on plus not having all the wiring involved with the column & gauge cluster.
7 days sitting went out this morning prepared mentally for the usual & it fired right up! Hopefully that issue is behind me now. I've got someone coming to look at the Kenworth first thing Friday morning so I hope the new drivers seat I ordered shows up before then.
I've repaired [minor] wiring problems on a Kenworth while driving (not on a public road), they are so easy to work on.
The Kenworth got a new home (farm) yesterday. It sure will be nice having the shop space back.
Nice progress mate, you must be getting there on your plan, what's next?
Clean up the shop now that all the big truck stuff will be gone, take care of a few other commitments I have the next week or so & then get into the building and rebuild the box. Lots of stuff to do there before I paint. It would probably help if I had a plan at this point instead of just winging it.
Another 7 days sitting yesterday after I've been messing with other stuff, fired up but really rough. Shut it off after 2-3 minutes & then immediately fired it back up- perfect, smooth as silk. What the....this is driving me insane. I've got a clipboard (clipboard=old guy 'app') to log conditions & "repairs" between starts- it's not time between starts, temperature related, batteries. Thinking.....thinking....variables.....maybe cam position when it's shut down & then air intrusion? But the fuel pressures are good & steady. It may need a lot more body work when I get it in the shop since every time I go around back I want to throw a rock at it. I'll figure it out. Or not if I get really pissed & re-power it.
Maybe my "new" mag drill will show up today, that will make me feel better. Maybe go out & drill holes in the block "take that you b***h".
I would replace replace the cam position sensor and keep the original in the glovebox (unless that proves to be the fix) and for what it costs, change out the injector o rings... both are problematic with this vintage of engine. Regards, Bob
CPS's are reasonably priced now, (the PSD version anyway) The CPS playbook has an infinite number of tricks to entertain the operator, from going dead to random rough running to never starting on certain days!
Helpful tip for Friday- don't put off 'till tomorrow what you should do today. Day 3 of cleaning the entire shop. Pulled the Kenworth out & should be able to get 2 rigs in & work on them at the same time. Could barely get one in. My own fault, 15 years of " I'll put this stuff up later, for now I'll just shove it over here... ". What a freakin' mess. There is stuff in there I didn't even know I had. Once that's done I should be able to really get after the service truck project.
My wife's favorite comment as to her stuff that seems to grow in place: "I will tend to it Later". Can't stand not having my shop space, volunteered it for the house build/move but now it is time she take care of the excess crap and it sits. I have been Secretly working on the pile a little at a time it just 'Vanishes'!!
My grandpa did that to my grandma recently. They 'moved' out of the farmhouse 20 years ago to a new place back in the woods. Grandma never emptied the stuff out of the farmhouse basement. 2 years ago, my grandpa paid my cousins to haul everything left out of that house, put in one of our dump trucks and haul it to the dump. My grandma still thinks that stuff is in that house... Sorry for the hijack. I agree with staying organized, though I am horrible at doing so. I just put a B&W hitch in my truck and spent half the time of my install looking for the correct tools. I own them, I know they're in here, but where the heck are they?!
My mom says her dad (a depression era pack-rat farmer) told his son-in-laws " If you don't treat my daughters well I will be forced to leave everything I own to you in my will ".
In for lunch. Still a loooong way to go & I'm telling myself " I'm never letting it get that way again ". Heh. That's funny, self. .......... " I'm never drinking that much again. " ........... " If I ever make that kind of money again I'm going to save & not blow it all on stupid stuff " ......... " I don't care what she does, I'm not taking her back again " .........
Quiz time! Not the greatest picture, but who can identify this tool? Hint: Made by Atlas _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ Co. Talk about "I forgot I had that"!
Almost looks like seat hog ring pliers with tool heads on the handles to open them back up.
Cap pliers. Bob
I thought the Kenworth was gone to a new home?
Bob's the winner! From Washington too. Which means he's most likely got a story about the time someone shot a stump into low earth orbit.
Between the buyers busy schedule (10,000ac wheat farm), the weather, and getting someone to come over with him that has a CDL he hasn't been able to get back over here from the east side of the mountains to close the deal & pick it up. Since it's someone @Truck Shop knows as honest & sent my way a handshake was good enough for me when he flew over to look at it and we agreed on a price.
Anyone need a Dillon 20k/lb Dynamometer? I can't see needing it since I haven't had any cranes since 2007! It's truly unbelievable the amount of stuff I've accumulated. I'm trying not to think of all the treasures I have stored at the other property.
I have no idea where those two boxes of powder went. Bob
I am finally re-distributing the Old 'STUFF' I also had from almost 40 years collecting. Getting down to the basic tools I need for my own junk and nothing else. May keep a few of the oddest items just for conversation pieces. Junkyard got my old Cummins and DD tooling I know I will not ever need again.
It's very therapeutic to have a clear out like that now and again...
Should get the shop done today. Now I need a break in the weather I can get the service truck steam cleaned and in the shop. Now to the ongoing engine BS. I went out Saturday & lit it off, 30deg, fired up fine but seemed to have a miss but it went away when it came up to operating temp. Went out yesterday, 26deg, no start at all. Plugged it in for 45min & it fired right up, still a little miss but otherwise fine. Went out this morning 24hrs later, 22deg, fired right up with the slight miss. Flipped the hood & listened to the valve covers with my high-tech rubber hose listening device- rattle like a dead cylinder mid left bank. I'm going to see if I can hit the exhaust with the heat gun later.
#5 exhaust 30% off the rest of the temps after cold engine start. Good 'ol temp gun comes through again.
very nice, so whats your first suspect?
How it's acting poppet wear would be my first guess. Once it's in the shop I'll pull the valve covers & take a look.
2" snow & 28deg out this morning but I don't care- truck project is in the shop. A couple of things from yesterday that were kind of funny (now)- Steam cleaning in the cold & dry is a riot. Especially in the doghouse & doing inside the side boxes. "I can't see #### through this fog!" Steam cleaners will always quit working at the beginning of the job when you are trying to get done before it starts snowing, not at the end so you can "fix it tomorrow". Remembering at some point in the past saying " Note to self: getting a rig that's been sitting for years is never a good idea ". (RE: above) Ready to hit it hard first thing in the AM but there's a 3' puddle of power steering fluid on the shop floor from a "new" leaking line. Of course, it leaked into the valley & down the bell housing that I just cleaned spic-n-span yesterday. It did start right up yesterday at 22deg, so that was a plus.
Ice last two days here, now melted and rain pushing in, back into 50's tomorrow. Have to love MO weather as it never repeats save for 102 in the shade and no shade.
I'm going to do a little product review here. I found an 'injector tune up' kit for the HEUI's (turns out the guy that sells them is local): " Hard to start? Runs rough cold? Runs fine warm? ". Fits the symptoms, low cost also. What the heck? Plus I'm teaching myself in-depth about a component I'd just normally do an R&R on. I definitely don't know everything, far from it, but I'm always up to learning something new. So far this morning I've checked the armature clearances on 1,3,5,7- way too tight. #5 (that had the low EGT) is the worst. Before anyone jumps in with " don't be cheap, get reman injectors and be done with it ". Here's the deal- I have no idea how much damage was done to the engine prior to me having it. I'm really concerned about how long it was run with the plugged DPF, thus I am reluctant to drive it through the parts store only to have it fail soon after it's fully in service. $75 for a kit is a lot less than $1200 or so for injectors.
Wait, I don't understand, what engine with HEUI and DPF?
The service truck t444e Way way back in this thread I cut out the Donaldson retrofit DPF system- all plugged up & the warning light module was under the floor mat with the "WARNING!" light on full time. The rig came from the City of San Diego and they must have had it done to meet CARB. If it was driven up from SoCal to Oregon at highway speeds with a goobered up system it isn't the best thing for the life expectancy of the engine. Could have something to do with the injector problems now (soot), or maybe not. Could have overheated really bad if it ran like that. Who knows?
Half way done today. Not too bad so far, pretty easy actually. I did the suggested spacer plate update, it's supposed to drain the oil out & make cold starts better. He had you clamp 2 together & drill between them with a 3/16 in his instructions, I figured it was easier & better throwing them on the mill.
I got the injectors done yesterday but now I've got the power steering torn apart fixing the leaks and need a hose made so I can't report on how it works right away. Since the 2 places that are only a couple of miles away from me don't make up hoses anymore it's a run to the big city or 50 miles round trip the other direction to have one made. Irritates me enough that I'm looking at hose crimpers. No more swinging into the NAPA "hey Dan, got time to make one of these up for me?" and then sitting on the stool in the back with Styrofoam cup of Joe & catching up on the local gossip.
Where might I find a ad/info on this cold start cure device. My PSD is developing a "Don't bother me" attitude in cold weather. Also a bit slow starting with warm engine and warm weather
This is the one I got. Make sure to read the full description and evaluate which kit you need (there's a "rebuild" and "tune up" depending on symptoms). He has a variety of other kits for the PowerStroke/T444e (same-same). https://www.ebay.com/itm/INTERNATIO...953289?hash=item2c9caa1549:g:FcAAAOSwGh5Zv3uM DISCLAIMER! I haven't been able to evaluate this yet. Feedback looks good, so it is worth a try in my situation.
I seem to remember reading a few months ago in SIS about an upgrade to the HUEI system involving a different oil supply hose to make sure the pump gets supplied oil faster.
Whoops! I replied to wrong thread.
You can never go wrong replying to this thread.
Too many irons, not enough fire anymore. Finally got back to the service truck & got the power steering put back together so I can give my first impressions of the HEUI injector tune up kit. Two thumbs up! After sitting for over two weeks it fired right up, no misses, temps the same across the exhaust manifold, and a nice snappy throttle. I can't road test it right now but I'm really happy. If you've got a T444E or PowerStroke 7.3 (also he has listed some others with HEUI- Cat, DT466), for the price & the time it takes to install I'd say it's definately worth a try.
I've got one that's getting a bit lumpy, maybe give it a try one day. Too bad I hardly drive it any more.
Quickie road test. What a difference. If anyone decides to try the kit here's one tip: He doesn't include it but I used a .005 feeler as a No-Go setting the clearance, found it faster & easier. It will make sense when you do it.
I really dislike this time change thing. My internal clock is messed up enough all on it's own and really doesn't need any help. I've really got to get after this project now before I run out of space in the shop from all the deals I can't pass up lately. Last week I got 6 wheels with fresh machine polish. 22.5 Budd aluminum are sure not too common anymore, why the city spec'd the rig with stud pilot will remain a mystery to me. And the KarryKrimp 2 that showed up yesterday. Get a cup of coffee and some Cheerios down my throat and out to the shop. Time to get this show on the read, literally.
Well let's see those shiny new rims mounted!
It's way easier to buy stuff than do the project- that will be the very last picture in this thread " here it is, all done.. .". Until then they will just be in the way, along with the 2 other steers I picked up earlier. Plus I need to get new rubber and that's not shiny so I have little interest in the purchase. Priorities.
Hey Crummy, sounds like you are coming into the final stretch, that's good to hear! That is kind of weird with the Budd wheels? Seems like in 2000 there were still a lot of people who didn't trust the Budds yet...up this way there are still guys who wouldn't run anything but spokes! I got my truck on the road for it's first job last week...got a water leak on the head gasket that will have to be taken care of, but other than that so far so good. Regards, Bob
I feel like I'm just out of the blocks right now. I just came up to check the regs to make sure the tail lights in the "rebuilt" bumper aren't too low, thankfully I won't have to start over on that. Every day I see something else that will "just take a couple of hours" to get right. You are way ahead of me. Hopefully after the head gasket it takes you to the money, to the bank after, and then home with no troubles.
Hopefully it will pan out (after the past more than six months of build time, my wife figures it better!)... speaking of "legal stuff", I registered the truck at 26k and weighed it (after the fact) at 25k (will probably go a little heavier next year). I checked out the karrykrimp, didn't see the weight of the unit in the specs? I will be stocking some hose and fittings on the truck also, not sure yet on the model of portable crimper my supplier is hooking me up with. Regards, Bob
If you can trust the UPS weights from what I got yesterday- crimper, 6 dies, & Enerpac 110v pump was 162#. One of the local industrial supply houses has a "portable most common" assortment of Parker hose & fittings I'm going to check with them next week & see what the total weight is there.
Wow, that's not bad at all for crimper / pump weight. My 220v crimper in the hose making room must be around the 250 pound mark... needless to say, would never end up on the truck. I have been working with the Eaton / weatherhead product for the past couple of years and have had good luck. Not sure if one brand is much different from another, just what you get used to. Regards, Bob
The bumper is welded up. Pull it out tomorrow (easy now that it starts!) clean it up & get it ready for paint. Lots of cussing went on welding the seam, no way to get all the rust & paint out from under. Bzzzz-spit-spit-bzzzzz-spit. Oh well, nothing a grinder won't fix. Once it's painted, on to the box. Not looking forward to that too much.
I can definitely feel your pain about welding rust, not fun at all. I like the line..."a grinder and paint make me the welder I ain't" I still have to get a new canvas cover made for the rear door... hopefully will be able to get as good a deal as you found (need to keep the road salt/spray out of the rear compartment). Regards, Bob
Bumper is done & painted up. One oversight- I'm so used to working on big trucks with separate stop/turn I didn't think of that when I did the lighting for this one. Oh well, just more wiring. Working on the box doors now getting them straightened up. I'm going to price stainless paddle latches which I prefer instead of messing with trying to get the t-handle units cleaned up & working right. I'll have to post a picture of the ones that are on it now, kind of overkill if you ask me with padlock hasp, barrel lock, AND the bar lock.
No big updates or pictures, just cleaning up the box- welding up bolt holes, cracks, rust-trough's, fixing the doors. Not too exciting. UPS delivered the tires yesterday (Saturday!)- driver said he had my 4 tires & another little package for someone else for the day and that was it. This selling things online stupid cheap and "free shipping" thing can't last. Have to go this evening and lean hard on someone that owes me a LARGE sum of money. I could have easily done with out having to do that.
How did the "leaning" go? Yes, I agree about the amazing situation on cheap products shipped quickly and for such low courier rates, now a lot of people expect everything to be done this way, order today and delivery tomorrow. Zoom!
It went OK. There is scarcely anything that drags a person down like debt.
[ I'll try to get this posted in the right place this time ] Decent weather today & supposed to start raining so outside and prep the roof for paint this week. Did I mention how much I dislike paint prep? It is sooooo nice to have it start right up now.
Working today on patching up the roof. Mounting things that can get water trapped between never works in the long run. Glad I've got the little SP130 to hoist up there, I will wear that handy little welder out way before I do the other ones. On a side note- DON"T buy the Lithonia LED High-Bay 1'x2' lights that Home Depot has. I got 6 a few years ago and 2 more failed today (perfect), 1 failed last year and the rest are slowly giving out. 50,000hr unit life my azz! 5 year warranty is a joke. Now I'm waiting for replacements (NOT Lithonia) to arrive. I try to support local/USA, but seriously if you want me to buy at 3x the price of the "import" you'd better make a damn good product and have decent customer service! Rant over
I had a buddy a couple years ago invite me to his shop. He had just bought new led high bay, had them shipped from manufacturer in china. Supposed to last his lifetime, and they were really bright. Now 2 years later, they are all much dimmer, and he's had one of his guys install new circuit boards in most of them. I've still got all flourescent 8' in my shop, and I'd like to change, but I don't think the high bay led lights are where I'd like them to be quality wise before I buy them.
Painted the doghouse lid this morning. On to prepping inside the boxes & doghouse. Getting there. Slow, but making progress. After considering the options I decided to take the hack job exhaust stack off and try weed burner out the right side. Might get started on that this afternoon. I like fab/welding WAY better than paint prep.
Is the lid fixed, or does it hinge up? Could not tell from the earlier pics of the rig. Regards, Bob
I got the exhaust moved around yesterday. It looks better at least and Ill bet I cut out 8' of trombone pipe (which can't hurt) so I had plenty to work with for my "new" system. A Pete or KW with nice big twin stacks looks good, a medium duty with a 3 1/2" pipe bolted to the side not so much, a little too Beverly Hillbillies there. May be an issue running the compressor in dusty conditions though, we'll see- or not in a cloud of dust!
It's fixed. There's 6'-3" clearance inside. Built like a tank, too. There's a rig I saw a few times when I was loading out of Ritchie Bros. here that has basically the same setup, it's kind of hard to describe, but without the shelves on the passenger side so a bigger crane can park over the side boxes and a solid door. That would be what I'd prefer- still have the storage & covered area to get out of the elements with a bigger crane.
More cutting out rust. This is where they had the big hose reels mounted on the back of the box. That's the last of the bad stuff. My goal is to have the inside of the doghouse and inside of the side boxes painted by this time next week. I can see the end of this phase but it's a speck on the horizon right now. Sold the crane scale & two Alcoa Budd's I'd picked up so I've got some more mad-cash for the project. I must have had them priced right or just lucky- less than 24hrs after I posted they were gone. Ordered a hydraulic cable lug crimper to replace my ancient hammer-style crimper & a couple of DC reversing solenoids for the crane. Autocrane's wiring there is pretty weak IMO (70a through 12ga?) so I'm going to redo it. I've also got a 12v hydraulic pump laying under a bench and that got me thinking of seeing if I can come up with hydraulic instead of the manual pin on the boom.
A little more progress yesterday. Boy did they drill a lot of holes in that box that need to be filled! The doors are taking more work than I really wanted to do and I keep thinking of things I need to do before paint like the brackets for the new door gas struts. The new shop lights showed up yesterday so I spent time re-arranging the old ones & hanging the two new ones- makes it a lot easier to work when it's not so dark. Speaking of seeing things- I know I'm getting older and the 'ol peepers aren't as good as they used to be but I was really having problems welding & seeing the sheet metal seams on the repairs. Replaced the inner & outer clear shields and wiped down the lens on the Speedglas.....yeah, better do that more often. "night and day" difference.
Bent up a radius patch panel this morning, getting ready to weld it in aaaaaannnd....found more rust through. Drill a hole in the nice service body and bolt something on without doing anything to prevent water intrusion. What's the worst that could happen? AAARRRRGGGGHHHH!
Patched up as good as it's going to get. A little more fine tuning with the flap wheel but it's not a show rig . Probably more that could be done but I'm not looking too hard.
I counted the non-Knapheide holes I plugged in the box: 77 Jed Clampett must have owned it at one time.
Doing a little research this morning looking at replacement latches for the box doors and get them ordered up. Knapheide uses some proprietary BS and no standard paddle (or T) will work without a bunch of fab work. OF COURSE! Can't make it easy on the pocketbook to replace. Looks like I'll have to see what I can do rebuilding/improving the ones that came off. $7,000 rig with $80,000 labor in it, that's me!
Try ALTEC, they were worse than Knapheide!! Worked on those lovely boxes a LONG time. Reading used generic latches in My day, do not know if still do.
I know what you mean by all the extra holes, I don't think I've had to drill one hole in my box during the entire setup/tool arrangement process! I do like the older style Reading latches (circa1997?) as far as being easy to service, just not the most secure as far as being theft proof. Regards Bob
The door seals are impossible to locate aftermarket also. I'm still looking for something that will work that's not, I'm sure, something like $11/ft and most likely " Legacy product please allow 6-8 weeks for delivery ".
While we are on drilling holes- how about punching a few through the cab roof for antennas? Those will NEVER leak. I think every one I've seen has a giant glob of clear Silicone slathered around it.
I hauled a couple of ALTEC line rigs for a guy that bought them "cheap" and was going to fix them up for his new business. I chuckled to myself at the time- "Dude, I hope you have deep pockets..." Considering he had to borrow the money to have me haul them....
My limited experience with altec was with one of the first boom trucks they made. I think it was a 26103. Anyways, the outrigger box beams looked like they had been flame cut with a poorly set up torch. The edges were a ripple. The whole thing looked like a high school shop project gone wrong. The operators cab door opened to the front, and if you had the door open, and boomed up out of the rest, the a2b cable would catch on the widow wiper, promptly popping off the wire and unspooling the whole mess, and most generally ruined the wire too. I was glad when it left the yard, owner said he took a big loss on it just to get it gone. And I looked up knapehide door latches- $57.00 each. You might be headed to the banker too......
My town highway dept. has a 2000 Int. 4900 with the Altec bucket unit but has about the same Reading service body as mine. So I wasn't sure Altec actually built the service bodies? Regards Bob
Uhhhh.......no. I may regret plugging all the holes since they would be good places to attach the bungees to keep the doors shut.
