Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux

[fergrn37]

Well, not anymore!

[m3a1]

I'm rather sure they won't miss them...

[m3a1]

Rumors of my demise have been grossly exaggerated.....

[m3a1]

So many things to do....so little time. I spent a couple of days working up there without Señor Bill who had been getting ready to have 'A Procedure.'

Part of his time away for the festivities has been spent doing a little 'prep' to make ready for said 'Procedure'...

plus the day it took to DO said 'Procedure'...

plus a day to RECOVER after said 'Procedure'.

Need I say more?

So, with the Billmeister in abstentia, I busied myself recovering a trailer which had formerly been some sort of smallish office trailer for a job site. Imagine Ted Kazinski's cabin with wheels and you'd probably be thinking WAY too upscale. But, if you looked past the 3.5 highly flexible walls, a remarkably porous roof, and 75% of a floor, you might see that the trailer chassis was in remarkably good condition, equipped with a narrow mobile home axle (rather than those ridiculously wide mobile home axles that have been littering the place since long before Day One of the scrapping project), plus a tolerably good coupler.

The problem? No Account Boyfriend had managed to trap the trailer in between the flea market barns by dumping some rather largish piles of tree trimmings in front of and behind it. All that, and one spectacularly flat tire which just happened to be on the trimmings pile side of a very narrow path out of there.

I had been patient on the matter of the eventual removal of the piles for some time (naturally, that removal never happened) but because I was lucky enough to find two CRAZY GOOD wheels and tires for the trailer (an actual, honest-to-God, matched set!) this day would be the day for pulling the trailer out. So, I set upon the nearest of the piles of trimmings and did what I do best which is to just plug away it the job a bit at a time until it got done. Facing the second pile, one that was a far more daunting prospect, I determined that the best course of action was to pick at it a bit until I produced a sufficiently navigable width between it and the barn to pull the trailer onto and through the trimmings and then out to freedom... come hell or high water. Harming the flat tire was not exactly something I had to worry about.

That was the entire plan...simple, straightforward, effective.

Longfellow made his way back to the trailer where I lifted its tongue with a rock jack and backed Longfellow into position. Goodness, it was all going so well! With everything hooked up, Longfellow gave a tug and we were off, until I reached the racetrack driveway that surrounds the barns. Meanwhile, No Account Boyfriend had started in on some ridiculously vague project; one that kept him busy at it all day and produced equally vague results....and effectively blocked the most logical path for me to get the trailer out of there and back to the yard. So, rather than turning left, I turned right. I made two absolutely impossible turns with just enough room to spare; a small miracle considering the combined length of the Longfellow and the trailer.

Then I went, humpty-bumpty on a flat tire, around to the long side of one of the barns, to a place where I could get hooked up to some electrical power. Thus, I began the business of jacking things up and swapping out wheels and tires. Mobile home wheels and tires are the most fabulously easy things to change, especially with an impact gun. I just love em. This tire change would be the easiest thing I did all day.

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And, since I had my extension cords strung out, I took the time to fire up the death wheel and trim up some structural steel I had recovered from the yard days before and had stacked nearby. Nice Lady would not be savvy enough to understand the 'why' of salvaging salvaged steel rather than scrapping it.... until the day came when I would be called upon to whip up something or other, using that recovered steel instead of her having to go out and buy materials. Like the man said, "A penny saved is a penny earned."

Things like that she'll just have to trust my judgement on.

With all the cutting done and with No Account still blocking things, I made the grievous error of trying to make my way to the yard around the short ends of the barns, opposite the ends where I had initially come out. Now, the problem became that the ends of the barns each had a portes-cochère and I would have to pass beneath both of them to get to where I was going. Silly me, I eyeballed the first one and it surely looked like it was do-able. Having no means of actually measuring the thing, I simply drove up just short of the trailer going beneath it. There, I stopped, got out and finding sufficient clearance, started forward. What I had failed to detect earlier was the fact that the trailer was just a little low on the tongue and so a little bit high in the rear. As I moved forward under the portes-cochère the rear of the roof contacted the beam on the leading edge just a little bit and I heard only the slightest scraping noise....but all was well because the grade was declining and the trailing edge beam was even higher than the first.

