Weekend Engineering! Part Two

What's the scale of that inflatable?

Not sure! This is the first year that I'll be doing an inflatable, and the demo of it was too high to get a proper idea of how big it really is. My parents have been using them for several years now (because they're getting older / lazier) and I'm going to try jumping on the bandwagon and adding one to my yard's repertoire.

Taking the three boys out to get a tree. We get a real tree every year and they decorate it.

Then I'll put up some small decorations outside. Our neighbor goes overboard every year, so I don't even try to compete with him.

Unfortunately, I have to work most of Saturday.

Alas, I've gone the way of the artificial tree. Luckily, I can tag along with my lady friend as she gets her tree this weekend. There's something strangely satisfying about fighting all the needles in order to get all the ornaments / lights / garland / whatever else is hip this year up

The home appliance deities have again smiled upon me, and this weekend I am replacing bearings in an electric clothes dryer. I am considering a CR4 username change, maybe to Applianceman.

I am hoping that this can be accomplished without shooting arrows through the door of the dryer, as I have used all of the available refrigerator magnets to cover the holes created during the recent fridge repair.

I feel your pain. July 4th, MIL's oven element burned out, so we had early fireworks and I got to replace the element. Thanksgiving Day, I was putting the dressing in the oven for her and dripped cold dressing juice on the oven door window (duly preheated to 400) and it cracked, so now when we go for Christmas I get to replace the window.

My wife wants to get a tree, (yuck), which I'll probably get forced into. Otherwise, I've got a "death wobble" going on, on the front end of my GMC pickup. I changed out the idler arm and pitman arm, (which were bad), but it didn't fix the problem. Onward................

How are the tires?

They look perfect. But that's next on the list. It might be internal separation, so I'm going to pull them and have them put on a balancer.

Darn! I just remembered. I have to return the ball joint separator to the parts place or they charge me for it.

Is the wobble constant or when you brake?

It's constant and gets worse with speed. I'll get it. I changed out the bearings a couple of years ago, but considering that all of the steering and suspension components are original, (1986), it's due for new everything.

I had to remedy the death wobble on my E150 last weekend. I hope I never touch a ball joint press again.

Was it the ball joints?

I know mine need replacing...........tie rod ends too.

Yes, it didn't bother me too much around town but when I was on the highway it would not track straight and felt like a wheel was about to fly off. Steering is pretty tight now, considering it has 186,000 mi. on it, so I guess the other stuff is okay for now. My back is still feeling the effects of that ball joint press though. Fortunately all I have to do this weekend is split a bunch of firewood.

I didn't use a ball joint press for the idler and pitman arms. Just torqued them down tight, loosened the nut, and retorqued to the right value. But after I get everything changed out I'll need an alignment anyway, so I'll just have them check everything over while they're doing it.

Being kind of lazy, and averse to back pain, I split wood every day................but only what I need for that night.

These were the upper and lower ball joints on the steering knuckles. It takes the press, some wedges, a "bigger" hammer, and a few choice words to get them out. Putting the new ones in, just takes the press and a diet rich in "Wheaties"!

Oh joy! Can't wait.

I had some guy on an archery website saying I was offering 'Dangerous advice' when I stated that the 'spine' (that's fexibility) of an arrow shaft is not important in a crossbow.
A crossbow bolt doesn't have to flex round the bow and isn't subject to sideways forces when the string slips off the archers fingers at loose.

Anyhow to prove the point I made a paper crossbow bolt!
3 layers of ordinary printer paper rolled up as a tube...took most of a morning...
If you want to see a video of how it fared look here!
Del

A good clean shot, good work

My Dad just informed me he's is looking for a new clothes washer.

I told him I have a like new Maytag Neptune Washer/Dryer in storage he can have.

And since just the week prior, we were talking about cleaning out that storage, I also have a large couch and (2) easy chairs that I'll take to him. So it looks like I'll be cleaning out my storage unit of all the big items.

And Tonight, My sisters beau has his 65th birthday party. So hopefully I don't over do it and accomplish it all.

All of last week I was in one of our facilities on a large process expansion project.

After a 3 hour drive home, I thought being only 3:00 pm, I would take a little nap before I went to the birthday party my sister put on for her beau, I was really looking forward to it. When it was time to get up, my girlfriend could not wake me up, frankly I knew she was trying but I could not snap out of it.

Slept through the night, I got up for breakfast @ 8:00-8:30 after which I tried to do something but ended up going back to bed and slept all day Saturday, got up at about 8:00 pm and walked the dogs, still felt shaky. and went back to bed till 9:00 AM Sunday morning. did some minor stuff out in the garage and house, then went back to bed, the only thing I really did was watch the football game.

Traveling always did take some of the wind out of my sails, but this past week I was nothing but two sheets in the wind.

My dad has to wait another week to get my cloths washer.

I have a couple of finishing touches to put on my chicken coop so my better half can paint it.

My brother uses only chicken poop as fertilizer for his tomatoes.

They taste great! (The tomatoes, that is)

That's exactly why I built mine with wheels (tractor coop). I will use my JD tractor to move it to a new spot in the garden each week. By the spring my garden plot should be good to go.

Good thinking.

Go to my Grandma's, cut the floor slab in the basement & replace a rotted P trap in the floor drain.Then clean up the saw mess & play with concrete!

Absolutely nothing on my plate this weekend - but I bet my wife can fix that in a jiffy!

I just found out that we're going on a Christmas light, train ride tomorrow night, followed by family pictures on Sunday.............complete with a new shirt that I will wear once.

Is it January yet?

Hellloooo..................the world ends in a few short weeks.

Women!!!