The Napa parts and supply catalog had a pretty good selection of door weatherstripping
I'm going to print the drawings of the "standard" paddle latches and see if I can sketch up a doable modification to make them function. The only dimension that doesn't look like it will work is the latch not being deep enough.
Thanks @crane operator you got me to looking and I found a Knapheide latch on eBay ($74.50 + $17.30 shipping). With a good picture it makes sense now what they did, still not standard-easy-to-find but I think I may be able to make rotary paddle latches work with not much work.
I'm messing around in the shop trying to figure out what to do about the door latches and my buddy stops by. Told him I found some stainless paddle latches reasonably priced online and just trying to figure how to make them work. He says " Big mistake! You are going to regret getting that cheap Chinese junk- I only use manufacturer replacement parts, way more expensive but better stuff ." Just so happened I was using one off of my Stahl boxes see what I could do with these doors-
Pretty funny!
I got the inside of the doghouse done this morning. Since the old Stahl side boxes were out I decided to cut them in too what the heck more locking storage. I was thinking about it and those boxes have been of four other trucks I've had, pretty sure this will be the last one though. The latches showed up last week so getting those retrofitted is next.
Looking quite right!
Thanks. A few more pallets of lipstick and I'll have this pig.......looking like a pig with lipstick.
I would be happy seen driving it.
Steering wheel is on the wrong side for you though. From your side of the big pond I don't think anything beats a Dakar Rally support truck. Those things are AWESOME! I really-really-really need one of those.
Yep, a Tatra 8X8 would be nice
I seem to remember when they still ran through Africa one of them ran over a land mine.....and they got it going again. That there is what you would call a fully equipped service truck.
Working on the new paddle latches this morning. Thankfully what I thought was going to be a real head scratcher to make work with how the doors & jambs are laid out is going to be really easy. Seven more to go.
Tacked one of the gas struts in on the door to see how it's going to work. Math is hard but I managed to get it so that when the door is about 4" open the strut goes over-center & closes it the rest of the way & with the new rotary latches "click!". Sweet! I still need to patch up where the old spring struts tore up the door- lousy design Knapheide.
Sold my Bernard welding cooler today, too. That will help with the bill that came came today that has the tires, wheels, Karrykrimp.... So far I've managed to finance this project with selling stuff I need to get rid of anyway. Haven't gotten into the Kenworth $'s, doesn't look like I'll need to either.
I got two more doors done yesterday. I've got installing the latches and struts down so it doesn't take too much time there but four of the doors are bent and won't seal on the jamb gasket so it takes time to get them right. Does anyone know how you pronounce Knapheide? NAP-HYDE or NAP-HEE-DEE ? Asking for a friend....
I have always heard it pronounced KNAPHEIDE . Sorry, I couldn't resist. I am 99% sure it is NAP-HYDE. It fits with German pronunciation that way, too.
Ba-Da-Tish! He'll be here all week folks, hope you enjoyed the show and don't forget to tip your waitress. That's the way I thought but one of the guys I know that works for the power company swears it's "- HEE-DEE ". Although, he is originally from Alabama and pronounces tire "tar" and oil "awl" so as a result I am a bit skeptical of his ferin name soundin out language skills.
This is pretty funny. One of the guys saw the new tires I got and after I told him what I paid he called his wife (who does all his online stuff) and said " order me up 8 of those quick before they go up in price! " since he needed some new drives. She calls back in a little bit- " I've got them in the cart- are you sure about this? Seems an awful lot to spend right now " "Darn it woman, just do what I say....what's the total?" Something like $7,500.... What! Cancel-Cancel-Cancel! She'd put what he said- Qty: [8]. On the listing for 4 tires, not 1! Almost had 32 tires coming his way.
Hey now! Did you really have to go there? You noticed I am from South Carolina, right?
Ha! No, I didn't. I'm a disgrace to the family name with my 'talkin. I got paired up with a guy at work years ago that was also from Alabama because I was the only one they had that " speaks Southern ".
Edit: that didn't come out sounding right- I'm born & raised on the west coast, father from Virginia sister still in Tenn
Got my contractor guy that owes me big off this morning to California to work on the place so hopefully I'll be able to get it up for sale in a few weeks. Distractions from the important stuff.... I was out looking at the air hose reels I took off and wondering if I should clean them up and figure out a way to put them on the rig. What's the advice here? I've got lot's of storage for loose hoses, or is it worth trying to find a good spot for the reels since I have them? They are big Reelcraft units- 24"x11".
Two more nice days before it starts raining again so I've got the rig out back and prep for paint. I'll be soooo glad when this part is done. They started logging the property behind me yesterday morning, I'd much rather be doing that than doing paint prep. Ugly job though with English Ivy all the way to the top of almost every 90'+ Fir on the first 2 1/2 acres.
Right now I'm hating the lid. Lots of low quality seam sealer, thus when it failed the paint started peeling. My "two or three" days of prep is going to be.....more than two or three days.
Yep, my projects are always 2 or3 X estimated time.
Made it before the rain & got the rig back in the shop. For some reason the drivers side was in WAY better shape, not nearly as much lifting paint. Woke up this morning and my poor shoulders are killing me but it feels great being done with that miserable job. Head down to NAPA this morning and get some seam sealer and rattle can primer. Goop the seams and spot prime the bare spots this weekend E-Z. The DA sander and the rest of the prep stuff went into a box and up on the highest shelf in the shop never to be used again. Ever. If I had a real job or needed a rig in-service for my business this project would have been in the boneyard looooong ago.
Still starting right up & running great after sitting, too. Victory on that punch list item.
It's good to hear that the to do list is getting smaller Crummy! I have learned to look at projects like this as a continual "work in progress" as it seems that the project is never really completely done! Regards Bob
Rant So I go down to the local parts store I've been buying stuff at for a bazillion years to get seam sealer. I've used SEM products from them for decades and am really comfortable working with their stuff. Go down the paint/body isle, which used to be a full isle BTW and now just a little corner, no SEM. Go to the counter- Where's the SEM black seam sealer? " We don't carry SEM any more" What? OK, how about 3M? You had that last time I was here. " Nope " What DO you have? " The stuff on the bottom shelf over there " I really want to get the seams sealed & spot primed this weekend so I go ahead and get it. What could possibly go wrong, it's just seam sealer? BIG MISTAKE! This stuff is CRAP! JUNK! GARBAGE! Literally, it's like trying to seal seams with anti-seize! Same consistency and gets everywhere BUT skins in about 90 seconds. The SEM you could work it & smooth with your finger & surgical glove till it was just right. This stuff? No frickin way, if you don't get it right the first pass it skins and then starts balling up. Way to go NAPA, one more thing I'll buy online and not from your stupid store.
https://www.amazon.com/SEM-29392-Black-Seam-Sealer/dp/B00BI28218
I used to have some sympathy for " Amazon is killing brick-n-mortar" Not so much sympathy anymore. If you can't compete on price the least you can do is have it in the first place and have the best customer service not a bunch of minimum wage know-nothings staring at their smart phones.
Hi Crummy, you may not have these sealers where you are but the best ones we used to use in body shop was sikaflex (221?) and Upol tiger seal. If they started to skin over before we'd finished we had a 1/2" paintbrush in a tin of thinners, we'd give it a wipe with the brush and it'd give us more time to slime it around. Cheers Edit. May be politically incorrect, but never successfully slimed sealant wearing gloves.
I've used Sika building membrane roofing products. Good stuff.
Agree. There is a tiny ancient hardware store near here where they pretty much grab you by the arm when you walk in and take you to the item you want. They have all kinds of strange stuff nobody else does and the employees all know where it is and the owner and his son are working there same as everyone else. I used to live like 2 miles away, too bad I had to move across town.
Certainly giving it a new lease of life. It's going to look good.
Right now it looks like a big cow.
Definitely not the way I wanted to start the day off. Had to call Building Maintenance for ANOTHER high-bay LED light that was going out. Not good when you are getting ready to paint and not to have good light. The guy was pretty sharp, managed to get one working 100% using the three bad ones. Ouch, my arm hurts from patting myself on the back.
Yes, we never had enough light when spraying, especially with the cloudiness of overspray once get going, I'm sure that is the reason big sagging runs were so common...
Got out of my building maintenance guy clothes and got into my paint guy clothes and got the door jambs shot. Start masking the rest this afternoon. Mooooo-ving along.
Masking this morning. Squirt some paint tomorrow.
First coat of white. The LVLP gun isn't working out- not enough product to get it to to flow out. Hunting down an HVLP for tomorrow & see how that works.
No runs yet then!
You'd have to really work at it with that low volume gun.
I'd find a way!
Unleash the DeVilbis JGA...
I did find a Model 7 in a box.....but I'm not too keen on EVERYTHING in the shop being white!
Tried the HVLP way worse ! I followed the manufacturers directions to a T- fluid tip, atom. pressure. Says thinning not necessary. Cleanup is with their 'special' thinner=$$$$. Before I started I looked up the MSDS and found their 'special' mix was 97% Xylene so that's what I've been cleaning the gun with. Out of desperation, and not wanting something that looks like textured home interior walls, I used the old " I'm a crappy painter mix it hot and let it flow " trick- about 20% Xylene. Shot GREAT out of the LVLP and looks fine now. Whew. Mask & shoot the black, paint the inside of the boxes and the bed floor and done with the painting. Shooting for the end of next week. It will be nice to move on to really putting it back together and getting it in service soon.
UPS just dropped off my latest buy. Saw some Lincoln cordless grease guns eBay "Buy it now" for a stupid low price so I bought all eight listed. Said new in box, but until they showed up I was a bit skeptical. Well, sure enough new in box. I'm keeping two since I've never had a cordless and put the rest up for sale locally, should be able to make a couple of easy bucks to use towards the other project.
Exterior paint is done. Hooray. Not perfect by any means, but heck it's a work truck. No runs or curtains @John Shipp ! Doesn't look so much like a city fleet white rig. Best I could come up with without getting crazy. My neighbor said I should put a big SWAT on the sides
Good result Mr, if that popped up for sale here I would be racing to buy it. Super overhaul.
Looking pretty sharp Crummy! I'm thinking in a week or so you will have to start the"occupation" phase, and then determine the insurance requirements? My insurance guy asked me to put a value on my truck and contents, and I told him that it was difficult to figure out a replacement cost. I still have to take pictures and do an inventory for for record (seems like my inventory keeps changing). I guess that you always need to figure the "worse case scenario"... it's too bad, but I guess that's the world we live in. Regards Bob
I think it looks SHARP.
I wish. I've still got quite a ways to go yet but at least I can see the light. I've had a few support/tool rigs with my business in the past so it's not too bad comparatively. Less than the policy I had running lowboy interstate with big cargo liability that's for sure. With all the sweat equity on this one? $20,000,000.
I was thinking about the same on the estimated value $$
Painting the inside of the cabinets this morning until I ran out of paint.
I was digging around for something else this morning and found some pictures of another 'rebuild' project I did in 2012. I was extremely busy at the time operating cranes and excavators for someone else just before I went to trucking only so I bought the lowboy with the condition of current independent DOT inspection. The outfit that did the inspection must have been in the pocket of the seller because the trailer was JUNK! I'm not too proud to admit I learned a lesson there- I got ripped off! I ended up repainting it, ordering new 25k loaded axles (cut the old ones out completely: inboard-hub-not-done-right & spindles were shot ), re- wiring & plumbing, shocks, added ABS, new wheels/tires.... All in the field at the jobsite I was working at.
More pics. At the time I was hauling the blocks for a gravity wall on the project (in the background), something like 900 of them 25 at a time.
Finished painting this morning! The floor in the box was the last. Still grumbling to myself with how the body exterior came out (my fault) but it will be OK for what it is. Got the latches installed. It's nice putting things on that don't come back off again.
I think it looks great Crummy, looks like you have about 5' x 11' of open floor? Have you figured out a welder and compressor setup yet? I ended up mounting my welder on the floor in the back and lost a lot of floor space. Regards Bob
Good eye- 4'-10"x11' The rig came with a BOSS 8060 PTO compressor- way more than I need since I don't plan on running 90# jack hammers! I've got a Miller 301g on a wheel kit so I'm going to come up with a quick pin/latch to the front bulkhead that way I can roll it out of the way or even lift it out with the little crane. I've tossed around the idea of running some flex exhaust to the roof vent so I can run it inside.
Taking a little break this weekend and doing some spring yard work. Sitting in the shop on "break" thinking of what goes where. Even with the doghouse shelves, big service body, and crew cab with no rear seat " where am I going to fit all this stuff.... ". The space available fills up FAST!
This is for anyone with a Parker hose crimper. I had one of those " I wonder.... " moments this morning. I originally 'found' these things for holding new pistons/rods when rebuilding engines.
Reminds me of the expression"no matter how big you build the shop, you will wish you built it bigger!" Regards Bob
The little crane is back on today.
I'll admit to some jealousy over this truck you've fixed up. Do you know how many such trucks I've seen over here where I am in my whole life? None. Zero. Don't believe I've ever seen any here. They look ideal, all them boxes accessible from the sides, fully useful space, plus that covered area. Uh. God knows why they aren't about at all, makes no sense. Looking good, dude.
I wonder why that is? Vehicle laws there? I am close to a big container port....
Crowley, don't they send a lot of stuff to Alaska? Bob
I don't think it is vehicle laws. Must just be the cost new is more than can be stomached. Nearest thing we have to a service truck body is the heavy vehicle recovery trucks, they are almost there as far as side accessible boxes.
I'm pretty sure they still do a lot of service for the oil & gas guys up there. My brother-in-law was a tug boat driver for them but that was years ago. [edit] I think Lynden pretty much owns that area now.
Some lights. Putting this stuff together is WAY better than sanding/grinding/painting.
" My shop/truck/excavator/dozer/_ _ _ _/ is just too big! " Said nobody, ever.
Awesome idea! I'll use that for when I install my Karrykrimp.
Crowley does quite a bit of oil&gas business up here.
Well, now every inch of wiring from the firewall back is torn out & start over.
@redneckracin before and after:
Slowly making up the new wiring harnesses. 5-wire jacketed runs from the firewall back & everything that's made up has heat shrink & goes in split loom.
Not a huge fan of solder splices for automotive wiring, but lots of heat shrink almost makes up for it. Solder and vibrations don't go well together.
I agree. My policy is to do it however the OEM would have done it. I have some fairly expensive tooling and boxes of terminals but once you do it that way, it stays fixed. Theoretically, if you solder it and heat shrink it further up the wire than the solder wicked up the strands, it should be fine but there is no way of knowing how far it wicked.
The only solder is on the supported running splices- insulation stripped, wire NOT cut on the main run. Everything else is crimped with a real crimper+ heat shrink. Looking at how the big expensive body builder did it originally in the first picture post #303.....
Post 303 pic #1 is a sonic weld. We are missing some context there but normally they are very reliable, most mfrs use them now. I don't know how they are made, though. What was wrong with it? If I need to make a running splice I cut and use a butt connector with 2 wires in one side. You can get step down butt connectors that have different colors on each end but I have taken to stripping the single end twice as long and folding it back onto itself to double the diameter.
Nothing, you are right on that.
That's exactly how I do it.
Lots of good "how to" and "not how to" info here (I did not know that soldered connections and vibration were a bad combo) or about the aluminum wire being used? (had me looking at my rolls of wire). I do see a lot of heat shrink connects full of the "green cheese" from improper crimpers being used. Regards Bob
Got the back-up & amber wigwag's in to fill the holes in the box. Even though my new placement of the stop-tail-turn isn't optimum, I think it's better than where they were and having the crane obstructing the right side. One thing occurred to me after all this time- there's no clearance lights on the lid. Looked up the FMVSS regs & over 80" wide it sure looks like they are required. I also noticed, of course after filling all those holes and painting, the license plate holes are crooked!
Crummy, I don't think I've ever seen such wonky holes on a licence plate. Did you fill the wrong ones mate?
I don't think so. But now I'll have to go back and look at the pictures to see if I screwed up!
still looking good. Did you end up using a distribution block for the rear end?
No. I probably should have though. Would have been a bit easier.
My new neighbor that had the property behind me logged last month came up this evening and asked if he could park his new excavator behind my shop (I've got security cameras). Nice little machine, 6-way blade too. First time equipment owner and a big project ahead of him.
The blades have come a long way on these machines, looks useful.
I'm guessing with the machine weight & tracks if you tried to use the angle/tilt like a "real" dozer it would just want to turn in circles. I could be wrong though. I wonder how the undercarriage/finals hold up with that blade.
Probably, but when finishing gravel drives etc the standard blade is limited in it's usefulness. I imagine that 6 way blade would be great for light finishing work in easy grade material.
Got a little bit done today- a few more lights mounted on the back. My new wire supply showed up last week so no excuses now.
The project is getting close enough so I was thinking about getting the new plates & registration last week. Since I, unfortunately, live in an area that requires emissions testing before they will license it I was grumbling about the process- get a trip permit, go 20 miles to the check station, then go to the DOL and get the plates. The trip permit, 40 mile round trip, emissions check fee, bridge toll, "take a number" waiting at two places adds to the cost and frustration. " frickin' government.... " Then I thought- "self, you still have an active Prorate account....why not?". Logged in last Thursday morning, "Add Vehicle", filled out the info, paid the bill......and the Washington base plates & cab card showed up yesterday in the mail! No emissions. No "take a number". No most of a day wasted. Easy-Peasy. Ha! %*@^ your stupid emissions checking.
Wiring is done, in split loom & secured from the box to the cab except for the crane. Now it's behind the dash work hooking everything up. I decided I hated the switch/gauge panel so I put together a different one.
The beacons aren't mounted, I'm still deciding whether I need them since it will have amber wig-wag's front & rear. They came off the Kenworth so I've got them, just don't know if I want them.
Lol! Sometimes, you just gotta go with it, get it put right!
I've had the same problem with women. Look real good & seems like a good idea at the time, but then later, upon reflection....
Ah, yes... Say no more!
Getting closer on the wiring. I got a lot of the dash back together yesterday which is nice to see. Today is trying to figure out the train wreck with the BOSS compressor, PTO, & Murphy Tattletale thingy. Thank goodness for the good people at BOSS for sending me the "as-built" wiring diagram and the internet for the rest.
Working on all the little pick-up tasks waiting for my wheel lugs to get here. The door jamb switches for the dome light didn't work so I pulled them, one is totally broken and one I thought I could clean up and make work. Nope, what cheap plastic junk and a terrible design. Found the IH part number: Cheapest online...…$147.98/ea. That's ridiculous. Insane even. Found a Dorman part number.....$118.74 on eBay. Better, but still- Not. Going. To. Happen. 2 Cheap-o 'Universal' from across the Pacific $5.75 and free shipping. Can't be any worse than the OEM junk that was on it and I could have 102 spares for the same price.
You'd expect a OEM component like a door jam switch to be in the $30-50 zone I guess, but over a 100 is not likely to get bought, surely. Is it? I'd have to be having a very relaxed, blasé kind of moment to spend 290 odd dollars on a pair of light switches.
30 hours on my neighbors new Kubota excavator and the thumb hydraulics has gone haywire. He thought he broke it [told him not likely that he did it] and asked me to look at it. Yep, it's got a mind of it's own now- warranty repair. He's not happy he has to load it up and take it back to the dealer to get it fixed.
Got the interior pretty much squared away odds & ends left but all the electrical works! The 2-way radio/GPS/Camera was a great idea but way too much work to get everything mounted up there but the dash is limited for room though & can't mount anything in the wiper sweep on the windshield. I was scratching my head on how to mount the inverter, then came up with a brainstorm I'll post pics of that tomorrow (waiting for paint on mount to dry). I'm going to have my buddy the finish carpenter build me a little desk for the back too. Sorry about the cruddy pictures, I'm not a picture takin' wizard...
Oh yeah- this truck is HUGE and I'm already facing the fact that I can't take everything I want with me.
Join the rest of us!! LOL
Inverter is in. Made up a bracket & used one of the seat belt mounts, out of the way and close to the battery.
