Shade tree mechanic! Whatcha workin on.

[Resonator]

You do know Doc there are dump trucks for sale out there newer than 1976...



Project I got called in to help on last weekend...

My customer with the all electric pickup wanted to mount the body of his newly painted Model T onto the chassis. Took 5 guys and 2 forklifts (maybe overkill ), but we got the pieces "married" together.

[gspren]

Pat McManus devoted a story to sequences, and the vortex. He knew of that which he spoke😊

That is probably where our use of the term originated, I've read many of his stories and even a book or two.

[doc henderson]

yeah res, I do not even see the dump bed on that ol thing!     sweet ride.

[Don P]

I think Henry had put a dump bed on one in the buildup to WWI.

[Resonator]

No dump box going on that one. I think he's putting a rumble seat on the back, that'll be the only "cargo" it will haul.
Have heard of farmers back in the day cutting the bodies down to make them into pickups (or going a step further and making them into tractors).

[Don P]

 I meant to reply to that. We can buy a cab and chassis easily nowadays and have it fitted out.  In the early years they were factory building that as an engine bay to the firewall and chassis and then a coachbuilder of some level did the cab and the rest of the body. I think that build was called a model TT.

This came the other day, a 12 qt 12V electric/ hydraulic pump.


I made it to the hydraulic shop today for hoses;


and hit the go button



This is the upper cylinder connection and 2 of those 1" blocks with a 1" hole



In the background left you can see a partially painted quarter of a tank with some 3" channel welded to one edge. I've made 2 for the sides, still need to find the headache end.

I had to loosen the hose and push to get it to go down. It will be heavier but I'm going to wish I had bought a setup with power up and down.  I'm fighting too much geometry I think.

[Don P]

Time for dinner and a movie but got it to here today... I need a better grade of worn out battery, that pump is a 200 amp draw  .



Welding on a lined water tank probably isn't the best and it brought another thread to mind. I remembered something today and someone was talking about their wire not sticking. Flux and solid core run opposite polarity.

[mudfarmer]

That is turning out real nice for a scrap rig 

Re: mig, working for a guy that asked me to take some stuff home and weld it. Well there is a brand new looking Lincoln in the corner of the shop??? Yeah but I bought it 10 years ago and it doesn't work! Won't weld, had a welder buddy look at it and he said 110 migs are all junk anyway. I swapped the wires and it still welded like a new one should (great)

[thecfarm]

I had a 110 welder for a while. did great!!
But could only weld about 15 minutes at a time and then it would kick out and I would have to wait for it to cool off.  
No sense in cutting all the metal for a project. 
Needed something to do when it kicked out.
Bought a 220 when I moved here. Can weld for as long as I want now. 

[mudfarmer]

The duty cycle is not great but a 110 flux core glue gun is a redneck's good buddy in a pinch or otherwise. My Lincoln is 22 years young and has fed miles and miles of wire, used and abused but worth every penny.

[doc henderson]

Still forging ahead on the ol dump truck.  4 days of temps over 100.  the safety shirt alarm went off.  the sweat lines met in the middle.   The brakes are together and just need bled.  the carb is still not right, and I am sure it is simple (when I find the problem) as it ran great prior to replacing the accelerator diaphragm.

[TimW]

Doc, you suppose to drink the beer.  Not pour it on your shirt.

[doc henderson]

I go the long way.  I drink it then it pours out on my shirt and on the ground!  

[Magicman]

I will be shade tree turning a couple of wrenches tomorrow morning.  My sawmill blade drive belt chirped yesterday morning so it gets adjusted under a Beech tree, so shade it is. 

[Hilltop366]

Looks like you have good tilt angle to get the stuff out of the box.

I made a 4'x8' dump trailer once for behind a tractor it had a single 3" cylinder and with the cylinders placed like yours with the rod towards the back of the dump bed and the cylinder to the front of the frame, it would not lift much so we ended up switching them around so the rod was attached to the bed towards the front and the cylinder end towards the back of the frame. Looked odd but would lift way more. It also would stand the box straight up but then would not lower on its own hooked up as a single acting cylinder so we got a second hose and made it power up and down. Your cylinders have quite of bit more angle to them when closed so probably not going to be a issue.

[caveman]

My primary GPS on my boat quit working a few weeks ago. It is obsolete and Garmin does not make an antenna that is designed for it anymore.  Anyway, a Garmin 19x antenna should work with it if we solder in a resistor wire and do everything just right.  The instructions that came with the antenna were vague and the internet info was questionable.  I'll call the tech guy in the morning and hopefully he has the patience to talk me through it. 

