2014 BS and Chat Thread!

[1STGENFARMBOY]

Thats awesome news Ike, It joys me beyond words to spend time with my grandkids, I was really busy working when my own kids were small and didn't spend what I feel like now was enough time,
don't make that same mistake.

[DMan1198]

So as much as I like flying in the choppers fly in jobs kind of suck. This morning was good. Within a few minutes of arriving at the takeoff site our pilot shows up, and off we were to the booster site. Work went smoothly, and nothing unexpected happened. Then we waited for 3 hours or so for the pilot to come back, so in the end a 9 hour day was 12 hours. Oh well double time is nice

[PToombs]

Sounds like that went well for you! What do you do?
I had an easy one yesterday myself. I drove to a job to service an excavator, job foreman yelled at me and said I was supposed to be there the day before, even though my boss talked to the machines owner that morning. He said they needed it for that day and today, and I could come back after 4 pm or Saturday. (NOT!) I said ok, and drove back to the shop. Guy got billed a little over $200 and I had a nice hours drive to the city and back.

[1STGENFARMBOY]

But right at first you wanted to give him an attitude adjustment with a tire iron....right.......or at least I would have wanted to.

[DMan1198]

Yeah it was really not a bad day. I work as a heavy duty mechanic where we run service trucks. We service the engines, pumps, and compressors that run the oil patch around here

[oldestof11]

Between my job, my side job(s), and school, I am whipped.

At my main employment:

Big inspection on Sept 3rd, breaking ground on a huge addition to the main factory, broke ground for an addition to a pole barn for company vehicle parking, renovating the original factory that was sold for a police department/laundormat that was bought back to make into labs, broke ground for 2 more offices at the warehouse, and breaking ground for the new 2xx' by 550' by 30' warehouse. All to be done by winter. Now add in the normal weekly building maintenance, upgrades to certain places (new elevator at the small plant), and sith that breaks, 45 hours week doesn't seem enough.

Then I have my in-laws place. 40 something acres to be maintained, 7 in hardwood trees. My wife's sister and her BF went to college so what took 4 people (myself, the sister in-law, father in-law, BF thingy) is now to be done by 2. However the 2 mowers keep breaking! So I am 1 week behind (6-8 hours) on the mowing there and the stupid zero turn breaks again. It has one of these:

to hold in the caster for the front left wheel on the deck. Just replaced it and had 4 hours of use. Fricken pin disappeared and it ate the new caster. $160 down the toilet. The bolt that goes through the caster to U shaped fork that it sets in is hollow and has a METRIC grease zerk. Ain't nobody that has those. That puppy is $40 itself and it got scalped. The U shaped metal, cut damn near in half. Blades? Fine. I just sharpened them. Hard plastic wheel is gone.

So I use the older loader tractor with the 60" finishing 3pt mower. Left brake is no longer braking. Battery dead because someone killed the tractor without switching the key off. Went to fill up with fuel, no fuel.

My backyard hasn't been mowed in 3 weeks and I have corn from a stupid squirrel growing back there. I keep the front yard somewhat trimmed but still, I'm behind.

Then I have been having fire fighting school 1 night and Saturday. Not including training nights at the fire station.

My truck needs a front suspension, tires, paint, sheetmetal, bondo, prayer, to be sold, to be kept, I don't know what the frack I am thinking. I should just buy this beauty and make the truck set. $3200 in truck crap or $2500 in car needing only tires. Comes with a rebuilt engine.

[Tacoclaw]

You could pay a machine/fab shop $160 (probably less) to make those casters out of whatever stuff you wanted, as heavy as you want. Just from your description, some 1/8-1/4" strap cut/bent into the U, a bolt welded to it drilled/tapped to whatever thread, and whatever caster wheel you wanted out of McMaster Carr.

Hell, they could turn you some casters out of solid aluminum/steel if you wanted.

[Tacoclaw]

I'll also note that having a simple washer on that setup, roughly as wide as the hole the bushing is pressed into, would probably solve your lost-pin problem.

[dazedandconfused]

I safety wire the snap pins shut to avoid that problem

[oldestof11]

They're getting bolts and lock nuts when the new one arrives.

[peobryant]

Anyone know how much a mechanically sound (good engine and tranny) but otherwise rusty pos '84 Mercedes 300D would go for? The passenger rear caliper and brake line blew a couple weeks ago (as I was 45+ minutes away from home, that was a scary drive back) and the car simply isn't worth my time or money anymore. It only has 186,xxx miles on it and the engine and tranny are in good shape so I'd hate to scrap it. I listed it on Craigslist for $1k but I'd be happy to get $600.

[DMan1198]

So yesterday I had the opportunity to look through the paperwork for one of the engines we work on (we were looking for filter numbers for its gearbox. The thing itself is 1 of 2 in North America, and the only one in the world run by a ng engine) anywho we didn't find what we were looking for, but I did find the receipts for it. The one on the front was a little over 2.8 million. The others were between 20 and 400 thousand

[oldestof11]

Parker. Rusty POS mercedes are listed everywhere for $1000-$1500.

[PToombs]

Jon, just tap the hole out to NPT thread and put in a regular zerk. I do it all the time at work. And like Levi said, a washer will spread the load and help take the strain off the clips. Or bolts or what ever you put in there.

Ducati, that's some pricey stuff right there! And talk about specialized, 1 of only 2 in NA? Wow. Are parts readily available for it?

[DMan1198]

For the engine it's not too bad. It's just a standard Waukesha 7042, but the gearbox and screw are a different story. A set of lobes cost a half million a piece, and require a 1 year wait time, so they can cure. The seals on either end are 60k a piece, and there's 4 of them. All it comes from Germany, so that's another part of the wait time. When it gets aligned a crew from Quebec get flown out, and when they do the actual alignment they kick everyone out, so we don't see the measurement (I may or may not know it though)