I got the tarp-door and roughed it in. Who was it that had that idea way back in this thread? Give yourself a pat on the back. I still need to figure a good way to secure the sides without having something that sticks out and grabs a guys elbow or hip and makes him howl like a dog crapping barbwire. Tell you what though; it's 90* outside, 84* in the shop, and about 4,000* in that doghouse hanging it I'm a sweaty mess. I'll give a plug for Northwest Tarp & Canvas. Excellent quality and workmanship- $67.50 for 5'x6' 18oz to my door off their eBay store.
I got the important stuff in first- inverter, 1-cup coffee maker, and a place to take a nap.
Still working on getting the rig in service in between other projects. I got a deep cycle battery and wired in with the battery isolator- everything factory is on the vehicle batteries and all else (crane, work lights, beacons, strobes, radios...) is on the house battery. I'm going to shoot for getting the tires mounted up on the new rims and installed this week. I picked up a pair of Centramatic balancers for the steers, I've always wondered if they worked as advertised and since this is kind of an experiment with things project worth a try I figure. I was also working on getting the new DC reversing solenoids laid out for the crane and redoing the pendant and found a hoist/crane radio remote for cheap, what the heck? I'll give it a try at the price.
I got 3 of 4 rear tires mounted up yesterday. When I got the wheels there was one inside that was an Accuride so I ordered an old style drop center TR509 valve stem for it when I got the lugs and other stems. It has the triangle cutouts and all the others are round so I assumed the other inside one was an Alcoa (never took them off the banded pallet). Wrong, it's an old style Accuride. Now I'm one valve stem short. I'm going to check the tire shop that's a mile away from me to see if they have one this morning (Les Schwab, yuk). Moral to this story- never assume anything and order extras of everything. I know better.
Well, the Les Schwab here in the Harbor is on my "you guys are OK, for today at least" list. Went in and the counter guy and I were having some trouble communicating on what it was I needed- TR509? 17-509? Old style Accuride drop center aluminum?. He says "like on a dump truck?" . Well, yeah, sort of. He ran in the back and came back- " is this what you need? ". Yep, that's it- what do I owe you? " Take it, have a nice day! "
Got the drive tires/wheels on the rig---almost. Since I was changing over to all aluminum I ordered all new inner & outer lugs. Left side went great, right side inner fine, got the outer on and....what's going on here? These lugs don't want to start. What the? In a box labeled "Qty: 10 Outer Cap Nut Right" there was (6) right and (4) left! That's what you get for ordering online, right? Well, they came direct out of Meritor! I've got 14 lefts and 6 rights.
Yeah, I just wound up with 3 upper radiator hoses before I finally got a lower, customer getting annoyed. All of them have new labels stuck on top of torn off labels, I guess the guys whose job it was to re-label them were not paying close attention....
I cross referenced the filter numbers this morning for the Boss compressor so I can do a service on that. The internet is great for that kind of stuff; about 1/2 the cost using Wix & Donaldson #'s. Foggy & cool this morning so I'll attack the front wheels/tires for awhile.
Not to be condescending but I quit using WIX filters a few years back, had some issues with some unexpected canister failures could not explain how. Have changed up to OE CAT, Baldwin and Fleetguard for the largest part of what I still do.
Condescending? Pffffft! That's' what the internet is for! Though it IS a great place to get information you normally wouldn't get- like " I used that and it wrecked everything! Stay away! " Good to know! I learn new things every day. Wix showed an interchange # on their website so using the Wix # I should be able to cross to another. Boss compressors are tough (I found out) to plug their #'s in and get an interchange. The oil & coalescer worked with Wix and the air filter came up Donaldson but not Wix.
Got the front wheels/tires done yesterday. 3 hours to jack & pull both steers, check everything on the front axle, dismount tires, re-mount on the aluminum rims, back on the rig & on the ground. Not bad for a busted up old guy who's not in a big hurry. Even though there is still some little things to do I'm going to say that's crossing the finish line and put it in service.
That's good to hear Crummy! Post up some"finished product/ runway" pictures if you get the chance. Regards Bob
About time! I’m anxious the see the evolution of the work.... As far as Wix, we used hundreds of them a year on everything from air compressors, skid loaders, pickups and the Watson rigs. I haven’t seen any failures yet. I have gotten a few with the wrong flange crimped in. Helper was cussing one trying to get it spun on. Dude it ain’t gonna start like that. It was not even close. Not sure how that escapes QC! Looks great. When you’re done I’ve got one down here you can start on....
I'm going to pull it out either today or tomorrow and take some pics before I take it out and mess up all the work.
No joke. I went back & checked- right at 10 months working on it between other projects. Ha! Second guy in 2 days that's said that. I don't even know why I did this one!
As crazy as it may sound I don’t think 10 months is all that bad. Finished product is exponentially better than anything else you’d have gotten. Plus it’s exaxtly what you want. I’m not sure why I even got the one I’m building. Need our heads examined!
We all have our issues!! I am still hammering on that $500 GMC!! that I did not need either!! Oh AND that Allis Crawler, AND the Allis farm tractor, did I mention still working on the house, Oh and I have around six trees to get dropped!! JEEZ I set myself up for work, but then got a day job besides and I AM RETIRED!!
Ditto! DM... seems like the older I get, the more I have on my plate! Regards Bob
Based on what I’ve got on my plate now....I’m gonna be fubar.....
THE MIGHTY SERVICE TRUCK
Already filling the back with junk
Get a bigger plate, it makes what's on it look smaller.
I'm going to see how the work lights are tonight & I'll see if I can get some pics of all the new lighting. Maybe I'll drag the vinyl cutter out this afternoon and work on some numbers & letters for it.
Where's the pizza oven gonna sit?
Between the cotton candy machine and the La-Z-Boy recliner.
May have to give the recliner and CC machine a whirl once you're done with building and fitting it out, Pizza gives me indigestion!! Unless there is thirst quenching beer in a cooler as well!!
Installed the radio remote on the little crane today- pretty cool: on/off up/down right/left and I can pick up stuff standing 350' away (you never know) all for $65!
My great idea on how to mount the crimper in one of the side cabinets didn't work out so today I guess I'll start working on fab of a sliding mount. Not connected with the rig, well sort of. Grumping about things in general I decided that since I've worked through most of the projects it must be time to take on another really big one. I got the California house listed for sale and hopefully it will go soon and I'll have a pile of cash, talked to the contractor that's buying my other place on owner contract and offered to take a bunch off the principal if he did a big project for me and he said "that would be great!". Pulled up "satellite view" map on the computer and drew lines in northern/central Idaho where the agricultural land ends and the foothills start- I'm not a flatland guy and I figure more opportunity fixing things both ag and logging- and started looking for a new place. Time for me to relocate. I've had it with Washington. Hopefully I'll find something like what I started with in Cal- a total fixer on some land for really cheap.
Uncle lives in Coeur d'Alene and likes it, access to a lot of directions from there, WA State, MT, and the rest of ID.
Right area but Cd'A is pretty pricey. Definitely somewhere off the I-90 or I-95 corridor. I think that will give me better opportunities than where I'm at and my stress level will be much lower. #1: the towns population can't be more than the height above sea level. It's too bad what's happened over here, for me at least. It started with those !#$*% Spotted Owl's and now I blame "Tech" (Microsoft, Amazon) and Starbucks. Back in the olden days when I was in school here it seemed everybody's dad was either killin' trees here or up north working on the Alyeska or on a boat out of 'Dutch'. Different culture now. Shoot, when I was 15 I was stumbling around getting yelled at a lot setting chokers and my mom didn't even get turned into child protective services! Can you believe that?
Is that way almost every where. See it and hear it in the works going on, special rules, different game these days.
Spending 6 years moving equipment around the country let me see that there are a lot of really great people and communities in this country. Once middle of nowhere fueling at a cardlock the guy on the other side offers to let me park for the night on his farm, here a semi & lowboy parks for 2 minutes and folks call 911 and want you arrested. Shoot, I just found out that now it's against county ordinance to park a vehicle over 16,000GVR on your own property here where I live so I'm breaking the law with the service truck. I feel the urge to get back to my own tribe, I don't fit in here anymore. Let me sing you the song of my people...… Rant over. For now.
Spent some time working on the new mount for the hose press. The problem is mounting it in the cabinet it's too far back and the hose you are making up will hit the bottom of the door jamb so I'm working on a sliding mount. Using scraps and design-as-you-build, got the press on and......oops.....I had put a crossbar on the front of the slide part that would keep the hose from going in the press, same problem just slid out of the cabinet. Ha! Well, that's what grinders are for.
Boy oh boy was DOT busy yesterday at the little weigh station up the road from me and were being especially ruthless with equipment OOS's. Trucks parked up both sides on the exit. One thing about having a service truck you have to roll through the coop's with; the drivers that are parked and waving at you don't all recognize you and going " Hey, friend! ".
I got the hose press installed with the new slide mount. Should work OK I think. Had a family meeting and the move is on for sure- goal of spring '19. So I'm just cruising with the work I've been doing through the winter and not going looking for anything new, doesn't make much sense if a guy isn't going to be around in 6 months or so. Plus getting this place ready to sell and selling the California property will take a bunch of my time. I've got the location nailed down after a lot of research. Kind of interesting how I decided- I did the satellite map view looking for the ag and logging areas, then search the counties/cities on the internet. I found a county Farm Bureau that had a whole spiel on what they call "The Code of the New West" basically says " don't come here and try and change everything, assimilate with us and our way of life or move on please". SOLD. I contacted them and asked if there was room for a mobile mechanic without stepping on any toes as I don't want to be the topic of the day at the coffee house ( "...that new so-n-so from the coast...." ) and got a really nice response(s) saying that after talking to some members they agreed that I would be welcomed. So even though I'm not a farmer I will be joining and supporting the organization. A good mix of agriculture, logging (2 mills), and trucking all within a 50 mile radius should keep me from starving. @DMiller is your uncle in Cd'A proper or the surrounding area? I'm looking at the next county south of there.
Uncle actually lives In city limits. He is a Alaska Ex-Pat while at his age needed decent access to doctors(is 93) They had a home outside the city at the base of the foothills nearer to Hayden but was less than enchanted with the older home and built new. We stayed south for a family reunion on the Lake, was great area, few to no houses close and pretty much as I remember back country MO from the 60's.
One problem I see with this: do I move my 30+ year accumulation of junk and projects 350 miles? Off it here and get all new junk and projects when I get there? Orrrrr....take it all with me buy lots of land and buildings and get MORE junk and projects? Decisions, decisions.
Careful on the 'Treasures' some can be hard to release and harder still to re-attain!! Some is still just scrap iron though.
It’s a no brainer. Keep it! Then again we all know my handle on here....haha
2 votes "keep" 0 "get rid" Maybe load into shipping containers which, by the way, are now against county code to have on your property here, & then fly onto a wagon for the trip. Boom. Done.
As well ALL stored away for that rainy day!!
Containers are by far the best way to go. Before the people started buying and selling them all over hell I used to pick up at terminals through a friend and bring them home as backhauls. Mark them up a bit over my cost and make a few bucks.
Narrowing down my search for places to move, this town has potential: the biggest store is a Mercantile and they sell shirts that have ".... where the trees still outnumber the people ". And these....
Since I'm looking at getting some property and moving to snow country I figured I'd better get on the ball and get my little excavator & loader in the shop this fall/winter and do all the things I've been saying I need to get done. First is the radiator on the old itty-bitty hoe (KH-41)- $719+ shipping for Kubota is not going to happen did a little checking on repair & not much better. Hit eBay and found an aftermarket for a Honda car that is exactly the same dimensions (14"x18") and layout for.....$43. We will see how it goes, going to need a little fab work to make it mount but I figure I could get another 19 for spares for the price of the OEM. A few this-n-that's and then the little loader (TCM 808) comes in and find out why it doesn't want to start easy, I'm guessing low compression so I'll probably re-power it. I also want to fab a QC for it as it has the bucket it came with, forks & grapple rake I built, and probably be looking at some kind of a snow pusher. One HUGE bummer about looking at moving- I'm really going to miss this shop. It took me 18 years to get it just right and the odds are zero I can replace it.
When you fit into the community where you're headed, perhaps a shop very similar may materialise at some point?
obviosly you live in wa. what ultra liberal county are you in
I hope one materializes because I just don't have another big project in me to have to build one. No hair left to pull out, either.
Pierce just across the bridge on the peninsula.
ooooh yea i`m familiar with p cty
Your truck is coming along nicely! I here you about moving. I have 5 acres in E. King county. Work takes me into Seattle. I'm usually in town at 3am on through the day- crazy the tents/trash and transients. I also get over to eastern Wa- what a difference! Except, still have the yahoos on the coast calling the shots. A friend moved from here to Idaho- between Athol and Rathdrum (about 20 minutes north of CdA. Found 5 acres. I've been over there a couple times. It gets me thinking of moving. Wish you well with the hunt. Darryl
We anre getting quite a few new people, fleeing Liberalism! Life is good in the Bonners Ferry area, work not so. I came up 11 years ago, fled the PRK (Peoples republik of Kali)
Got the new radiator cobbled in the Kubota yesterday- total investment $68.56. A few odds & ends but it works great. Should be able to get a few more hours out of the old girl now.
So long as cools nothing wrong with a little Fabri-cobble work.
Well that Fabri-cobble looks better than many OEM designs!
So, what happens when you put a radiator in that holds pressure- A: No problems B: The one hose you didn't replace that requires taking the whole thing apart to get to starts leaking Sooo glad I'm like every other customer and didn't take my advice and replace everything while I was in there already. I'm going to charge myself double on labor for for being such a cheap ***
You ever have one of those days like, say, replacing a simple plug-n-play glow plug timer put everything back together and then NOTHING works?
Is this for the 7.3? Like I say, there has got to be a better way than that thing they supply.
No, not the 7.3- it's still running/starting like a top thankfully.
Crummy You definitely want to be 30 miles or more north or south of CDA. CDA is turning into California in my opinion, to many Cali moved here n too many sports and movie people around the lake. The traffic in the summer makes you want to move to Seattle - lol - not really, but it’s getting bad. Another area to consider is the silver valley. Work might be tough there though. Lived in this area all my life. Still better than most places I have traveled to though.
Uncle in CdA was originally living Anchorage AK, moved to Bend OR when the Asian population boomed he sold off to move to CdA, said last week had he not just turned 93 he would move again as the region has changed so dramatically in the last five years. He does not appreciate the level of Californians that have pretty well taken over the city, stores and politics. His second choice was also not so good, SLC UT. Rest of his immediate family children live in or around SLC, it too is growing painfully. Here in my little burg we are dealing with similar. Have a new neighbor just 150' off our south fence within eye shot of our front door, can hear when their garage door opens. Farm across a small valley from us has just been sold to a close relative of the previous owner, he intends to raise sheep on it. Then down the valley ever more properties are selling to the Weekend Warrior hunters that have not figured out fence means do not enter, tracking all over other's properties and starting fights/legal battles.
I may have already said this here but one of the first things I'm looking at is the County's P&Z if there's 12,865,342 pages of zoning & building regs (like Kootenai/CdA) they can go pound sand. It's one of the first places "they" infect. It's called in "their" circles 'Prescriptive Planning'- banning outright what you don't believe in wont work so get in gov't & regulate & tax the **** out of it until it's impossible to do. Hmmmmmm........with those caravans headed north a guy might be able to pick up say, Honduras, off Craigslist for a decent deal and then make my own rules.
DMILLER Idahos trespass laws until this year were good for the hunter, kind of a pain for the landowner. landowner must either post his property every 660 feet or paint an orange square every 660 ft. Otherwise the landowner could not really do much about it. and even then the fine was like 50 bucks. That changed this year though.
Missouri is a Purple Code color that even the paint stores have on record to reproduce. Paint has to be visible from each marking to the next and from/to the last. Do not have to post Do Not Trespass or Do Not Cross signs, just fence and purple and anyone comes across is fair game. Fine has gone up, I believe is now $250 suspension of hunting privileges 90 days First occurrence, $500 and loss of hunting privileges forever second. Draw a weapon on a owner expect to be shot back at.
I'm derailing my own thread here but this kind of made me go "wow". This morning I took mom (81yo) for cataract surgery #2 (#1 was 4 weeks ago) and talking to the nurse about how quick the process seemed she said the pre-op work takes way longer than taking the cataract out & putting the new lens in and this doctor is really good and can do one in 6-10 minutes!!!!!! Whaaaa? No way! We left to the big city at 0630 and were home at 0946. Just an FYI for the younger folks- if you feel you have some responsibility for your parents when they get older be prepared. On top of the regular stuff I've got (taking shopping, dr. appts, scrips, etc.) now between the cataract & macular degeneration treatments it's 3 eye drops 4 times a day for the next 3 weeks in the left eye and 2 drops 2 times a day for another 2 weeks in the right (already been doing the 3 4x on the right) and 1 more each for the macular. Almost a full time job, luckily I'm at a place in life where I can do it.
I am stuck doing my own, got almost used to putting the drops and ointment in my eye when I was recovering. Still can have a eyelash or chunk of rock or rust in it waters just a little itches some but nowhere near to annoying after having the 27 .002 SS wire stitches in my cornea for a month. Amazing what can accustom to.
I'm facing that myself in the future if things stay the same. Might have to get me a mail order nurse/bride at some point.
Maybe a young forum member will come up for adoption I’m getting there with my folks, especially mom. Dad just seems to keep on ticking.
Being on the south side of 30 at the moment I still have a lot of time before my parents need help there only in there early 60s But working with dad this last year I have really noticed his age slowing him down on the really physical stuff or the 6 days a week at 10 12 hours a day it's kinda different now to be able to out last him maybe I am naive but I really want expecting that or that he would back away from certain jobs if he had a choice
I have the opposite problem, AZIron. My dad is 76, I am 54. He will work longer and harder than guys a 1/3 his age. And definitely will keep up with me all day. When I try and get him to slow down, he says it’s why he can still do all he does-cause he never quit. Mom called me a few weeks ago, 7am, says dads cutting down the big maple tomorrow, can you help him? 10:00 am the same day , she sends me a txt, dads already cut the tree down and is cutting it up and loading in the dump trailer - by hand! She says, well maybe you can bring the excavator over n get the stump out. He did wait for me to do that. But decided that he would dig all roots out that grew beyond where I ripped the stump out - with a shovel n an axe! I was going to pull them all out when I was there with the excavator! But he said no I will take care of that. I thank dad n mom for good genes and a good work ethic! I hope Dad slows down before I do!
You know what's really funny is since we got dad a new backhoe the one place I can't keep up anymore is behind the controls and not to say I am a lousy operator but after 50 years in a seat that man is truly gifted only one guy I know keeps up with him when he puts his head down and goes full tilt Sorry crummy not derail or jack your thread
Fwiw.If your gramps or dad wants to work let them work.We tried to make things easier for my grandpa and bought him a golf cart to get around and started doing cattle chores for him.Seems that when he had no reason to leave the house is when he started to go downhill fast.And he wasn’t a slouch by any means
No worries! I did it first. After the truck got done it's kind of a mish-mash of whatever stuff folks might be interested in now.
My father-in-law still drove his pickup and mowed his acre (and all the neighbors, too) on the big John Deere riding mower at 88yo. He was a Wake Island POW so spent 4 years as a guest of the Japanese and had health issues after that. That man had no quit in him. Oh yeah, he also had 5 daughters......
Having five daughters to look after would instill a massive will to live!
....or jump off a tall building.
Having a hand in raising three I learned why animals sometimes eat their young!
You guys are too funny! I have 4 daughters! Only one left at home-n she will be graduating this year. I echo your sentiments about raising daughters! Really good kids, but boy we had our times!
My first daughter will be born in February you make me feel worried like I am walking into an ambush
It’s all how you raise them. It’s those damn boys you gotta watch! Just set the tone early about how they should be treated, mostly by example, and you’ll be in good shape. The father daughter bond is a big deal.
It’s all good till teenage years, and, or boys. Then it improves again around 20. My only advice-stay involved with her - even when she’s difficult.
Also what Junk yard already said
I have 2 young daughters (23 months old and 4 months old) I'm just learning about raising daughters. Right now one is super cute, cuddly and just plain adorable and the other is an infant doing baby things. Two things I'm not looking forward to are hormone changes and boys. I remember the hormonal mood swings my older sister went through like it was yesterday. She had a phase that she made everybody's life miserable. She was unbearable for a few years, but today, her and my dad are real close. As for the boys, well, I think I remember pretty well what I wanted most during that age, and it wasn't just holding hands...