The biggest challenge is getting into the console of my 89 Proline.  The opening is 9 3/4"x 20 something.  I went into it twice and needed help to get out the second time (too many biscuits).  I used to own a Dusky and two grown men could enter the console and sit on buckets and work on wiring or steering.  This boat requires an elf or a contortionist to change a fuse or add an electronic device. 

The price was right, and it has caught a lot of fish, but DanG, what a Pita.


Thankfully, JMoore was there to move my Gerber tool to a position that would allow me to escape, otherwise I would have exited without anything on below the waist. 

[TimW]

If I went in there a lot, I would enlarge the hole and make a new cover.

[beenthere]

Caveman
Can you send in a daughter to do the job? 

[chet]

otherwise I would have exited without anything on below the waist. 

sure glad ya didn't hafta post dat photo    

[barbender]

 Magic would've 😂

 Thankfully, I am of a size that someone else usually gets volunteered for those "restricted access" areas.

[caveman]

I have had my youngest daughter go into the console to do some tasks before.  She did not get home until late last night and it was so hot inside there that I would not have asked anyone else to go in there anyway.  

Barbender, I'm not really a tiny fellow and I'm certainly not built to be going in and out of tiny hatches.

[RetiredTech]

The 4wd went out on my Branson Tractor again last week. The last time it went out it spent a month in the shop but only cost a little over $500 to fix. I decided to to give it go myself this time. I was very disappointed at what I found while tearing it down. The mechanic must have had a hangover that day. The bolts holding the lower half of the right-hand final drive were all loose, half to point of falling out. You cant see them when the tire is on the tractor. They are recessed into the wheel. After I opened up the axle I discovered I needed a bigger set of snap ring pliers. A trip to Natchez and I had a pair of 12" snap ring piers that made an impossible job easy as pie. I then discovered that I had to remove both axles to be able to remove the differential. After the left axle was removed I found three of the six blots holding the ring ear to the differential were laying in the bottom of the axle casing. The other three were there too, but only about half as long. Once I finally got it all taken down I found that three bolts had just fallen out and the other three had sheared off in the differential. Well the bolts were  not the correct ones for the application. They were too long and did not have a shoulder to take up the small amount of clearance in the ring gear. They added some lock washers to try to keep them from coming out again, but obviously that didn't work. I bought some more bolts locally and cut them to the correct length just so I could put it all back together again. I'll have to do this all over again at least one more time to put the correct bolts in. I couldn't find any metric shoulder bolts. I had to drill out 2 of the broken bolts but got lucky with the third one, I used a couple picks to worry it out. It's all back together and working again now. During the tear down I discovered that both tie rods are worn completely out on the hydraulic end. I knew one was bad but didn't realize how bad it really was. It's a wonder they haven't turned loose already. I found a dealer that can get the parts I need so I'll get them all ordered today. It's still going to be over $500 for all the parts I need along with the cost of the pliers and 2 gallons of oil. But I know what I've got now and it was only down a couple days instead of a month. At least the tractor is still usable until they come in. I really can't do without it anymore.

[YellowHammer]

I am amazed at the incredibly small access port!  I'm surprised the factory techs didn't mutiny and keel haul the designer!

Installing an NEMA0183 antenna is a little black magic, but reliable once you get it working.

[Resonator]

Thankfully, I am of a size that someone else usually gets volunteered for those "restricted access" areas.

And I'm usually the smallest (and youngest) guy on the construction crew, so guess who is volunteered (or voluntold) to do those jobs...?  
Like to crawl up into the roof, through the truss chords and insulation, to put in solid blocking to hang a chandelier.

[caveman]

Good deal on getting your tractor back in action.

I'm going to look for a bigger hatch.  We gave up on it last night and I read some more instructions from a captain I found on another site.  After I got everything grounded and powered up I was anxiously awaiting the GPS to find satellites.  It did not, so I hauled it outside of the shop and before I could get back into the boat, it had acquired satellites.  The last time it had a location was at Anna Maria Island, which is 66 miles away by crow.

I dread going back into the console to tidy up the wiring and may try to do an adequate job through the hatch.  Either today or tomorrow it'll get a new water pump impeller.  



I really did not expect this to work but to my surprise it did.  All of the connections were soldered, liquid taped, heat shrinked and liquid taped again.  Hopefully there will be no corrosion issues.

YellowHammer, I suspect that they originally wired this boat before the console was installed.  Several years ago, when my uncle owned it, we rewired quite a bit of it.  There is a 3" chase pipe under the floor that has a joint that someone did not put enough glue/cement on at the factory which makes pulling wires a real treat.  I always try to pull and leave a string any time I remove a wire.

Boats always seem to require some attention, especially old boats used in salt water.