You summed it all it up rather well.
Mrs Cat keep trying to get me to buy new trousers, I don't want 'new' trosuers... I want trousers I can wear walking in the woods, working on bows and ding the gardening.
'New' pah (spits on floor) the curse of modern times... selling people cr4p they neither want nor need
Del

Yeah. I always get a little pinched during the holidays. Every year it gets worse.

Now the stores have started overlapping Halloween and Christmas. It's just crazy.

I wish I could hibernate until it was over.

Still working on the new house/old trailer house relocation project.

The basement hole is mostly dug for the new house but ground freezing has pretty much ended that project for the year. However where I moved the old trailer to has dryer sandy soil that I can still break up with the old Case 1150 dozer we bought last summer so I have been backfilling around the trailer as I finish putting the skirting on.

When I am not working on the house projects I have a Allis Chalmers 8030 we picked up last summer that needs new lights a sound system and I am designing a cold start conversion to change it from using a ether start system over to an electric intake manifold grid heater (from a newer Dodge diesel pickup) that will go between the intake manifold and the flange on the pipe coming off the turbo.

I already refitted one on to the intake of the old Dozer and so far it lets me start the old monster down to around 20 F now!

Then the old Mazda pickup needs the engine overhauled being it tossed a rod bearing last summer. Plus I have a second 99 Ford F250 super duty that we picked up cheap that has a bad engine of which I am debating on either putting my high powered Ford 460 V8 into or my Allis Chalmers 2900 series industrial turbo diesel engine into. If I go the industrial diesel route its getting a high boost turbo and the injection pump will be reworked to get it up around 200 HP at 2800 RPM opposed to the stock setup of 120 Hp at 2200 RPM from when it used to be the power plant for a 1980's Gleaner M series combine.

Other than those projects the wife has a about a life times worth of pointless stuff she thinks I should do which as far as I am concerned wont get touched for a long time if ever.

Every holiday I try to do 3 times as much as I did last year. For the last 45 Years that has worked very nicely for me.

Oh! by the way 0 X 3 = 0. This drive the little wife nuts, when I do this. Might be why it's sooooo much fun, LOL.

I'm on my third weekend trying to get a new snowblower attachment installed on my Craftsman tractor. The blower itself is one basic assembly, but they sell you 3 boxes full of hardware to fit any tractor known to man!! Got it together, but I had two boxes full of spare hardware that I don't need.

I'm down now to putting on wheel weights on the back tires. Not a store-stocked item. Have to order them in. After asking her directly, the sales lady at Sears assured me that they sell them in pairs, but alas no, no, no, no, they come individually. Sooo, after running back there to get this straightened out (she gave me a second one for free for my inconvenience!!) they have no more in the warehouse - back order. Maybe I'll have it done by springtime. We'll see......

• New cam belt and an oil change for the car.
• Put up seasonal decoration around the bothy.
• People round for dinner Friday evening.
• Dental appointment.
• Collect a parcel from the Post Office.
• Collect the missing grill pan tray for MiL's new closing-down-sale oven.
• Take a large lump of concrete, the knackered tyre and the damaged wheel rim and some other stuff up the dump civic amenity site for recycling.
• Attend a boogie-woogie piano evening with friends.
• Then it's a day's permanent way maintenance at the local volunteer-run heritage railway.

Will that do?

Weekend tasks (I'm single so no honey do's):

1) Got peg oil in so I can finally tune my new (cheap) violin and see if I have any aptitude for playing the thing. Quickly proceeded to see the tailpiece shatter while tightening strings. An apparent defect in the manufacturing!! Ordered new tailpiece.

2) Beautiful day Sunday so thought I'd take the motorcycle out for a ride. Cranked it up and proceeded to put on my equipment while it's warming up. All of a sudden it sputters to a stop and I find a significant pool of gas under the bike.

End result - go back to bed and wait for spring.

Hooker

We put our bikes in storage a couple weeks ago. I'm skiddish enough about going out in a light drizzle, and we're already getting hit with some sporadic snow flurries. Any idea of what might be wrong with it?

What might be wrong with what... New York?

^{Oh come on, I'm just kidding}

What might be wrong with what... New York?

Do you have time to sit down for a tale

All things considered, we've gotten less snow this year than usual. I went to visit my brother out in Potsdam and it was warm enough to go out sans a coat. At this time last year, they already had quite a few inches on the ground.

I digress, I was wondering about the bike!

Ain't it grand!

Fargo, North Dakota, USA: This morning it was 46°F at 7:00AM CDT, and no snow anywhere. Average cold and warm temps here are about +6° and +22°F, with a fair amount of snow on the ground.

^{Oh, no... fodder for the GW and anti- GW crowd}

We had the second warmest November on record here. Still running the AC at my house.

Same here in Wisconsin, this week is going to be pretty mild and later on this week getting back to near normal cold.

We won't be dipping below 40°F here in Troy, I'm afraid. The ten day forecast has rain coming in December. I personally love the fluffy stuff, so this is disheartening

/sigh

WOW. That must be a real treat. How hot will it get during the day?

I revised my comment to say 40°F instead of 40°C I'd be highly, highly concerned if we hit 40°C.

As for tomorrow, I'd be surprised if we didn't end up hitting the upper 50's... Fahrenheit.

"Still running the AC at my house."

I am still running AC at my house too. Whilst working on the clothes dryer this weekend it measured 119.9/119.9 VAC @ 59.9 Hz. I believe that is pretty common around here.

Not exactly sure, but I have a feeling that ethanol probably ate out a float bowl seal or some other seal on one of the carbs.

On the other hand, a little research shows a recall on 2007 and 2008 Shadows for a faulty fuel diaphragm. Mine is a late 2006 so I need to check that out.

Hooker