My girls were......challenging at times. My son, unfortunately for him, never bulked up enough to take on the bull and the pouty-bottom-lip-big-cow-eyes worked for his sisters but just looked stupid when he did it.
I get a call to give a second opinion on an overheating condition. Service tech says thermostat bad and the water pump is leaking and gives a big dollar estimate to R&R both. Take my trusty old Stant tester pump-pump-pump..........uhhhhh, it's not leaking anywhere near the water pump more like between the head & block that's not good. Where do these people come from? Just guess and throw parts at it?
Sure, they're not on the hook for time and money. Even the hit to a reputation isn't theirs, that's the dealer's. That's why I turn wrenches on my stuff. Every time something breaks, I learn a bit more about the machine.
I've done my good deed for today. My neighbors son-in-law called me up & says their car is udders to the sky and the estimate they got is well, pricey, and Jim said to give me call could I help maybe? Three kids, one Autistic, not a lot of money but getting by (both hard workers). Sure, I'll take a look. Put it on the lift and get it squared away this morning, call him to come by and pick it up. " what do I owe you ?" Don't worry about it, that's what neighbors are for. " you saved Christmas for my kids....". Awwwww This has Hallmark Christmas Special written all over it!
Sometimes a guy can downsize too much, or not be the sharpest knife in the drawer, I haven't decided which yet. I've got a little project up the road a bit that I figured would be easier if I loaded up my little (7,600#) loader with the forks on to move stuff, then realized, with the voice in my head saying "what is wrong with you!" , that I don't have a trailer anymore that will haul it! I can't easily count the number of trailers I've had through the years- everything from 55t lowboy to single axle, dumps, enclosed (I know I've had 3 of those), flatbeds, gooseneck, tag,....but nothing that will do the job now. I like buying stuff though. Looking at Craigslist jeeez I may just as well get exactly what I want new.
Seriously. I've been looking for a deal on a low angle tilt bumper pull for a long while, and I'm just going to buy a new one. Typical pricing is $500 off new for a six year old, beat up hunk of scrap.
It is funny, I have put some stuff on CL at the same high prices I see everything else listed for, never sells. Drop the price by thousands, still never sells. I have not figured out how to make money, price it high or low or am I listing it wrong?
Yeah. You probably didn’t say “Like new.” “Worked great when parked (10yrs ago)” “Never used. Wife got it for me but wrong size.”
I hear ya. Two that interested me: 2005 @ $5000 FIRM!; $6100 2018 new locally, 2014 @ $4,750; $4,100 2018 on sale locally. My first thought is usually "I priced that waaaaay too cheap it sold quick". Then I think, "nah, I wouldn't have called on it myself at any more". CL is goofy. I've had more luck selling junk I never thought I'd be able to sell than good stuff. "$4,000 in receipts". Not to be an ***, but I've got plenty of receipts around and don't need any more how much without 'em?
Product review I've always used CRC Brakleen. Lots of it. Cases & cases of it. I needed to buy another case and was pricing around geez that stuff isn't cheap anywhere anymore. I decided to give the Walmart house brand brake cleaner a try. I used a few cans today and can't say the CRC is worth over 2x the price for the same size can.
When comes to those types of products I buy the cheapest, when it come to something like lets say duct tape I buy the best {I want it to stay on the bosses mouth as long as possible} Truck Shop
Electrical tape. Most of it is worthless. If you know someone that's a lineman sometimes rolls of Super 33 in the handy plastic case fall off their trucks.
Yeah 33 is good stuff, My wife works for the power company. Truck Shop
Even better if he has a beard and mustache! Just don't let my wife get that idea!
Well, we know what you are getting in your stocking for Christmas.
Tech diagnosis is- "Replace water pump & thermostat" You make the call (am I missing something here?): Hook up your handy-dandy diag tool Select live data "graph: coolant temp" Cold engine, start & idle 47deg....58....90.....100....154.....176....180....181....184....182....183... Load on engine for 10 minutes- 203deg rock solid Back to idle, no load, then 50% throttle- 203.....194....187....178....182...
What is the problem with the 203? What is spec for the engine? If it was mine to fix I would tape and insulate a thermocouple to some part that is known to be full water temperature such as a coolant recirc hose, better yet a steel line that has cylinder head coolant coming out of it, or the lower part of the thermostat housing if it is metal and accessible. And compare to see if the sender unit is off by a few degrees.
Nothing that I can see, ran last week with no problems. As it was a " give me a quick second opinion " I didn't get really deep into it. Since you mentioned it though, I probably should have hit the hoses, t-stat housing, etc. with the temp gun at least to see what those temps looked like (approximately) and not rely on "but the computer said...." so much. From the numbers it looks to my simple mind like #1 the t-stat is opening at 180-ish & #2 the pump is pumping so I'm scratching my head on where the R&R water pump and t-stat came from.
Who is giving this "Tech diagnosis"? Or is it coming from the computer? Most I might be doing without more information would be to inspect belts and make sure the radiator fins are not partially plugged with dirt or leaves and such. Might also want to at least give a quick look at anything else that is cooled by engine coolant, say hydraulics or transmission.
I get a call yesterday from a guy I know and I guess the ELD isn't working out for a lot of guys and the demand for '99 and older trucks is huge. He want's to start buying up trucks and going through them totally and make big $$ re-selling them. Do I want in? Let me think on that...... No. Bad idea, IMO. Really bad. I see hard feelings when "there just isn't enough money" to pay even minimum wage for the hours in it. Now the original seller got his, the parts houses got theirs, tire shop got full $, painter.......but the knuckle buster "partners" are going to get it in the shorts in the end.
Biggest issue there is they’d have to be cash buyers as I doubt a lender would go for the big $$ older truck..... Good call. Recipe for hard feelings and a sore *** lol.
That came from an outfit he had come out after it overheated. Everything is clean & looks good.
Lender? I hear there's so much money in trucking that most guys use bags of money for pillows in the sleeper. You are a HH guy, did you see that D10 that hit a bridge and went on it's side somewhere on the East coast recently? The outfit also got caught awhile back hauling a transformer on a step that was massively over weight and got put OOS at the scales but took off when they closed, the DOT ran 'em down the next day at the delivery and made them re-load with the crane and put the screws to them. [edit] going back in my messages it was Akron
I saw that one as well as the guy hauling a rock truck through Nashville. I guess he wanted to load the bridge on top of the truck! It takes some balls to run on an OOS!
OOS? I'm guessing that means Out Of Service? I'm guessing also that when they stopped him at the scales they had looked at his paperwork that stated where the load was to be delivered! Kind of like the story I heard years ago where a guy handed a not to a bank teller saying hand over the money. He had used the back of one of the deposit slips from his check book!
Service tech that came out said that he didn't say it needed a water pump & thermostat, only that he put 2+ gallons of coolant in & it seemed OK but it would be a good idea to find out where the coolant went. Someone isn't entirely telling the truth here. That's the end of it for me, let them figure it out.
here is an opp.for some one with lots of bucks to start a finance co specificly for old iron
I'm out here in the shop working and glance over at the security camera monitor and something big goes across in front of the shop- deer? bear? So I go out and look. Nothing that I can see. Back in the shop and take a look at the monitor up on the wall and there it goes again! That sucker is BIG how could I have missed it out there? Get closer, watch for a little while..... Darn spider building a web in front of the camera.
Since I couldn't find the thread and I'm too lazy to keep looking I'll try this- @Hallback are you still looking for a HH tractor? This outfit is right up the road from me. Spec'd well- Kenworth Heavy Haul They had a 9 axle (I think) trailer for sale for awhile, too. Located at the end of the airport over here by the bridge.
Yes, but that engine...we will have to have some of the Cat gurus chime in on the SDP but 400,000 miles and 13,000 hours and it has already had an overhaul, and how many ARD heads has it had?
Lots of PTO idle time and low annual mileage: Overhaul 11.2014>11.2018>4yrs>79K = 19750per year. ACERT, DPF doesn't like that. ARD heads? Change sparkplug, LOL
Not much of a load. Didn't even have the blade on it....... In a former life we had real fun with HH, as the photos below illustrate..... This one is not Photoshopped (apart from the text in the rear view mirror) just in case anyone asks....
I got myself a couple of early Christmas presents. This turns out to be one of those " I wish I had these a long time ago " things. Dewalt 3/8" impact & a couple of LED work lights. The impact is super handy and the bigger of the lights is just something I can't live without now.
Making progress on relocating. Closed on the California place and got the check yesterday. Woo-hoo! Although I got home from taking mom to the eye doctor and there was an envelope leaning against the front door in the rain- supposed to be an overnight with signature required at delivery (only the closing documents & a 6-figure check enclosed...). Way to go FedEx! On another note- I LOVE that 3/8" cordless impact.
Which model is your 3/8" impact? I've had my eye on one for a couple years, but never made the jump to get it. I have been contemplating about getting the 20v Dewalt set as my older 18v kit is plumb worn out. I'm really wanting the new 1/2" high torque 20v impact gun. Looks like it could replace an air impact completely in most circumstances. I've always used the 1/4" hex drive impact gun with 3/8" adapter. It gets the job done, but certainly runs short on breakout torque for some jobs.
DCF883. Claims 140 ft/lbs. I know it will right quick destroy a cheap-o socket working on rusty cover bolts EDIT: there is a kit they offer that has the 3/8, 1/2, the work light (which is also awesome) + batteries & charger I would get if I did it again. Same here.
20v is by far the way to go. I have the hammer drill, 1/4" impact driver. A sawzall and they are far above any 18v tool I have ever used. The battery sawzall and hammer drill are not a replacement for a corded tool, but I'm absolutely impressed. The quarter inch impact is my favorite tool right now. I use that thing for everything that requires turning. I have ran in 5/16" lags and drywall screws, I've used it for running in cover bolts in the dozer and even cinching up band clamps on plastic pipe. Very handy tool.
It's funny. 15 years ago there was a voltage race, 9.6 volts, 12 volts, 18 volts, we got some 24 volt tools that were the biggest and baddest and then they quit making them. The word was 24 volts was too big and 18 volts was going to be the standard. Now it is creeping up again.
The old 18v sawzall is my go to exhaust-system-cutter-outer and is super handy dandy for roots, corrugated drain, PVC, etc. in the trench.
One more reason to vacate this location: looking for a part on eBay put it in the cart and ***? WA sales tax? Did a little research & it turns out as of 01/01/2019 eBay itself is collecting sales tax for WA on EVERY transaction 'on behalf of the seller' whether the seller is exempt or not. Don't get me wrong as I'm not against taxes as it's part of the deal, but they better damn well provide me with better services and infrastructure than I have now for what I'm paying!!!!!!!!!!! Between this stupid state and just selling a place in California I feel like I was mugged. Violently. Rant over, carry on.
That was a recent Supreme Court decision that made a lawn mower shop in South Dakota now liable to collect sales tax and send it on to the state of anybody who buys in San Diego or Tampa or NYC or Seattle.
I'm aware of Wayfair but I didn't think it was going to apply to small eBay sellers. Reading through Washington's new "Marketplace Fairness" rules it still exempts out of state sellers under certain thresholds ($100k/yr, 200 sales...) BUT if you sell on a "marketplace" they have to collect for you.
Put the rake/grapple on the loader today and went over and cut up big 'ol a tree that went down on my neighbors in a recent wind storm. Ended up down at my other (new) not-so-savy-with-dirtwork neighbors helping him out. He's a bit frustrated and down about the project. Gave him a couple of tips and he asked if I'd come down tomorrow and help him get going in the right direction. Tip #1- stop making cake batter out of the dry material; Tip #2- stop digging stumps for a bit [see tip #1].... I've been doing so much BS stuff lately it's nice getting on a machine for a few hours and pushing stuff around, the stress just melts away.
Easiest fix of the year so far: "Hey, glad I caught you this morning..can you come and look at a machine for me?" Sure, what's it doing? "Started running funny and quit, cranks & cranks but won't start now." This is going to sound dumb, but you have some new guys working for you- is there fuel in it? "Hang on...[bwah-bwah]...they're checking....[BWAH! BWAH! BWAH!]....thanks man, we got it from here, I owe ya. Idiots...." I don't miss being a boss and running crews a bit, you get so much on your plate sometimes the simple obvious stuff slides right by you.
I was running a brand new (I think it had 14 hrs. on it when we started) Case TLB for a buddy of mine on a project. He sent his guys first thing in the morning to fuel everything up. I got on and it was still on E. Hey, you guys didn't fuel this thing. " Yeah we did, but it didn't take much." Uhhh, which cap? Green one or black one? Yep, you guessed it. I used to call them Beevis & Butthead.
Better than the reverse and way better than DEF in the hydraulic tank.
A little update on the service truck. I haven't used it much with all the other things going on, but a couple of observations on things I was not too enthusiastic about when I got it. #1- the crew cab. The space filled up fast with all the stuff that isn't really good with being in the box- computer(s), manuals, paperwork, clothes, etc. Nice to have some space to do the 'office' work that's not using the steering wheel as a desk. The longer wheelbase hasn't caused any problems so far and it rolls down the road smooth. #2- the lid on the service body. Worthless for having a place to work out of the weather. Starting out you loose the spot on the boxes to mount the welder so it's on the floor inside and even though it's on a wheel kit it's just always in the way. If the rig didn't have the PTO compressor it would be totally unusable space. There's a LOT of additional space/shelves to put stuff but it quickly becomes like that closet in your house where if you open the door a bowling ball rolls off the shelf and lands on your foot. Without doors on the shelves off-pavement 1/2 your stuff ends up on the floor....son of a......aaarrgh!
I've torn the back seat out of the last 3 trucks and built a platform for 2 of them. Thick plywood and cheap industrial carpet from Home Depot bolted right into the seat holes. Bolted down a small toolbox (which is good to keep tools dry, but a bad idea in an accident) and one of those modular Dewalt drawer setups for paperwork, electrical parts, keys, etc. Still plenty of room on top and underneath for control boards, power tools, service manuals, and other misc use stuff. Picture was when it was first installed. Hey, at least you have some privacy for a **** bucket.
It.Just.Won't.Stop! This is a place where 2" of snow brings everything to hysterical panic. Lots of places get more, but not here! 26" & DUMPING right now..... First thing in the AM yesterday- This afternoon-
Enough already!
I know the feeling. Drove out to Coeur d'Alene for a job interview and was planning on running back to MT yesterday, but the never ending snow and single digit temps are keeping me from making it over the passes until later this week. Well, unless the forecast changes yet again.
Crummy, to me here in Central NY that would look "normal" for the middle of Feb. but all the snow we had back a couple weeks ago is gone and yard almost looks like I should be out mowing! That's today, check back with me Tuesday at this time and I have a feeling it might look like your yard from what they are saying on the evening news here! At least it looks like you have the equipment to handle it. If this makes you feel better check out this short video: https://twitter.com/i/status/1094760641158471681 Yep! snow storm in Maui yesterday!
30th day of snow this winter for me and haven't made it past 20" yet.
Looks like we've had our snow event for the year. Tens of millimeters accumulated over the week long period.
Well we have a bit of time left but also some catching up to go. Official snow falls are measured at airport just north of the city and a few miles makes a big difference around here. So far we have 73 inches, average amount is 123 inches and record 190 inches. Right now John Shipp has way more on the ground than I do in my yard!
So far had a 5", a 12" and a few minor 2-4" snows here, mostly wet heavy pack in snows so far. A few dustings are typical but the ice storms have been all TOO plentiful, third one since October last.
We might be getting one of those ice storms today! I'll take two feet of snow over a 1/4 inch of ice any day! Snowblower won't touch ice.
Well, woke up this am and it's turned to rain. Heavy rain. Should be a sloppy mess out there now. Saw on the news that the grocery stores had given up trying to re-stock and were just closing. Two things they couldn't keep in stock- eggs & onions. Onions? People here are weird.
Onions? I could understand if they said beer and pizza but onions? I mean I like onion on my pizza but one large onion would due several pizzas!
Onions? How far are you from Prosser or Walla-Walla?
Roasted onions and fried eggs, just like grandma used to make. MmmmMmmmm
300 miles or so.
The day before this all started mom asked(?) me if I would go the store and get cat food. Of course you are out of cat food. So I hit the place just after they open the next day at 0700. Madhouse! Hit the liquor aisle first, priories man. I'm the only one there! Chaos all around, carts loaded with....well onions and eggs I guess. Not one person in the liquor aisle----- Long story made short- Russian boat crew days late picking up survey crew; why were you late? " Big storm. Clothes wet. Drink Vodka. Vodka gone sleep.....wake up clothes dry storm gone. "
Well we have your weather down here on Gulf Coast! 64 and drizzling! I love it!!! When I lived there, a lot of people complained about weather, like my uncle said “we have only two seasons! 9 months of non stop drizzle, and 3 months of scorching heat! I loved it though! People who complained about rain all the time - don’t know what a rain is! Rain here washes out bridge that was finished two weeks ago!!!
Wife was joking last night that we'll probably be seeing a lot of houses back up for sale come spring (just like every real winter). I said more likely there are real estate folks in Phoenix currently smiling about the jump in inquiries the last week. Seems like all the coastal folks flooding in love the idea of winter, but get pretty fed up by day 3 when they realize the shovel doesn't get put away for months on end, and Vans aren't good winter shoes.
Well I had a dream to build m a cabin somewhere around Flat Head Lake for retirement! It’s not happening now! Seattleites like beautyfull places too! I don’t have that kind of money!
The locals here still joke about the mass exodus from here after the winter of 1995. Caravans headed back to the PRK. (peop[les Repuplik of Kali). I have only been here 11 yrs, "come on Snow! Probably chain up to plow, ice under the snow.
I hope so. I'll even trade for a house here on the coast.
You and everyone else. I've worked around almost every inch of Flathead, and I don't think there's an empty lot left! Local folks getting priced out of Spokane, CdA and Sandpoint (and Boise) are heading East (along with the folks from CA. OR & Seattle that chased them off). Same flood of folks in Bozeman, Kalispell, Whitefish and Missoula driving up housing and rental prices to insane levels. Even the Mormons aren't scaring people off from SE Idaho at this point. Interesting times indeed. Still plenty of housing in Cut Bank and Miles City though.
Road from Cd'A to Sand Point is one dangerous mess, Uncle refused to drive very far on it. We did go up on Lake Pend Oreille to Bayview and Farragut Park where He and my Dad spent a considerable time at Farragut Naval Base WWII. Uncs Third wife has folks in Missoula.
Ah! Screw it than!!! Wind River Canyon - here I come!!! I hope Injuns will not be against it!!!
Sis In law in CO was all skittish as to snow and bad roads, turned out was her Pot smoking did her driver license in!! She DID finally get a clean check and her license back, she will have to re-test on her next renewal and be found clean or lose her license Again.
I did that commute for almost 5 years when we had shop work or I needed to resupply on parts. Wish I'd had a dashcam then; saw more wrecks, rollovers, near misses and dead critters every day than I'd seen in years previous. It is a dangerous stretch of road for almost half the year. Shop was next to a body shop. One day had a total come in missing the roof, and looking like a massacre. Turns out a couple was cruising up the highway when a moose walked out. Couple ducked in time, but moose tore the roof off the car, and the roof tore the guts out of the moose, right into the car. Can't imagine what they were thinking when they opened their eyes. If they're as friendly as the folks in Browning, Crow Agency or Colville, it's been nice knowing ya!
Well crap, knew not to but looked to Accuweather, on schedule to get 3-6 inches snow Friday-Sunday coming.
Accuweather ain't. We were scheduled for 4-8 inches, right at 2.5 ft. on the ground now. Flakes still crashing down.
I'm out back the other day and my neighbor is loading stumps in his dump with his new Kubota excavator. I happen to be looking down there when BANG! the bucket just FALLS OFF on the ground! You don't see that every day. I walk down & he's looking in the dirt for parts " grumble, grumble, that's the 5th time that's happened! ". Say what? Look at it and the quick change, I assume it's Kubota, is the stupidest design I've ever seen. Hard to describe, but has a pin with a lynch pin holding in in- yeah, that's going to work right until something flips that bail up and the pin falls out. I'm sure I can come up with something that will work better for him but for now just a 3/8" bolt double-nutted holding that pin in.
I have the same setup on my kx-121, usually only a problem with the 1 ft bucket. I use the HD clips(black) from TSC, and keep it on the left side where I can keep an eye on it.
The only thing he has used it for so far really is loading slash piles with the rake & digging stumps so there is a lot of things that will get in there and flip the lynch pin. Probably not so much of a problem if all a guy was doing is digging dirt.
Haven't posted here in awhile. The new place. (2) 10ac. parcels central Idaho. Now all I've got to do is...everything. My last big project. No building permits or land use rules makes it easier. The goal is to be settled in there fully by this time next year. New shop, hmmm what to do what to do. The seller is next door and already drumming up work for me. "You will do very well here" he says.
Wow, beautiful place. Envious! A friend moved onto 5ac in Athol. I love going over and visiting.
Do you have any comparative photos of the same views taken in mid-December..? I imagine they'd look a bit "white".
No winter pics of this property. A good friend of mines family has been there forever (homesteaded 7 miles south of this property) so I was able to get a pretty good idea what it is like. Really quite mild, not like on the coast where I'm at now but not bad. A little hotter in the summer than I like, but pretty mild winters- snow on/off and then rain melts it. One said he can only remember 3 times in the past 40 years there was snow on the ground all winter.
I'm a little shocked at the price differences. I've been using costs I know here for budget numbers on things to figure out what I can do without going into debt. So far well drilling, electrical service, septic are WAY less there. Even gravel; 3/4- clean is $10/yd there and $41/yd here.
Closed on the property last week. I've never had that much dirt to work with so I may dig big holes just because I can. Not excited about moving all my junk and building a new shop & setting it up. It will be the first time I will contract most of the work out rather than do it all myself.
Contracting it out will really speed things up. In a area like that you will find the best contractors by word of mouth.
Faster and I just don't have it in me anymore to do a big project. Used myself up in my younger years working to hard for too many hours I guess. The guy that sold me the property (he's also my neighbor now) has been there for 40+ years and is pretty connected in the community so easy-peasy finding the "right" contractors. I ended up a spell south of you, but still in Idaho! [edit] did you get hit with the storm this weekend?
Just spoke to Unc in CdA, they had a light snow but ground was too warm and dissipated rapidly, currently just wet.
Wet and snow over the weekend, and getting below freezing at night for a couple days in CdA. Broke out the insulated bibs putting a radiator in the wife's 4Runner outside when the weather was hitting. Entertaining watching the coastal folks freaking out more than anything.
Most of the storms by passed us. Situated in a bowl, surrounded by three Mt. ranges. CdA and Spokane usually get more than we do. Know what you mean about slowing down. Bronco tank is leaking, it is going to a garage, no more laying underneath vesicles except oil changes, shocks. I am only 80, duno know what I'll do when I am old!
Unc lives about center mass of CdA, been to Post Falls and the farm market with them on visits, town is changing as most do from when I hauled sheet plate into Comet Trailers of Spokane or Lumber out of that region. Both my Dad and Unc were Navy Basic Trained north of there at the old Farragut Base(now a park).
Drink fine Bourbon & smoke expensive cigars while watching other people work and give them advice they didn't ask for? That's my plan at least....
Just saw the park last month when visiting a friend. Who’d have thought Navy would have a training center that far inland?! Friend had taken actual tour of the site. The guide was very informative but not much to see now. “Over here, 60 years ago, was...” Neat, though, seeing bits of history.
According to the Wiki article, it is still used because it is a nice big lake without the hazards of the open ocean, for certain testing purposes.
Yes still a Navy Ships design test facility there, went to an open house there in 2010. The Extra Deep lake was the Navy's Choice as well always COLD so the new enlistees could learn survival for Frigid Ocean Waters. Dad knew how to swim as did my Uncle, many boys did not. Had Rowing/Accessing training exercises with actual Lifeboats as used on US Navy ships. Dad and Unc went on to Great Lakes Naval Air Station for advanced Anti Sub training.
That's what the Navy SAYS they are doing there. Uh Huh, sure...Navy in Idaho, riiiiight..... There's a crashed alien mothership at the bottom of the lake.
Well if they are looking for service information on it I hope they post the full serial number so we don't have to make guesses as to which version they are working on. Might need Nige to use his higher level access to SIS (AKA: Spacecraft Information System). And Idaho is not the only place with a fresh water lake doing Navy "Research", just a few miles form me they have a site in Seneca Lake, at least we have access to ocean via the St. Lawrence River: https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NUWC-Newport/What-We-Do/Detachments/Seneca-Lake/
Next time they have a open house check it out. They tested the Se Wolf Class of Sub design in that lake as well the new Zumwalt Destroyer hull, scale Models. https://www.navsea.navy.mil/Home/Warfare-Centers/NSWC-Carderock/Who-We-Are/Bayview-Idaho/
Heck, we got a Coast Guard station out here in the desert with no water nearby. Ok, its a LORAN transmitter with 700' towers. Delivery trucks are always confused.
True. I used to like the white strobe lights on the three towers. Last nighttime drive by, saw they’d changed.
Somebody isn't in a random drug pool anymore.......
Yep, about 2 years ago they switched over to red blinkers at night and use the white strobes in the daylight. Actually all four towers have the strobes but you can only see the lights on 3 towers from any given angle. When they first went in my Grandfather's guys built the access roads for the outfit that put the towers up. Back in those days the strobes were so powerful that they lit up the walls of our house 30 miles away. Of course there weren't many other lights around here then. I was driving close by the towers last summer and there was a huge tumbleweed caught on the top of one of the towers...must have been one huge dust devil that put that up there.
Not since I found out random drug testing wasn't testing random drugs. Wait 'till I get moved to my super-rural pad the crazy should really take hold then. Comes naturally. It's a gift.
Got you beat Rz, We have a 1200 ft one that was run by the Navy. And we are dam close to the geographical center of North America. No such thing as fresh seafood here. LOL https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility/lamoure.htm
Saw that one about 20 years ago from an airplane. The pilot I was with circled it at 7500' to get a better look.
I thought I heard that LORAN was discontinued. I’m pretty sure I am one of the youngest pilots to have learned and used the system- the trainer I flew most often had a LORAN receiver in it. This was back in the mid 2000s
Cutting the pad for the new shop. I need to buy a big loader. And maybe a haul truck.
Larger excavator may be a better choice.
What? My mighty KH-41 doesn't qualify as a mass excavator?
Reach and bucket capacity may be a BIT smallish!!
You clearly have a case of excavator envy. It's not how big it is - it's how you use it.
Cannot touch both sides just move around a LOT!! That what ya mean?
Well, I got a text and I bought myself a birthday present. I couldn't walk away from it, too cool. A little rough but really straight & not hacked up. You can still read the factory sticker on the door jamb. He wants to do a bunch of work to it before he gives it to me so I won't have it for a bit, but it's just a mile down the road and I told him to concentrate on getting his crusher up and making rock so I have something to haul, poor guy has had nothing but bad luck getting up and running. Good to have cash on hand in the safe on a Saturday..... 1967 923.
There is a '72 923 for sale locally with a 6-71 Detroit. It went through the local auction house about 12 weeks ago, and I see it for sale on Marketplace 60 miles away now for double what it sold for. It is in rough shape, lots of oil leaks all over, tires are shot, etc. Looks like a nice truck you got there Crummy
I don't think I went too wrong. It was a really quick look-over but so far- "fresh" 350 Cummins & 13 speed, SQHD(?), double frame to back of cab, no big fluid leaks, no blow-by, new radiator, holds air, dash is all original, Jakes work.
It should have the brushed dash panels being that year, and it has the early Luberfiner housing on the left side. Same 750 oil filter IIRC. Looks like a Columbia box.
Since it has front brakes & double frame I'm guessing it wasn't converted to a dump. @Truck Shop ?
Isn't that the power steering oil tank ? Bob
Front brakes yes and no could have come either way, the frame also. In those years most all were built to buyer spec's and those spec's had a wide range.
No, that's a Luberfiner engine oil filter and added cooler, Someone could have converted it to a power steering reservoir. But that Luberfiner filter housing raised the oil capacity to 12 gallons.
OK but I never saw a luberfiner with a rubber plug in it. Bob
If it has Vickers Power Ram Steering that someone installed they could have used it for a reservoir. In those years power steering still wasn't that common and being a dump it could have had Vickers installed. People had a tendency of disconnecting the Luberfiners, problem with that was the old cast aluminum pans only held 7.5 gallons to 8 gallons. The Chrome housings like the one on mine pictured below are getting real hard to find, a used one in good condition is going for $500. Hagerman Truck Salvage had two NOS chrome Luberfiners in the original boxes dating back to the 70's, sold both for $1,100 each.
On the old Acars and Whites we worked on over the years the Luberfiners were bad for air bind where would not fill full. Side and Cover plugs would not always come loose to bleed the air off. Makes me wonder if the plug was installed to prefill. PS Cans were about 1/2 to 3/5 the size of a Luberfiner.
It's power steering tank now, whatever it started life out as.
If it has Vickers it will still have the old Gemmer manual steering box, It could also have power box {Ross} which uses a bracket that incorporates the rear spring hanger. And that could cover years from late 60's to 2000.
So was that rear spring hanger/power steering box mount always used with the Ross? I've got to reseal the steering box on my 1980 W900 one of these days. So rusty from the years I have no idea what it is.
Any with rear/behind axle mounted steering box used that hanger bracket. And Ross was the primary although there were some Shepard gears used also. But the Shepard is very expensive to rebuild and not worth using. Plenty of Ross steering gears out there. The brackets can be hard to find.
I think my box is good, truck steered very nice and easy. Just wanted to reseal it before putting it back on the truck.
He dropped it off the other day. Haven't had much time to look it over, racing to get other things done before cold/snow gets here (forecast, for what that's worth, is snow with 5 low & 22 high next week). Fired it up yesterday morning to move it 26deg & started....barely. Neighbor asked " what was all that smoke at your place this morning ?" Haha! Must have been a lot she's almost blind! My carbon footprint is HUGE! Did a little "what's this do?" driving it 100' and managed to get the "diff lock" light lit and won't go out, figure it out later. It's a long term project. Just needs to move a bazillion yards of material around the place here and make it 2 mi round trip to his quarry for now. Found him a deal on a 350kw genset for his crusher so hoping the great deal on rock products he's giving me keeps up. I need a LOT of rock. @Truck Shop what year did they start paddle door handles on the A's? VIN 109403 March 1967 build but has paddles.
Mid 1972, Standard twist type used on every truck door till 1972.
The 1969 I built below I installed 1998 day light doors with the drop portion of the widow glass. the last photo a before picture.
In the middle photo was some years later-a farmer bought it and drove it into the ground. Just beat the crap out of it.
Did you swap the rear suspension? Looks like a 8 bag in the middle picture, but the "before" picture looks like spring suspension.
Looks to be Reyco in final photo and yes that is eight bag in the Daylight Door photo.
It was Freightliner spring someone installed, I shortened the frame and installed KW 8 bag on SQ100 rear drives I had. BCI 400, RTO14613 with Ross power steering I installed.
My bad, I replaced enough of those hangers over the years, shoulda caught.
Daylight doors. I like it, got to do it now that TS sent me down that path. First thing I think is get new cab clearance lights & seal that up and figure out what I want to do with the headliner, It's a wet cardboard-y mess. Pull whats left of it out and take it to the upholstery shop down the road and see if they can do something for me.
I've been using my new DeWalt 1/2" High Torque the past couple of days. Seems to hit pretty hard.
You will have to make a custom full open door stop, use the newer style cab striker latch and drill a few holes in the hinges to mount the doors. The plastic headliner aftermarket is $1,500.00
And DuctTapeFix takes the lead out of the gate with PlasticHeadliner falling waaaay back, GreenShagCarpet is making a move......
Sushi! Nom-nom-nom. Burp!
@Truck Shop were there differences in the A model cabs (headliners)? 67-73 -> 74-82?
The basic cab interior roof was the same from 1964 to 1981. 1981 was the last year of the A cab although some were left into the 1982 year in finish production. The plastic will fit all the way back to 1964 with some small modifications for a good fit. All of the plastic molded headliners came with a center console for the AM/FM radio and will still fit early models plus the cutouts on each side for dome lights above the door openings.
Thanks TS that helps a lot. I'm watching CL for "parting out". 4 State has a fiberglass A headliner for $387.99 says "fits 74-82" is why I asked.
These 900A's seem a bit like when I had the Corvette- " Rare leaky pen & sticky quarter from glove box 1967 435 tripower convertible $1,300" Where's the husband/wife with the matching "1967 KW W900A" satin jackets?
Those are real thin, what I quoted was OEM when those were still available.
It hasn't been over 12° the past couple of days so I figured it'd be best to fire up all the rigs this morning and let 'em run for a bit. Everything started. Everything ran. Should I be concerned?
So far no "HELP!" texts this morning so maybe I'll mess around with the KW if the snow holds off. Someone help me out with this, fuel cap is....inconvenient....since this is a working rig first. @Truck Shop ? I need to move the exhaust back a bit.
That tank is a left hand tank, KW never put the fill at the rear.
Add "RH fuel tank & mount" to my list of things to watch for.
Got on FinditParts this morning looking for cab lights I can adapt to fit the old KW. Wow, that's a great deal- [click x5]. Hmmmm, such a good deal didn't make free shipping. Well, I should be able to find something else to get there Pretty sure I need one of these [click] Huh, that's a good deal on the Isspro 3" pyrometer [click] .....[click click] It's only money.
Started out the day with an accident. Went out and fired up the mighty mini truck to warm it up this morning. Right hand drive so just pop the door and hit the key..... ......it lit off..... ......and took off at a good clip..... ......and rear ended the service truck. I have to give myself credit for superior skills in being able to have a wreck with two of my own vehicles and neither one of them were occupied.
Bummer. Pics?
No pics. It was actually pretty funny- I'd left it in 4lo so it ran up on the rear bumper and was spinning all 4 in the gravel trying to push the service truck with it's whopping 36hp.
Pretty much looked like this, no damage but a little white paint on the bumper and bruises from patting myself on the back.
Was anyone watching?
First thing I do when I have an "ooopsie" is look around to see if anyone was watching.....
Nobody was watching that I know of. Though you never know these days. I could be famous.
Trying to get a jump on starting construction of my workshop & big garage basing & forming the footings this week. Weather is getting better, snow & ice is melting so we're starting the spring rasputitsa so no KW for a bit but I figured I could run the F250 & 2yd dump trailer up to the pit and get a couple of yards of 3/4 to base the footings. Text the pit owner- can I come grab a couple of yards? Sure, nobody's there go ahead and load your self. Run up there and find there's only 1 thing on-site to load right now.... You ever loaded a 2yd single axle dump trailer with a 980? Talk about 10lbs of flour in a 5lb sack. Poor trailer.
Our local places load everybody with a 980. They just say, we can't load a particular weight in your pickup/trailer because a quarter of the scoop will fall off the back. They have a truck scale to get accurate sold weight but it is up to the loader man's eye to guess how much before it goes over the scale.
He's usually got a backhoe & excavators there, just not right now because nothing is really happening and he's not running the crusher yet. Charges $25/load for pickup & dump trailer loads. Not worth the time it takes to run across the scale. More a service to the locals to get a yard or 2 for home projects.
I'm out basing in footings with my helper for the workshop yesterday, I've got my hoodie on and think I hear something moving behind me, turn around- " oh ****" there's a pole hauling *** down the hill at me! The light company came in with a little Tak excavator when there was still 2' of snow on the ground and laid a pole up on the hill for an extension they're doing. Snow melted and.....
Hauled some bank run yesterday to base some parking with Flash. Just plain fun to drive the old rig. Self service pit is pretty neat, get it whenever a guy feels like doing it.
My second load I got 3", jumped on the 980 ran it across the pit & into the pile & mashed the pedal- wheeeeeee-BURP-BURP-BURP. Oh crap, outta fuel! Of course as far away from the fuel skid as you can get in the pit. I should know better than to get on a machine & not check the fuel.
I'm going to have an episode if one more person asks me to haul rock or fix something for "some beer money" I'm semi-retired not semi-retarded (although some that know me will argue that point) My bank account isn't big enough to make all your dreams come true And I'm not a beer drinker
Tell them you don't need to be practicing, you have enough experience already...
I'm not going to be "that retired guy" that works cheap and takes money out of the pocket of folks working to feed their family.
Lately I've been helping out a couple of young guys breaking into the repair business. Been acting more like a school teacher than a mechanic. Helped yesterday with troubleshooting a coolant leak on a dump truck. It had blown the upper radiator hose and he was afraid there might be compression in the coolant. I brought my pressure checker and had him start the engine and we watched the gauge to see if the pressure climbed fast. It did what it was supposed to do so we shut the truck down and pumped up the pressure to 10 PSI and looked for leaks. Found the thermostat housing leaking and he scheduled with his customer when he could take care of that. I also showed him how to check crankcase pressure. Last week I hooked up the gauge set on a Dash 5 Komatsu for a young fellow and showed him the ropes of what to look for and how to adjust the system. Hopefully the more they know, the lesser amount of phone calls I'll have to answer. I think both will be excellent mechanics as time goes by. They both have the work ethic and desire to learn.
That's awesome John, your plan is a great one!
Went to town last night for fuel for the machines. Well honestly I was out of booze and may as well stop for fuel while I was down there. The checkers at the grocery were all open carrying. You guys get robbed? Seemed odd as robbery is a bad career choice here. Nope, lots of folks over here now looking to move out of the coastal areas and it discourages the hippies & commies & Karens to go to local businesses and see open carry + no masks. Go. Away. Heh. 'Merica!
One of my brothers open carries his side arm regularly. Chooses his patronage of various places based on whether they are anti firearm or not.
I went to the pit yesterday for rock & the owner's got an outfit there buying his pit run & crushing it themselves for some big project. Lots of nice equipment on-site new loaders, excavators, mobile crushers (tracked), and a D9 or 10 WAY up on the face pushing down. I didn't have my phone to take a pic but I'll bring it next time. Dozer operator was hanging his *** off the side ripping rock diagonally down the face towards where they had the grizzly set up at the bottom.
Working on getting my workshop and bigger garage built now that construction season has started. Looking at the numbers it's less expensive psf to do concrete walls than stick frame now. Change of plan- keep going up on the stem walls until I run out of form panels.
I agree and have been seriously looking at ICF. It is not popular in my market but I think it has huge potential
Do you all not think that the lumber market is going to crash at some point from sheer ridiculousness? That does not help those needing to build now. "The market can stay irrational longer than you can stay solvent" Wise old contractor told me a couple years ago, we are overdue for another recession. Still booming along but things are sure getting weird.
Sawmills have been dying for years now. Dimensional lumber prices are not going to crash anytime soon. Housing market will have to crash first and no one here is predicting that for the next couple of years anyway.
Housing market is not supposed to change unless interest rates go up which isn't supposed to happen anytime soon. Also heard that over twenty percent of house sales are being bought by property management companies which will hopefully drive new home sales for a while. I feel sorry for first time home buyers,
I know nothing about the lumber market but Youtube bombards me with videos of people in the NW pointing out that mills are full of inventory. I don't watch the videos, though, not enough hours in the day But all this talk of "this is up, not ending any time soon" reminds me of the boom before the bust in '08, "it will stay this way forever", they said. We all know how that turned out.
The difference between now and 08 is the quality of the mortgage applicants
Word here in timber country is institutional investors are moving money out of stocks & into commodities- buying up all wood products futures and farm crops. I.E. buy up everything a lumber mill will make for the next year(s), timber tracts, farm crops that aren't even in the ground yet. Not going to end anytime soon if that is the case.
I thought about that too. If there was a place here to rent forms like Symons and a pump closer than 100 miles away I'd go 12'+ on the walls. Even thought about coming up with a small tilt up plan.
One major point is the idiocy behind bidding wars running some property pricing well beyond what will appraise for. Point in fact, brother's lake house sold for $100k MORE than ask which was close to appraisable figures, buyer paid basically in cash as wrote a check. Problem being they get tagged with a Curbside loser when and not if the market tumbles, then the foreclosures regardless the lender on those properties with loans and a deflation of property values where the owners have nothing of value, unless sell for a loss cannot even write it down against taxes.
Appraisal values don’t make any difference when cash is paid. We have multi-nationals buying residential here for rental units. They just ask what is the high bid and add an extra $10k.
CVE surprised everybody and set up at the top AND bottom of Greer grade. " What the #### is this thing called 'Blitz Week' and what is this OOS BS !!! " Got calls & texts HELP. Sorry, no can do pouring concrete today. Dumb asses. Blitz week- also known as clean, wash, service the truck (or wife...), mow the lawn, go golfing. It's just 72 hours guys.
All across the states currently as is in MO too. Heard from JY today that the OK boys were including stopping RV Delivery haulers. Three Grey MO DOT and NOT MoDOT as in Transportation but MO DOT as in MSHP personnel were around in Owensville MO in the rain and slop pulling any and all comers into inspections. I got missed SOMEHOW and ended up done as finished the day on 11 loads of Shot Rock to make road bases for a new clay pit.
Checked pricing on OSB yesterday and freaked out- $80+/- sheet . Ziggy's had LP panel siding 'shop grade' for $27.95 a sheet. I used it on the garage and it's good product. Sent my guy yesterday to Lewiston to buy all 136 sheets they had left. He said "but we don't need that much siding". No, we don't- put the primed side down and use it for roof sheeting. Trying to get the rest of the concrete in before it goes through the roof too- went up $6/yd in 2 weeks I'm bunkering up after this. We are headed for some bad, bad times IMO.
Concrete here now has a 'Fee' attached to it, was not paying much attention to the contractor until said that and missed what it was about.
Good Grief Crummy !! 3/4" OSB is ONLY $54.28 a sheet. Menard's has 300 sheets in stock near me. Their other stores have it also.
I sent Ben down there with 38 $100 bills. He told me that they went kind of goofy- took 3 employees and the manager to count it when he paid and had some problems getting the $67 (even-no coins) change figured out. Never did the check to see if it was counterfeit bills. Wow. Just.......wow.
A shame that none of them could count to 38. I was in groc store checking out, computer went down just as register totaled my purchase.$61.63 I figured I had $31.37 back, she was clueless as to how I figured it out.
So why would you give the checker $93.00 for a $62.00 bill? Bob
Went to the pit yesterday, nobody there but 2 Debco guys (more on that later). I asked the loader operator what piles were theirs so I didn't steal any. " that one, that one, and that (HUGE!) pile is our Gabion rock" Gabion rock? That's a LOT of Gabions. I built a bazillion of those in the watershed. I HATE those things. RUN! RUN AWAY! So, on the guys that are working in the pit- there's a 490 down the hill with a skeleton bucket and a 844 loader running up and down a haul road they built. The excavator dig, shake, dig, shake, digshake hunting for spec rock for a big project they are doing, toss the rocks (maybe 1 rock for every 4 scoops) on the haul road and the loader comes up and gets maybe a 1/4 bucket and runs it up the hill to their pile. What a mind numbing job.
I was at a pit picking up rock one day and there was a pile of boulders they had blasted out of the mountain side. There was a guy on an excavator sitting on the pile with a hammer breaking the boulders into smaller pieces that would fit in the crusher. Talk about mind numbing. Probably ear numbing as well.
Debco- that's who we bought the Kenworth shop truck that I drive from. I picked it up at their shop in Orofino, the owner seemed like a good guy and the guys in the shop were great helping me out with a few little things I thought it needed.
Small world. They are good people & know what they are doing that's for sure. The pit owner just had his 'new' dump painted at Budco in La Grande Oregon which is somehow connected to Debco. They do really nice paint work.
Amend:$100.00, stupid keyboard should have known what I meant
Well if that be the case you screwed yourself out of 7 bucks ace! Bob
Helpful hint for the day: the front tow yoke on the Kenworth works really well for bending the legs on rebar verticals.
Two things I picked up this weekend- #1 from a realtor down the road: no buyers for bare land, too expensive to build. Existing homes/land HOT HOT HOT. #2 contractors that said they were booked for a year out the beginning of the year are getting more cancellations than calls for new work now.
Budco=slow.
Several contractors here we delivery rock sand or fill materials to have stated similarly. One just finished a project started 2020 , costs rises cut his profit line even as slipped much of it to the new owner(Contractual language). He had three lined up to start and all three backed out.
House next to me, old place originally part of it was a chicken coop. Went on the market a month ago at 147,000 then a bidding war ended at 205,000. Needs a new septic system and tank plus it was a chicken coop way back when and 2 bdrm. It was a tear down, bank financed it. People are nuts.
Scary around here. People spent life savings or sold other properties to buy up EXCESSIVELY high priced over valued price ground, a few bought old homes and are paying near to same as building new to refurb them. I see a MAJOR Crash and Burn coming.
Had kids up here Sunday shooting rockets off in the fields for a school project. Parents & teachers contacted property owners to ask permission the week before- heck yes it's OK! Shoot them off and calculate altitude, speed, etc using their minds pencil & paper and not an 'app'. I've got a weather station so they asked me the wind speed. Learning useful stuff & enjoying the process. It was fun watching. Kids really were enthusiastic and helping each other out, parents involved, neighbors supportive. Life is good.
I take mom (84yo) to the grocery store the other day. She lives in her own place next door on 10ac. Weather has been nice so she's got her windows open early. She said she can smell when I warm up ol' Smokey Joe Cummins early AM and brings back memories. "it smells like men getting ready to go to work"
Almost formed up for the final wall pour on the workshop & 'big' garage space. I'm having someone come in "cash side job" to place & finish the flatwork though- that is just too much for my old bones (& back). OK, so this time it is the last time I'm doing concrete. Yeah, I know I've said that the last dozen times I've done concrete. Going back to doing concrete work is like riding a bike: If the bike is on fire And you are on fire And you are in hell
Always expect the unexpected. Mowing around the well the other day and drove over a squishy spot. That's not right. Roll all the equipment over and dig brownie mix to the line and find it's leaking at the 1-1/4" pitless???? ***? Those things are tough as basalt. Found a new one and replaced the next day- less than a year old- casting flaw! New one is SS no more cast bronze BS. Pulling wells and working in clay goo is no fun at all. Found out one of my rubber boots has a leak, too. Yea! Got it repaired and back in service before the concrete came for the workshop on Wed though so didn't loose too much time. Ugh
Hauled 6 loads of rock yesterday & that's too much like work for me. The pit owner moved all his equipment down to Riggins to do a crushing job & the Dresser loader at the pit broke so he has his 580K there to load trucks. Backhoes do a lot of things, none of them well- especially loading trucks. I hate backhoes. Always have, always will.
They have their place, just a narrow place!!
Turns out having the hose making setup in the service truck is like having a money tree planted in my yard. I need to drop about $5k in fittings & hose stock.
Bought my second piece of property for $21k for 20 something acres last year, a piece the same size a mile from here has came up for sale for $90k from different real estate agent. I'm saving up for this crash and burn, getting ready to grab a few pieces, let'er rip!!!
I fear will be catastrophic here for RE adventurers. Properties not worth much of nothing been sold for four times what I paid for our place. No buildings or trash remnants of something, poor ground barely able to run pasture, NO mineral rights where Clay harvesters still come knocking and cannot tell them no. We at least have our Mineral Rights, just nothing here!! Ex Co-worker bought a piece of ground to get closer to civilization, sold their old place for construct money only now its not enough, lumber price has them staring at a empty foundation and no idea when will build the house. They are currently renting and paying dearly for that.
5.45ac across the valley went up for sale recently- $190,000.
Cannot last as cannot support resale later. Market can only bear so long.
Land north of here several years ago went nuts as to High Value Farming ground, some sold at auction well over $12,000 acre, that has not survived, land now around Vandalia or Further North around Mark Twain Lake only seeing offers around $9500 on high end. hard to make any income when all earnings go to make payments.
We are over $15 000 a acre for farm land around here and some of it is not even tiled. I dont understand how people keep buying it but they do. At that price you can not pay the mortgage with what you harvest.
When this implodes will be ugly, and it will implode as unsustainable.
Went to order up some hose stock & found out there is a shortage- hydraulic, fuel, etc. How is that possible? No shortage of idiots running things these days though.
Port capacity shortages? Who knows. Lots of service guys make their customers buy the parts direct. We sell them ourselves because that way we have them on the shelf. It has come in very handy this last year sometimes.
Thank you for that video. It explains why I run Toyota and not any other brand of vehicle. It also explains why Toyota has eclipsed all the other manufacturers of cars and why our particular brand of just in time engineering has failed.
The guy that's framing my workshop needed some more 2x4's, he priced at the local lumber yards- $5/ea more here than going 70+ miles to Home Depot. Get them & they are stamped Idaho Forest. The mill is, literally, RIGHT ACROSS THE %@#!ing STREET from the locals! And it's PACKED with units of dimensional lumber ready to ship.
We just did a small concrete pad - the forms cost as much as the concrete itself
Every load we haul is a must get there an emergency load. DC's don't want anymore in the warehouse/freezer than can be used that day, running on the fringe. So yeah when it implodes the shelves will be bare real quick.
Should I start hoarding Tater Tots? I love Tater tots The food of kings
Yeah you better stock up on tater tots, tater barrels and tater doodly dangs and buy a 55 gallon drum of ketchup and 1/4 drum of tarter sauce while your at it. And don't forget your tater krispy's for breakfast. Actually I hate taters-nothing but a bunch of filler, full of starch and starch sugars.
We haul all kinds of crap that is used to enhance the flavor of those rotten spuds. Totes full of coatings that the fries are covered with to make you eat more and more. The smell is so strong seeping out of a sealed trailer it permeates the shop, smells like a 53' french fry. The list of chemicals/ingredients is a mile long. Mostly what we haul really isn't good for human consumption.
It's too expensive to build more space to hoard stuff in now. I guess I'll have to bury it like a squirrel around the property.
Are your trailers required to have HazMat placards?
Thought for the day: I had to get a pitless adapter RFN for my well; 1-1/4" Boshart SS, so called around: Local supply house (5 locations)- $333.95 1 week out Big box in Lewiston: $285.99 1 week out Found one at local little well pump service- $205.00 " I'm sure I got one in the shop, let me look.." [edit- I have no problem with his price, he's not a retail outfit and I think he was generous giving it to me when he wasn't doing the work] I'm doing another well on the property this year+1 spare "just in case" so I ordered online- qty 2 = $164.46 (incl. sales tax) delivered in my mailbox 5 days. So, as I'm pretty sure the employees at the first two places are getting rich, are we going to continue blaming others because "we can't compete"?
FDA approved for you to eat. Our system, been that way a long time and will be that way along time from now.
OK, how about this one: Went and checked out an ad I saw for a local little saw mill operation selling 2x4's for $4.25/ea. Ended up buying everything he had on the ground. He said if we need any more let him know as he and his partner are running day and night to keep up with the demand. So here's the thing- He said no shortage of logs to process, they've got loggers begging them to take log truck loads, because they are paying MORE than the big mills for logs!!!!! And selling the finished product for less than 1/2? Wait, wait, wait.....there's something wrong here. I will not purchase a stick of lumber now that's from a big mill. Scamdemic shutdowns! Cant get workers! Bullsh!t, you a$$holes are just profiteers. Keep my money local and food on someones table. I'm so pissed now about what's going on I can't put it into words.
50% of what I buy for parts inventory is on a supposed back order and when I do get it there's a price jump.
Flatbed outfit here same problem. Struggling to keep the rigs in service due to lack of parts. I was jawing with one of the guys there a couple weeks ago and he said tires were becoming an issue too for some unknown reason.
The same is going on here with parts or lack off, brake drums, oil filters, air bags, cyl heads, each day the suppliers are telling us its harder to get thing. But the price of scrap metal is up, the farmers are cleaning all their junk out around here, was told China is taking it all but nothing is being sent back.
Every month tires have taken a minim 5% hike. Just bought 100 drives and 250 trailer tires. Brake drums were averaging $72 for cast balanced now average $90 to $100. Engine oil up on average $2.00 a gallon. Grote trailer maker lights were $6.50 now average $8.50. Even a stinking dock bumper was $7.43 now $15.42.
Seeing and hearing of this here as well KW dealer orders my parts, nothing in stock, 3-5 days obtain Shop I run out of no #8 JIC fittings ANY, no 13/32 hose and cannot get, nearly every tfuck using 13/32 for fuel lines. Container ships noted as sitting offshore US Critical materials in cans and not able to port up, No Vaccinations records.
One word "Brokers " They are making a killing. Bob
Went to start the service truck yesterday to set the last 2 walls with the crane- turned the key on- nothing nada zip. No power to the dash at all, no lights nothing. Batteries up & house circuits work fine. The thing has been flawlessly dependable since I put it together. Oh well, something for me to do this morning.
15 min. fixed. Power probe 11.9v battery to the starter, 3v past. Lug at the starter nut was finger tight. Tighten, done. Hooray for easy fixes.
Hooray for trouble shooting = easy fixes . Bob
Spending the day on the mass excavator loading out clay & got a couple of dramatic action pictures. Sometimes I crack myself up with the things I do.
Where's your mud flaps?
"Mass excavator" or not, you're gettin' **** done! Looks like a good day for it too!
I took them off before I took them off. Moving on-site not getting on pavement. Someone in the past was smart enough to put them on piano hinges. The operator on the other end (me) looses his ever loving mind when dump truck drivers dump piles "all over the #*^@ing place" and not like crayons in a box.
Getting it done a [little] scoop at a time. Beautiful weather, bit warm in the afternoons though. I loaded out with the excavator at the quarry and it felt like I was sitting in the next county.
Folks around here have been saying what a bad hay year it is. I don't know **** about hay other than horse owners and ranchers bitch about what it costs....always. My neighbors cut & baled their 85ac of hay ground this weekend, must be bad- there was at least a dozen bales on my side of the slope last year, this year- one.
They didn't bale the whole field. Maybe costing more in fuel than getting in bales? My friend said they will probably burn the field next year.
I worked too many hours Monday and gave myself heat exhaustion, first time ever- getting older is taking some getting used to. Very unpleasant. Supposed to be 90-110° for the next week so early start early quit. Never again.
You lived on the west side for quite a while didn't you? Had a salesman in the shop yesterday that just moved to Tri Cities from Federal Way. Sweating and complaining about the heat. lived on the westside his entire life. Nothing but water no pop.
I'm the opposite of the salesman- I tolerate heat here WAY better than the heat on the coast, I suffered greatly when it got 'hot' there. That's probably part of the problem- I think I can do more. 6am to 5pm, even though it was only 85° probably wasn't a good idea. I haven't had a pop in probably a decade, up to around 2gal of water & juice a day though. I need to discipline like when I was working in Mojave-China Lake: 5am-2pm then siesta, no more "just one more thing then I'll be done for the day".
Well, now it's filters. Went to pick one up that is ALWAYS in stock and nope, have the ONE he found in the system here next week. NAPA counter guy said stock up on what you need.
Too late , the local store here has had to order about half of any filters I wanted for the last 6 months and it was stuff they normally kept 6 of in stock . I ordered a part from a tool warehouse in Fresno Cal last week normally overnite took 7 days, Fed Ex guy said it set in Troutdale Wa. terminal 5 days because they don't have enough people to unload trailers. Bob
I want normal problems back. This "new normal" desperately needs some adult supervision.
You would have guessed 4 or 5 years ago were the good ole days? Bob
Filters, marker lights, brake drums you name it I triple the order. Plus I constantly order two weeks ahead of time. For me I'm not worried about too much inventory-It will get used eventually.
I've had the same thing happen- a lot of FedWrex coming here goes through Troutdale and sits. I just had one that sat in Los Angeles for 6 days. I ordered some construction screws from an outfit in Kalispell that went Kalispell>Great Falls>Memphis>Lewiston and was here in 3 days.
I don't think "how many do you need?"--- "all of them" is a bad business plan now. Keeps the fleet in-service.
Checking on 4 roll up canister doors for my garage/workshop/truck bay- both Janus & Wayne Dalton say could be 4-6 months out.
I'm going to shout at the clouds here. Just venting Long post When I bought this property and moved it was very clear there was bad feelings about "Californians" and "costal libs" coming to the area and trying to change things. I had to prove that I was "OK". I read it all the time about "blue state" folks coming to "red states" and "bringing their values". Tshirts with "Idaho we're full, f off" & "Idaho - we've been social distancing since 1889". So, here's the deal- My property is at the very end of a little over a mile of gravel road, privately maintained Total of 9 large parcels I specifically did not consider purchasing any property that had CC&R's or HOA, been there done that never again. Leave me alone. A parcel, about 1/2 way in, sold a little over a year ago to a woman from Baltimore - warning sign #1 She's pretty pushy and east coast aggressive - warning sign #2 Remember the rocket story I told awhile back? She told one of the neighbors that if one landed on her property she would sue them - BIG warning sign #3 I pushed snow for her this winter so she could get in, no charge, just being a good neighbor. Within a day she wanted to use my garage to work on a project she was doing. Uhhh- just because I'm friendly doesn't mean I'm your friend. Small warning sign Last year she asked if I knew contractors she could "interview" to build her house. Told me she would "bird dog" them to make sure everything was being done right. Warning sign #4. Since I've "proved" myself I get lots of gossip around the campfire- she's managed to tee off a lot of local businesses. I've seen 15 or so contractors come to her site, construction hasn't started yet. Read the tea leaves there. Sooooo.....there's the background Last week she stops me on my way to the mailbox in the mini truck- tells me she has macular degeneration and educates me on it (yeah, I know all about it, don't need an education- mom has it for the last 15 years) then says she can't see to pull out and wants the mailboxes moved. Ha, good luck with that the first mailbox there has been there for like 40 years. I have proof I told her if the Postal Service required it I will move my boxes to a staked location. Done, right? Seemed reasonable to me. Last week she lets me know she is putting together a "community meeting" at her place (she's living in a travel trailer), she will be serving iced tea and discuss "the mailbox situation and solutions". Yeah, go pound sand. Warning sign #5 Turns out she has been to the local PO and pushed for the federal regs and get them on her side. Warning sign #6 (use the power of the gov't to get your way- pretty sure we hate that in red states?). The meeting happens, I figure no problem nobody will show up and it will die on the vine. Wrong The long time natives I had to "prove" myself to are all-in ! She comes up yesterday with a 3 page "Executive Summary" of the meeting and "Course of Action" with bullet points & pictures and everything. Going to build some fancy "community common mailbox structure" like in some hoity-toity gated community. Don't touch my mailbox. I'll move it when the location is staked. 4pm 105° I'm grouchy aaaannd she may not like me so much now. So, this is to all the red state folks spewing **** about blue staters invading from someone who escaped from those areas- THIS IS HOW IT STARTS!!!!!!!! She won't stop with this. I'm not 'proving' myself ever again, you can kiss my sweaty..... Rant over
Just wait till the time comes to maintain the road. Bob
Oh yeah, Crummy is going to be getting a bill for $26,572.13 pro rated quarterly, for a approved, licensed and bonded road maintence contract, decided upon by the community betterment group. You can't just be blading the road yourself! She's just looking out for your best interests Crummy. And you better get that mailbox moved.
And you thought dragons in fairy tales were scary. Now you know what dragons actually look like.
For sure she'll screw up the road maintenance. I've been doing it for 2 years now, fixing potholes & washboard, hauling gravel in the dump truck at my cost no trucking. Not demanding payment, kind of like the farmers that leave produce at the road and a coffee can for $$$. My closest neighbor is an incredible baker- she bakes me cookies, coffee cake, bread all the time. Good enough.
Not you too!
Oh, I know what these dragons look like. They are real- I can spot them easy. I was surrounded by them. I left.
Oh its not near that easy.
Strangely, I feel somewhat more despondent after your encouraging words regarding this matter.
What's that old phrase-a good fence makes? The same type of crap happens when people move to close to government facilities Like the Firing Center {military}. Years ago folks moved into Badger Pocket built their custom homes then decided the tanks at the Firing Center were too loud. They tried to no avail to get the center to move. Same thing with farming years back.
What is it about the north east that grows such irritating, in your business, micromanage everybody’s lives type people?
The same could be said about any part of the country.
easy now. While I agree that may be the case for a good portion of the northeast, here in maine we deal with the same stuff. As a rule we pretty much mind our own business and help our neighbors out when we can but we still have the same troubles when someone from “away” moves in. We get large influxes of people from Massachusetts and Connecticut who want to flee from that lifestyle and of course buy a nice piece of waterfront property. Now the average working man will never afford waterfront property and those who do have to deal with all the BS that they bring with them.
Same problem where I live. We have an absurd number of large lakes in my area and we are too close to Chicago. Weekenders (or F.I.P.s) snatch of lakeside cottages, tear them down, build expensive houses and then create "Lake Associations" to protect their investment. Locals can't afford to live on half the lakes around here anymore because of outsiders driving the real estate value sky high.
My best friend is east coast aggressive NOT like her, we've had many discussions on the matter over drinks. Nothing wrong with it, you just have to watch and be ready to act fast. Get in their face OK, don't you are a victim.
She used the "it's for safety". Works every time. She has and openly uses her macular degeneration as a reason for moving the mailboxes- mom recognized she was a hazard to others and gave up her drivers licence. End. Yesterday with one of the "conservative" neighbors I get "well, if it's for safety...". She-Can-Not-See-Even-If-The-Mailboxes-Are-Moved!!!!!! The woman told me "people speed on Leitch Creek road and I'm afraid I will get hit". Garunf'nteed she's been to the local sheriff office with an "Executive Summary" that they, by law, can't ignore. I haven't seen LE on this road since I've been here. That will change and the locals will wonder what happened. For everyones safety you know.... LOTS of shooting happens here, garunf'nteed she will have a problem with that. Now I have ABSOLUTELY NO confidence that the "conservative" 2A-from-my-cold-dead-hands folks here won't give me the "well, if it's for everyone's safety..." Rural America is the greatest place to live on the planet Earth. Friendly, helpful, free, everyone is welcome. When the camel sticks it's nose under the tent I stop being nice.
Well, if LE shows up maybe time to mention her saying she has Macular Degeneration and her vision is bad. Mention maybe she needs to be re-evaluated for driver’s license. (Or, mention that to her...might shut her down)
Back to our regularly scheduled programming- I went to look at a machine- "It just quit and won't turn over now" Nobody there when I went to check, did a 1-2-3 check Called him- When was the last time you checked the engine oil? "Uhhh- why?" Because there's none in it "Can you fix it so I can finish baling?" Well, noooo....... "Are you going to charge me to come out since you couldn't fix it?" .............. "Hello? Are you still there?"
I'm going to keep a low profile there. Odds are pretty good she went up after our last.....conversation....got on the internet and clicked the "report your neighbor" button on the eff bee eye website.
Oh oh, delete my message...can’t be tied to you when “the man” pounces
I've worked for the local county highway department 49 years last Saturday. 3 places I won't live, a gravel road, a private road or a public road on a lake. All have way to much drama. Give me my public paved road
Yeah well my neighbor across the street thinks his place should be a junkyard in a neighborhood. Lazy as a dead dog he is-about 400 lbs with a mohawk. I refer to him as Hedge Hog. You can still have problems on a public street.
HaHaHaHa!!! The internet is FOREVER !!!!! Execectuive Conclusion Known associates (ref. appendix A {evidence} HEF) Labparamour
Had a pretty good size fire going across the valley yesterday afternoon/evening. 2 Chinooks & 1 Huey dipping out of the river, 6 ag-type planes, 1 plane orbiting higher, & 1 King Air doing big orbits above that- guessing that was using some high tech imaging thingy looking at hot spots. The Chinooks wold drop and DIVE back down to the river (we're 1,500' above it) must have been quite a ride. Ag planes were orbiting 2 at a time over my place then head north like a strafing run break hard and head south to re-arm, 2 more would be orbiting here
After the Alphabet Bois get done shooting your dog and burning your house down send them over here
I went down the hill to the little 2-pump card lock early am yesterday to fill generator fuel jugs then on the way back up I was going to walk out in the field and trim up some low branches on my 2 big pine trees so any grass fires don't light them up- snakes are bad this year so do it early. Sheriff pulls in and we're jawing, he's griping that he hates summer holiday weekends, especially this one since it's so hot, because locals he can say "stop it" and it's over but the out-of-town folks camping on the rivers not so much. He tops off and says "have a good weekend, stay cool!" You too, stay safe. It hits me as I'm finishing up- door is open on the mini closest to him with the Pardner 12ga snattlerake blaster & AR shorty 'yote rig on the seat and I'm all John Wayne with the .45 LC S&W snake shot on my hip.
Big Iron on His Hip. Sheriff probably drove away shaking his head when he saw the ironing board strapped on the back of the mini.
He's a multi-tour combat vet I hear. I'm sure I'm the butt of a few " saw an Idaho County technical today.... " jokes in the squad bay. [edit] maybe I should weld up a tripod and mount a 10-22 up there to be taken seriously?
Long gone are the days when visible guns just made people curios. I'm remembering gun racks in the pickup window where the shotguns and fishing poles stayed while we were in high school.
I hate snakes, BTW. [edit] the ones with fangs that don't recognize my position at the top of the food chain and try to kill me. The other ones I leave be.
High school on Whidbey rigs with slug guns in the window rack deer season in the parking lot. No big deal. Normal.
When George Bush senior visited Kalispell the SS got nervous with all the rigs in the AP parking lot with guns in racks visible pickups. No joke the mayor replied----------- { no one would dare take a shot or do anything around here, your in the safest place, We will just mow him down}.
There's nothing wrong with a good Buzz Tail-hard to find a good snake anymore.
I've got lots. Free. You haul.
The pit owner said the pulled in and one and one was in the dust by the rip-rap pile- he started backing up and the SOB charged went after his front tire!
The bad ones-will recoil mid air after a strike.
When I was I high school, one of the teachers tried to get a kid in trouble for having a gun rack in his truck. Not guns, just the rack.
I spent a week banging my head against the wall trying to find a problem. Machine was running fine turtle to rabbit, but WOT under load picked up a miss. I could hear it, not really bad but it was there. Got to be fuel. Lift pump OK. A few squirts if brake clean around the injectors, no rpm change. Hard lines to the injectors all good. Temp gun to the exhaust idle>WOT = close enough. Everything else checks out. Must be the fuel filter. Has to be. Nope. No joy Poking around and wiggle the tiny rubber bypass line between #1 and the thumb valve on the injection pump- fuel starts dripping. Pull it off and behold a little tiny crack. Replace it and it runs like a top. The crack was on the pressure side after the injectors so it should have been leaking and easy for spot, not sucking air back only at WOT under load.
Last night I was down at the creek finishing up my firebreak and a deer came charging out of the thicket towards me, about jumped out of my skin. Made me think of the 911 call recording from years back- ' yeah I need a bambulance, **'n deer bit me in the neck! "
19 fires burning in the upper valley and they had to stop aerial operations because of people flying drones. Thanks dipwads.
What is a TFR for $1000
Done-holes don't care.
'Yotes were yowling in the field 0130 this morning. The laser looked pretty cool in the smoke- just like the movies. The foregrip light and laser sent them scurrying, which is good as I wasn't going to put anything down range into the grass(fire starter).
Just got "prepare to evacuate". My neighbor said she'd take mom if necessary as I got a text to be relief dozer operator on the line. Eat dinner look at the internet and watch the fire crown on the other side of the valley out my front window and wait. Dammit
Man I hope it works out. We had fire across the road last Labor Day and thankfully they got it out before it jumped the road.
I just hate hearing about the wild fires. Sit in place and wait for the order to leave with little to nothing to start over with. Stay safe, Good Luck!
Dozer lines holding & Dept. of Lands backfire doing its job. Sweat+smoke+ash+dust. I'm not even going to try and wash my clothes- garbage. Still getting full burnt deciduous leaves falling here at the house- fire is a little over 2 miles away. The main paved road coming up the valley looks like a refugees escaping war- but it's deer, elk, cows, horses.
Stay safe!
Hard to see with all the smoke, stopped it at the far ridge for now. Picked this up right where I'm standing. You can actually see them way up in the air with binocs. Came a long ways- one little ember POOF goes the field.
Fire making it's own weather.
Yep, big fire is awesome in its power. I threw that leaf as hard as I could and it didn't get anywhere near the ridge.
There's an bald eagle nest behind the house. Last evening I walked around the garage & one of the fledglings was on my shed roof eyeing the field for food. A sibling came out of the nest and swooped low across the field and made a perfect......crash. It's landing skills need improvement. Even at that stage they are one big bird.
Had one of those days after the good start with the birds. Everything I went to use broke, the stuff I used to fix the broken stuff broke, and when I went to get stuff to replace the stuff that broke that I was using to fix the broken stuff the stuff I was driving broke.
That bird just has the look of "I need to kill something" written all over its beak.
Yesterday the two of them were a pair of serial killers.
I got a referral call for work- but get this, he wants me to do regular PM on their equipment. He feels money spent on regular maintenance is less than what it costs to have equipment go down in the field. Wait, what? You don't want to call me when something breaks and everybody is standing around and push me to fix it when nobody has checked oils, coolant, fuel for a year and/or "it's been running hot/leaking/making that noise for a long time"? I'm not sure about this, sounds like a scam.
Its a scam. Your second day there, they will mention the project in the barn. It will be a rutabaga harvester, from 1971. Italian built. Disassembled. Serial # 6 of the 5 total ever built. (#1 was the factory prototype). The guy who disassembled it, left 8 years ago. Not only does he not work there anymore, he's dead. The parts and pieces removed from it, are in 4 cardboard boxes, 3 five gallon buckets, and two random pallets with the big pieces. Its also been moved between two different barns, after they drug it out of the shop, so they aren't sure if all the parts in the boxes, go to that machine. They have the manuals, fortunately not in italian, so you shouldn't have to worry about translating if your italian is rusty. The manuals are in german. You better hurry up and get down there, harvest is coming and its their only machine for it.
CO, you’re a “glass half full” kinda guy, huh?
Ich habe einen Doktortitel in italienischer Rutabaga-Harvester reparatur. Sollte einfach sein
Ha ha pimp slap. Bob
I wonder if something is going around like another bug. My regular client asked me to go through all his fleet and make sure all machines could be greased. So far I’ve gone through 12 tubes of grease, 2 dozen fittings and had to remove and dig out three pin’s grease holes. I think he bought one of those fancy battery guns and wants to play with it.
That's a trap.
Every job is a scam these days.
Yep, the temporary driving job I have taken on is NOT so temporary in the mind of the owner, there are just no volumes of applicants where he does not push to beat the bushes to find potential workers and adds little to the hire on $$ to entice any newcomers. Trash Truck regular driver called his tailboard shagger a 'Handicap' where the kid threatened to quit, the driver is now loading all the route trash himself and is likely to quit, I will not take on full time trash truck running.
A disturbing trend if it continues for sure.
Here the Post Office, both lumber yards, hardware store, grocery store all have "help wanted" signs on their doors. The flatbed trucking company at the lumber mill can't keep drivers in seats.
And the rutabagas are rotting in the fields.
As a employer mine is down at least four drivers currently, is now selling the older trucks away as cannot fill the seats. Has dozers, excavators and skid steers or track loaders just sitting where has but two fully qualified operators besides himself, is considering selling many of those off but needs them for when the farm grounds need attention. Not abnormal for a single operator to have a loader and/or dozer sitting on a site with an ex that he had hauled there so can use either machine as needed, not financially prudent where hours billed are over weeks instead of days if had two or three operators performing.
Have a question about rutabagas. What is the growing cycle for them? I mean if the guy who tore that harvester apart left eight years ago the next crop is only coming up to be harvested this year? Or are they just rotating the crops and only plant the rutabagas once every eight years? Which to my taste is way too often!
During the fires here a lot of us 50+ crowd filled seats and now there are a lot of offers for full time jobs. One fellow 72yo drove a water tanker & ended up working 36hrs straight (!) and the owner said "see you Monday!".
On the subject of lack of workers. I have to think back to the threats that the top boss in the state for the company made many times back when I was still at the quarry. If anyone dared complain or just raise a question about the way he did things he would say, "If you don't like it here feel free to leave, there are five guys for everyone of you outside that gate who would be glad to do your job for half the pay!"
Maybe @crane operator can answer that one. I justa fixa da macheen
and that management attitude is a big part of the shortage. I’m not doing a crappy, hard job for ungrateful jack wagons.
We the unwilling Working for the unknowing Are doing the impossible We have been doing so much For so long With so little That we now can do anything With nothing
Went to work as usual yesterday at 5:00 am. Finished at 12:30 am today-had a 340 mile tow. Here this morning at 5:00 am. The bosses *** is going squeak when I retire not to far in the future.
You logged all that properly on line 3 & 4, right?
Totally. But your typing to the king of three log books. Who cares!
Sort of like when I was on that one bed bugging trip and supposedly on the rest cycle every time I'm loading and unloading that truck! I didn't need to run three log books I just cooked the one I had three times.
Very true! If we still had the upper management that we had before that guy took over there is a chance I would have stayed on beyond 65! Back I think it was the year I hit 30 years with the company. The guy who they fired to put this jerk in power made it a point to find out where I had been sent to work on my anniversary day at a different quarry to present me with a "Thanks'! letter" and a bonus check.
I wanna have a dance party on their drones and remotes when they do stupid ish like that.
I dare say a load of Bosses will be looking at stalled work and equipment as we all just retire permanently. Is few to any if in instances none behind us to pick it back up at our level of deliveries. And WE are OLD, Tired, Worn Slick!!
I look at the younger guys to take my place and shake my head. A couple have been there 10 years. They just do their assignments and have no interest in knowing the whole picture. No interest in knowing the historical info or where to find the info.
What is a room with 183 bosses and 182 equipment/truck "technicians" in it? 1 year of experience. I'll be here all week folks Make sure to try the roast beef and don't forget to tip your waitress
Is that medium rare thin sliced-if not she ain't getting any tip.
Nah, I'm a guy with a project in my barn, wanna come look? Oh buddy they've got your number. Talk about a round peg for a round hole. And here you are still posting on the internet? You've got the skills, break out that old set of whitworth wrenches and get to it! What kind of mechanic needs to know how the machine is supposed to work in order to fix it? Its broken. Cummy's got the right attitude, he just can't get going. You're asking about growing cycles?
Rutabagas, parsnips and turnips should be cooked with liver. After it's cooked throw it all away and eat the pan. Those 4 items are not food.
Something I was told back in the 80s as to how management was sent to a site for training on how to be politically correct jerks, that way they sounded nice as were being arrogantly ignorant to the employees they depended on to get the work done. The terminology 'keep them angry as they will work harder' was their basis, pretty well stupid.
Pffft! Crane drivers.... [shakes head]. I whipped that out, posted a video of my awesomeness doing it, AND baked a key lime pie- at the same time !!!!!!
Sounds like the guy I was talking about might have been the guy who came up with that theory!
One of the questions from the oral board for promotion to crew lead at a place I worked at was: " If upper management told you to discipline someone working under you and you knew that the employee was innocent of the infraction, what would you do? " You guess what the correct answer was to move up the ladder.
I recall mom making pot roast, loved it except when she tried slipping in some parsnips that looked too close to potatoes, what a shock to the taste buds that was!
They also go to class so that they learn how to pull a single pickup onto a big dirt show and stop nine pieces of iron with one move. It's a perverse sort of chess.
Turnips and parsnips are sure to make a happy kid cry at the dinner table.
Wife puts a few turnips in the roasts for me, learned to love them as a kid at Great Aunt and Uncle's farm. Great Uncle would pluck one from the ground, wash it in a bucket of water cut away top and root then eat like a apple. Have a Mother caused yearning for GOOD Beef Liver dinners.
My granddad did the same thing. He'd pull out his pocket knife & cut a slice for us kids.
4 loads of rock today- rock means I'm covering the clay = less mud when it rains! You can see lines everywhere you've been at the pit cuz one of the lift cylinders is leaking so bad [edit] on the Dresser loader.
The guys that worked the local packing house none a liver. Shortly after kill floor the flukes would surface in the liver. Below are images of engine livers.
None ate liver.
Mom always said we would eat anything if we were hungry enough. Liver and onions was proof of that.
agree` nothing is as insulting to the taste buds as finding a piece of turnip among a plate full of boiled potatoes
Hauled some rock today rolled into the pit & went to the back to load. Crusher not running but lots of folks there. Walking over to get the Dresser I see a guy standing at the back of an SUV, new vest & hardhat- I **** you not the back of that thing looked like an electronics store- set up with flat screens, printer, computer, etc. Uh oh. Skedaddled around the pile out of sight and got the loader going the back way. Second load the driver told me " it's MSA, they've been here for 3 days" Hooboy G-man come to visit
They didn't care about the equipment or safety issues------------They were looking for the still.
Does anyone know if Kubota V1502 & V1903 oil pans are the same bolt pattern?
My poor little loader is tired. It started spitting & sputtering and getting hot. Figured it must be a head gasket between cylinders so pulled the injectors and did a compression test- low (I knew that was going to be the case) but the same across all 4. I just need it to keep going for a little while till mud season hits & then into the shop. Pulled the injectors apart- 2 totally wasted. Looked online and found a set very, very inexpensive- from the far east of course. Got them, best machining & finish I've seen in a long, long time. Put them in yesterday morning & ran all day- best it's run in a long time.
I don't know about these 2, but the V1702 and V2203 are interchangeable. Bobcat ran V1702 for years and then switched to the slightly larger V2203. A lot of guys swap the hard starting V1702 IDI out for a V2203 DI engine now and its a pretty simple conversion.
Thanks. I'm going to locate a 2203 since they are easiest to find and give it a try this fall.
The garage, workshop, and truck bay are done- and lumber prices crashed. Of course. Looked into getting roll up the doors on the way- Janus & Wayne-Dalton are both 3x$ what they were in January and out to at least Feb for delivery. Well, lumber is down it looks like I'll be building fancy swing doors for 1/4 the cost and be closed in way before that. I read this morning that steel has gone from $560/ton to $1,940/ton. I'm hoping it will crash like lumber before I have to do any steel projects.
Wife and I put our new house build on hold as material prices and lead times are ridiculous. Lived this volatile market back in 2006-2008 and we all know what happened in 2009. We'll wait this peak in pricing out and buy on the downslide. The $1M question is - are we in 2007, 2008 or early 2009 right now?
I don't think it's comparable to '08. Everything is much, much more wrong system wide. Who knows what will happen? Not me.
No argument here.
It's all different this time. The party holding the paper on the money is the government this time. Money is being handed out without provision for most of it being paid back so private entities are shielded. The money in retirement accounts may loose value but won't be completely wiped out by a company being bankrupted on worthless paper. The next problem showing up will be class warfare on who is going to pay to keep the country running. The billionaire club says they pay to much tax and the poor and middle class should pay it all. What they don't say is that they are getting all the money and hiding it to avoid paying anything. They have their multi million dollar yachts built over seas borrow the money for it and then declare it a second home writing off the interest payment of two or three percent and avoiding the thirty seven percent income tax.
I bought (repo houses, cranes, Genie lifts, businesses...) like a madman after the housing/credit crash then sold on the optimism of the recovery. Partially why I have zero debt service now. I hold contracts, I don't pay on them. I'm not that ambitious now to find the profit side. If there is one. Though being resourceful keeping things going is turning out to be quite lucrative. If it comes to it I can fix a tractor for a dozen eggs and a can of soup. And a jar of 'shine.
I can get NM-B & triplex wire, panel, 4x4 metal boxes......but there aren't any 2-gang duplex metal covers to be found anywhere right now. The electrical inspector will understand flying splices & outlets nailed to the studs with 16d's I'm sure.
????? I thought you moved out in the sticks? They have electrical inspections out there?
Not far enough. 2 permits/inspections needed from the state- well & electrical. Electrical inspector is cool though.
@crane operator they are replacing the bridge at the bottom of the hill from me. Tiny little 2-lane over a creek by the hatchery. They are doing 1 lane at a time as it's the only [paved] way off the hill. I saw a boom dolly on one of the turnouts and got down there- LTM 1160! It's longer than the bridge is! Seems to me a bit much to lift some little pre-stress I's. I'll try and get a pic next time I'm down there.
Clearwater or Nez Perce hatchery?
Kooskia (Nez Perce)
I've been in that area, I was looking at a truck some years back.
I'm guessing it was old, needed a lot of work, & "I'm firm on my price" And it's probably still there.
It was a rig that someone wanted me to look at before they bought it. It was a walk away.
There was an KW in Stites on CL, 1950 if I remember right, for $12,500. Looked like it had been sitting since 1962.
So I go out today to fire up the dump for some gravel & notice a big spot underneath- fuel filter water separator is leaking at the drain valve. Check online, the NAPA in town has one (supposedly) in stock. run down, there's a sign on the door " Closed due to being unable to find employees, sorry Mike. Kamiah is still open." . Oh FFS this is getting ridiculous. Head out another 14mi to the other store- sign on the door "This store is now open 8-5 M-F closed Sat-Sun due to lack of employees" . Luckily, got the filter. This BS going on is really, really bad.
My son in law works at the VA hospital in Spokane. Says they are being used to some extent to cover people out of Idaho. All the big hospitals are full with locals and patients being transferred out of northern Idaho. I think most would rather work than have to spend time in an ICU. My wife had a knee replaced a month ago and it was day surgery. Dropped her off at 5:30 AM and picked her up at 12:30 PM. She went from prep, to operating room, to recovery to our car. The joint floor of the hospital was taken up by Covid patients. Hopefully, those with the bug will recover and go back to work soon. At my age, slowing down for those companies that are short handed is not a bother.
My brother the retired doc went to a plumbing store in Bellevue area told the guy what he wanted. Before he left he was offered a job.
I'm not going to lay all the blame on lazy people collecting unemployment. I think a lot of it may be fear. I have almost no interaction with people so I'm lucky. Guy in front of me the other day at the fuel pumps was raging about he was on his way to pick up his sister to go see his mom in the hospital- older vaccinated & wore a mask & still got the crud and on a ventilator "what's th f'n point!!!!". That kind of thing gets around people get worried. Heck, my first reaction was to want to take a few steps back.
Wife is in the business, she gets filled in on census info. Three weeks ago her org the west side hospitals had 197 covid patients, and one was not vaccinated. The east side was not so dramatic, 76 and 4 were vaccinated. People still get sick with the vaccine, but the numbers are really clear on it. We also have a friend, her husband was vaccinated and he was 10 days in the hospital and feeling like coming home, then it turned bad and he was gone the next day. It happens. They are taking non-covid cases from Spokane to Seattle to make room in the ICUs in Spokane for patients from Idaho. It is quite fortunate that there is some capacity over here yet. They have shut down all non-emergency surgeries now, @John C. your wife was lucky on that timing.
My cousin called me last night to let me know my uncle had passed (not his dad). We reminisced about growing up. He was born in 1928, poverty, war, started making his own way as an 'entrepreneur' at 14 and never quit, lived all but the last 8 days of his life independent, his twin daughters & wife passed before him and he continued on somehow. Any troubles currently are nothing compared to what he went through. I'll never live up to his example. RIP Uncle Bob.
RIP uncle Bob. Looking back on their lives, Bob and my folks and aunts and uncles, we have had it easy.
Same verdict here, vaccine doesn't stop anyone getting it but for most it turns the potentially fatal into something a lot milder. Currently 340 active cases on The Rock out of a population of just over 85k. Out of that number there are only 5 people in hospital and nobody in ICU or on ventilation. Just over 90% of the adult population here is vaccinated.
Mom & dad were going on (before I was around) around the table at a gathering "when I was growing up, we were so poor...." Mom ('40's NorCal) "we were so poor with the windows & doors closed in the house the cat could still come in!" Dad ('30's Virginia) "you had doors and windows?"
It works out to 1 in 100,000 population can die with vaccination according to my brother the doctor.
I'll take those odds any day of the week.
they look particularly attractive when weighed against the fact that one in 500 Americans has died from it. I don't know the worldwide numbers.
Rained like mad yesterday so I went out to my 3/4 completed shop and figured I'd work on some of the projects I'd put aside because "that will be a good thing to do on a rainy day, I'll put it off". Got discouraged with all the things I'd put off and worked on the snow plow for the mini truck instead.
Still waiting on those pictures.....
They moved it out but it should be back for the other 1/2. Most I've seen working on the bridge lately is 3 guys, a guy with a clipboard, and a dog that wears a safety vest- I don't think they will be done by the end of next month like they said.
I got in yesterday afternoon and there was 4 cases of brake clean, 6 cases of grease, antifreeze, and 6 pails of various oils sitting in front of the workshop. I feel rich, at least for a minute or so.
Wait until you see your credit card bill.....!!
Thanks. Temper my joy with the facts. It will be long gone before the bill gets here, just empty containers and crushed dreams.
<------- has new case of brake clean in work truck, can relate to that.
I've caught a lot of grief over the years for how much cleaner I use & steam cleaning if it's bad before diving in "You afraid of getting your hands dirty? HaHaHa!" . For me, watching a guy grab a few wrenches out of the truck and opening something closed/filtered that's covered with oil/grease/dirt makes me close my eyes real tight. Maybe it's just me.
no it's not you. I cringe when I have to take a hydraulic line off the valve body on the 120. I hosed the crap out of it before I started for sure. Those single line repairs in the field are the worst. Nobody wants to take the time, and that little perfect piece of sand could ruin your week.
For years before I would do any work I pressure wash {hot} engines. Transmissions, Rear drives. There is no need to work in a filthy compartment takes longer and job is half ***.
When I was young and had to have a job, I jumped into anything just to get the machine up and running as quickly as possible. As I got older I got a little more picky. If something is available to clean with, I'll use it.
As I got older-it will be done my G%#D$^M way or take some place else. Someone else's hurry doesn't constitute one for me. No one is going to thank me for getting it done ASAP.
My mechanics always tend to find other trouble spots while washing. Money well spent in my opinion.
”Please explain exactly why your lack of forward planning should constitute my emergency.”
I've got the steam cleaner set up so I can take it in the rig. I had a guy recently tell me "I'm not paying you to do that". OK, then you are also not going to need to pay me to fix it. See ya.
crummy it sounds like a good way to separate the wheat from the chaff.
People-everyone gripes about the political correctness in todays world-I will only play it so far which is about a 1/4", When it comes to what I do for a living then all political correctness goes out the door. I don't pour concrete, bake cakes, perform dental surgery, install roofing nor am I a world traveler. I only work on Class Eight trucks that's what I do I'm not there to hold the customers or the bosses hand. It's attached to their arm and their problem, they need to see a therapist if they need that.
Clean is nice but you only have two choices when you are twenty miles up the ClearWater Road north of the Quinalt reservation at 5:00PM on a Friday evening and have to have a machine fixed for Monday morning at 5:00AM. Fix it or don't expect to get paid. I usually had a good air compressor and maybe a solvent sprayer and did the best I could to not get dirties mixed into the clean stuff. Then again, that's what filters are for. I didn't often get to work in shops that had overhaul rooms with all the amenities of pressure washers, overhead cranes, dishwashers and precision machine tools. No one ever faulted me or cared about a little dirt on the machines that I got running for Monday at 5:00 AM.
that's what my new case of brake clean is for I was getting low. same with absorbent diapers.
It's why I don't work outside. And if I do the price goes up. But I won't so price stays the same.
The steam cleaner gets loaded up fairly rarely for things that look like lava flows. The Boss PTO compressor and the air lance is pretty.....aggressive. I'm too afraid of getting something in a system that's after a filter.
The owners would just call me a couple of months later to come and fix a different problem this time.
Nothing to be ashamed of. Things happen when you get older.
Landa. 200 plus psi at 200*
I stopped at one of the truck shops here & a guy was under a log truck outside the shop chasing something on the frame rail. It looked like there was 2 yards of dirt/gravel/grease/oil the guy underneath had gotten off. He was a mess.
my Ram is an ex-logging crummy and fuel truck, and I pulled the bed and knocked 25 pounds off the top of the tank and in pockets of the frame, etc.
And the DOT guys find one piece of gravel on a lowboy and hold it up like they'd found a diamond "AH HAH! GOTTCHA!!!"
Where I went to college they had a real "steam" cleaner in the outside wash rack. Something like 350 degrees and 800 PSI, my numbers could be way off but it was well over the boiling point of water. It came out as hot water and made it about 4-5 feet before evaporating but worked good for washing off a grimy old transmission and leaving it dry. When you let off the trigger valve handle it would continue to boil out the wand for a minute. All the grimy water went into the floor to a recycler that took its time and smelled like a burger joint that was frying patties that had sat outside in the sun for a week.
The Landa at the shop works real well-that's where I have the temp set it will go hotter.
Can you clean the concrete floor in the shop with a steam cleaner, or will it fill the shop so full of steam fog you can't see your feet? Asking for a friend
Could substitute other things for the word "tractors", like motorcycles, boats, power tools......
Another place I worked we had a shoe string budget. So I never got a steam cleaner. Because I could turn the big commercial gas water heater up to 180 degrees. Spraying it on with a garden hose nozzle was usually good enough. Had to wear gloves so the nozzle did not burn your hands. Had to watch out that it did not leak hot water onto your gloves either. If I wanted more, I would just hook the hose into a pressure washer. The pressure washer had a thermal relief valve that would dump water to ground because it would recirculate when not spraying and the water might get too hot. When feeding that thing the hot water, the relief valve was always wide open. Never damaged the pump to my knowledge.
I wish we had a real steam cleaner at work we have a POS gas fired warm water (because it sure as hell doesn’t get hot!) pressure washer that breaks down all the time, only warms when it wants to, etc. all it’s good for is spreading the grease around.
Always wanted a good portable pressure washer with heated water, all I have is a cold water engine powered unit. Works OK but only on dirt and loose materials, grease, oil, any form of asphalt and it just smears it around. That is why the C15 looks like hell, no way could have gotten it cleaner than rubbing it off with my hands and arms until functionally running. After finish washing my work clothes this morning back to it.
I'd never had one until I took the Hydro Tek I have in a trade deal a few years ago. I washed everything I had. Nice to have around.
The first dealer I worked for when I got out of the navy had an ancient steam cleaner. Diesel fired and it was 1/2" pipe bent in a circle sitting vertical, burner at the bottom. The pipe was wound around in three layers and it made wet steam to the tune of about 120 PSI. It took a bit for it to start making that pressure but it worked better that anything I used since those days. Someone left it out over the weekend in freezing weather and it cracked the pipe on the middle coil and the outside coil. Shop foreman knew the pipes were too thin to arc weld and one of the welders knew I was good with the acetylene torch so the foreman asked if I would try to fix it. I surprised myself when it worked when I got done. The next year we got a new building down in Tukwila with a fancy stationary pressure washer, washing pad and oil water separator. Most of us that had to use it didn't think much of the hot water unit. They disposed of the steam unit as too dangerous saying it might explode and parboil someone.
John C didn't that Tukwila shop catch fire?
Not while I was there. It is still standing and occupied by United Rentals today. The place is a palace of a shop.
Yesterday I was out in the workshop looking for a tool- I'm still unpacking so going through stuff and found my old RC nitro cars. Cool! Spent the afternoon getting them running and then ripping them around the property. I didn't get what I was supposed to get done done, but that counts as work right?
Things must be getting really, really bad out there. I just got a call from an excavator wanting to hire me & the old truck for a job he's doing. 8-10hrs a day M-F all in a row for 2 weeks. That's crazy talk.
"that's not available anywhere in the system" It's come to being creative and digging for what they do have to find something you can make work. Spent part of the day re-clocking an alternator.
Got a little snow plow rigged up on the mini truck. Should be much better than doing it with the [open-cab-no-heat] loader.
Hope it doesn't knock the front end off that!!
I love those mini trucks. There’s a couple running around here. Would be fun to have one but, dang, the price!
There's a old small Cat grader coming up for auction here, smaller than a 12.
I'm sure I'll be modifying it after the first snow & bend a few things up. Made up a 2" receiver to the "frame" so if it starts a wiggling there I should feel it in the seat $5k delivered to my place here, no way was I going to spend $18k+ on a UTV. Loading it up with cans tomorrow and going to the waste transfer- the little mini uses less fuel 15 mile round trip than the Superduty does starting.
cool. are you in for it? Sounds like a 112.
If I got a grader I'd have way too many new friends. The neighbor up on the knob was running a grader on his driveway yesterday, two of my neighbors texted me "did Zane get a grader????"
I am on a gravel road for about 2 more years, and then it is city and pavement. I should not even ask, but it is how I am wired
@crane operator I told you I'd get pics when they showed up again. Different outfit, 2 cranes now not one big mamma. the other one showed up between when I went down and came back- just in front of the white pickup in the last 2 pics can't really see it 4 axle AT. The first prestressed section is sitting down the road- it's BIG, but short, sitting on a 4 axle truck & 3+3+3. Didn't get a pic of that, sorry.
Thanks crummy, looks like about a 180 ton demag. Glad he gets to set on those little plastic pads. They are nice to move around, but they don't give you a lot of support. Going to drive the new bridge beam onto the new section of bridge, and just have a smaller crane on each side. The first time around they probably couldn't get anything across so had to make the full pick from one side/ one crane.
A pro's perspective.
yes some steel sheets or crane mats actually do something.
Bad crane mats were what destroyed a Grove I had to cut the mast away on. That and arrogant Line Crewmen.
The Super Duty decided to not start, acted like the GPR wasn't working so I swapped out the one from the service truck to see- that was it. I got 200a units- might as well replace both. What a difference. The first thing I would do if I got another 7.3L is replace the GPR. White Rodgers 586-902
Got a "Help!" call yesterday. Big pulley off the crusher. It moved and then stopped !!!! Now it won't budge!!!! 2 20 ton jacks held up with Mule tape, 3 people working out of the bucket of the 980, chained up to the 315. "It's not moving" It will It did
The big pulley was coming off to get to the bearing behind. He said it was getting too hot for his liking. I asked if he had a temp gun, "oh yeah, I shot it and the housing was 315°..." Yazzzzz.....that's a little warm.
that would be some smelly grease. is this on the jaw?
Yes
Went to the pit for some gravel yesterday and ended up spending a couple of hours up on the crusher helping get to the failed bearing. Always expect the unexpected.
I got a deal on 5,000 zip ties & they showed up today. I'm confident I can fix pretty much anything now.
All you need now is a pair of vice grips, electrical tape or duct tape, some scotch locks,and a random color spool of wire. Then you would be better equipped than the so called mechanics that Vetech63 is dealing with. Oh I almost forgot about the most important tool... bailing wire
I've got rebar tie wire for the construction equipment and baling wire for the ag stuff. Right tool for the right job I always say.
Where is the safety observer?
Taking the picture for a mandatory attendance safety presentation he's putting together
My buddy and I are out by the workshop yesterday and hear a loud weed eater noise- what the heck is that? It's a frickin drone! Just about to go ankle deep in brass and remember my neighbors just put their house up for sale Great folks, sorry to see them go. Cool picture, my place is far right mom's is the middle one.
The Super Duty had the infamous vacuum line leak to the auto lock hubs, of course all I had was an empty spool on the service truck. I digress, but is it just me that has 2,234 empty plastic spools around because they would be good for....something? Kind of like farmers & 5gal buckets. So, I stopped at the parts house to pick some up went in back to grab a spool- 6' left. Hey, go ahead and get me a spool on the way.....aaaaaannnnnnd, you guessed it. Here's my new idea to save time- Hi! welcome to [parts house]. How can I help you? Oh, just so you know, whatever you are looking for "isn't in the system".
The little truck plow plows. A couple small improvements later but it does the job for now. Way better than the open cab loader.
I saw one of those rigs parked a long side the road with a for sale sign in the window. No plow installed on it though. Right now it would be gold as there is about eight inches on the ground in this area.
So the little truck is road legal and with plates by the picture? I didn't know what idaho rules are.
They get "Restricted" plates. OK on all county roads and limited to 1 mile on highways. I drive it to town quite a bit.
I've gotten completely away from working on trucks. And now no more doing any pre-purchase inspections. #1 reason: I looked at it and you'll have more in it getting it going than finding one ready to work. "I'm going to buy it anyway, it's a really good deal". I just told you it's not a good deal, why did you have me go and waste my time looking at it? #2 recently: Same, it's a POS. "do I owe you anything since it's a POS and I'm not buying it?" . Wait, what? Seriously? Plenty of things to do without dealing with these jackwagons
And I'm guessing telling them how much money you just saved them doesn't help.
No. It seems that they are expecting a report of it will go another 10 years with just oil changes or they are wasting money paying someone to look at it. Or something like that.
Same here-no more-I don't even bother with someone looking to buy a dump truck posting on here. If I do-it's-save your money only.
Have a regular following currently as to my previous life as a wrench coming out. First thing requested is a machine inspect on something that I know they will buy anyway, can hear it in their excitement of finding it be it a truck, tractor, HEq or anything else. I just apologize and explain I do not do that, not worth the problems. They also want to know if I work less expensive than other wrenches in the area, explained is not worth double what they are making anymore and they walk away disheartened.
It's discouraging. As Truck Shop has said before, I'm tired. My bank account isn't deep enough to make other peoples dreams come true.
I'm tired. Really tired of dealing with something for nothing people.
I charge a healthy fee to do inspections that include a contract for services that spells out exactly what I will do and limits my liability. I enjoy doing that kind of work. I don’t enjoy it on trucks though. Most of those owners think their twenty year old dump truck with more than a million miles and drive trains they overhauled themselves “recently” is worth at least a hundred G.
Can only wish got a gig like that years ago. Basically been out of the business long enough lost touch of all the changes after 97. Still all too many looking for instant gratification of buying another’s worn slick machinery gonna cut that fat hog in their dreams. Hard to contend with those that have not the funds for that inspection nor really the machines of note. Hat is off to you for dealing with that.
I do all of the mechanical work on my equipment. I own a boat and do all the work on it. When people find out I know what I'm doing everyone thinks I should help them out for a BEER. Then they are upset when I say no.
Oh boy-The old beer payoff. Tell them-Do I look like a homeless person with sign saying { I will work for beer}. It's {Cash there pal and I want a wheel barrow full for this job.}
Right now it's really bad, IMO anything that's worth anything never gets advertised- Trucks, equipment, pickups. What does come up there's someone with a stack of cash waiting as the sun comes up over the horizon.
I'll pick you up a case of beer, what do you drink? I'm not a beer drinker I take pride in my work and think I charge a fair rate for it. Which allows me to purchase the better liquors, and food, and clothes, and pay the electric bill.....
As of today FedEx has failed to deliver or lost a total of 6 parcels to me since Dec. 14. UPS has been here 4 of the last 7 workdays.
If it can be damaged or lost FedEx will complete the job.
Does that mean it only runs in the sunshine?
Solar charger to keep the batry chaged!!
I need a jelly fish launcher! Better be full auto. We're gonna need a lot of jellies lol.
Need a bigger loader
If it was turned around what ever is pulling it would be a ad for ford, chevy, guts glory ram. Where are the 4' side boards? It's not properly loaded till wheels on trailer have negative 30* camber.
Watched the Quarry loader in a 844G Deere load one of those, Guy said "Fill It", so he did, broke two opposing corner spring mounts off frame!!!! And YES he had added Plywood and 2x side panels to get MORE in it.
To some folks go to extremes with everything they do-like a load of 3/4 crush. Same people have to have a 1/2 lb of butter on their pancakes and it shows.
Loader kid said can load 22 ton of Inch minus in Two Scoops, little dump trailer had rock flowing from all four corners with ONE bucket full. Fills that Star I drive typically in Two Buckets, 24yd bed, This was the THIRD Smallish Trailer I had seen him flatten.
Well he's keeping a good average. lol
I didn't get a picture of the old square body Chev 4x4 that came in driver says "load 'er up". Tailgate down must have been 1/2 yd on it. We were laughing too hard to take pictures.
Working on old equipment is interesting Yesterday guy that's working with me is bitching "who designed this? I can't get a wrench on it" I look at it- it's because someone put it on backwards, probably in 1979, and everyone has just bitched about it and put it back on the way it was ever since. Turn it around, zip zip done.
I've been working at the quarry getting things ready to start crushing next week. I've got my spiral pad just for him keeping notes, hours, what we stole parts from, etc.- it's like 8 pages right now. Every time I talk with the owner it's " Oh yeah, we need to look at the...." Making a list of the things that don't need attention or had parts borrowed will be way less writing.
Petro products are hard to get around here, nothing in stock, no 5gal at all, and crazy (like double) price increases. I got some hydraulic off Sinopec Lubricants USA, delivered to my door. No problem, price OK, right out of Texas. At the bottom of their web page- In 2021 Beijing purchased $52.4 billion worth of crude oil 700,000 barrels per day from the U.S. Per day! Right out of our ground, through our refineries, into their buckets, and back to us. Bragging about it. Profanity laced tirade If I'm going to be forced to support 'elite' & political corruption I'm doing it for half price. No election is going to change it, electric vehicles will be worse. Things are too far gone. I'm done. I've had it with current times and the lies being told. End of thread.
Don’t throw the towel in yet… lot’s of young Americans over in SE Poland at this moment that would love to have such aggravations to deal with…they hang in there…we should too. Regards, Bob