All was well....or so I thought.

Portes-cochère Number 2 was much lower because of some goof, ad hoc, Gomer Pyle supporting arrangement someone had made from sucker rod. That stuff hung WAY down....so, I wasn't going under that. Nope.

No how. No way. Fudge!

Backing up very gently revealed my dilemma. I had slipped under portes-cochère Number 1 going forward because the slope of the roof was such that when the roof made contact with the leading edge beam of the portes-cochère, the beam simply allowed itself to be pushed up just a fraction, because it was in bad shape and sagging in the middle (just like me) and it had flexed enough let me squeeze beneath it. HOWEVER....going backwards was NOT going to happen without raising it up manually.

Fabulous.

And I was alone.

DOUBLE Fudge.

I was trapped and if I couldn't get UN-trapped, I would have to reduce that cabin to match sticks, RIGHT THERE. Grrrr!

So, I did what every red blooded American farm boy would do. Out came the rock jack and I walked around until I found something suitably long...and that happened to be an aging 2x4, which, like everything else, was laying and decaying on the ground. PERFECT! Up went the jack with the 2x4 stood on end on it, until it got up against the bottom of the beam. Once some pressure was on it, naturally the jack wanted to go one way and 2x4, the other. So I wrapped the mast of the jack and the 2x4 together with a ratchet strap and cinched it down firmly. With successive raises of the jack the strap just got tighter and tighter and...yup...that beam went up.

Fellas, I moon-walked that trailer right out of there just like I was Michael Jackson.

Victorious, and feeling far more cautious about getting this monster to the yard, I ended up going off the property with the whole thing and around the perimeter to come back in via the Nice Lady's driveway and on through to the yard where I parked the whole thing right next to a pile of burnables.
Because the current plan is to take that cabin off (by brute force if necessary) right down to the chassis. Nice Lady will end up with a sellable trailer that someone else will have no trouble finishing if they have a little vision.

The things I do to put just a couple bucks in that woman's pocket!

My day's pay was a small, brass outboard motor propeller and one very worn out, unknown brand, intermediate-sized pulley block that will be absolutely perfect for the wrecker. It had been lost to the sands of time, and now it is found. It's not a top quality piece of kit, like a McKissick would be (McKissick is a brand I favor) but it's not a cheap one, either. So, I laid claim to the poor, tattered thing, took it home and inspected it.

The sheave pulley's pin rattled around in its bronze bearing like a ping-pong ball in a boxcar. It had not been shown any love (or lubrication) for a very long time. So, I ordered a replacement bearing from Oilite and then followed up on that by sourcing another, lesser-quality bearing locally, just to double down. Now, with a little tidy up and maybe a touch of paint, this pulley block with be another nice piece of kit to be used in my continuing efforts to be moving things that are really too darned heavy to move.

Lovely.

Cheers,
TJ

[m3a1]

Evaporust. It works!

Here's my take on the product ...

My test of the Evaporust product was simply to take a bunch of rusty twist bits and taps (and one thoroughly rusty old wrench, tuck them into a glass jar and top the whole thing off.

I let it sit, undisturbed, for 48 hours. The manufacturer and other reviewers of Evaporust said, Leave your stuff in as long as you care to. Evaporust is not an acid.

Blah, blah blah-blah, blah-blabitty-blah.

Now that was...ahh...way back on March 20th. And I left those remaining twist bits and taps in the Evaporust sauce until April 4th. Fellas, that Evaporust was BLACK. I got myself a little fryer basket and a catch basin and dumped the bits out. One standout twist bit was absolutely scott free of any sort of residue (which was unexpected)...and the black stuff IS residue. Residue comes off the pieces easily with a toothbrush; using a little soap doesn't hurt and the briefest follow-up with a ride on the wire-wheel makes them very, VERY pretty. I mention this because Phosphoric acid will turn rust black but it will usually remain strongly bonded to the base metal. I cannot explain what the Evaporust chemical process is, but I like it.

And, by some odd chemistry, the Evaporust also did a slam-dunk on degreasing whatever deep-fryer grease had bonded itself to the little fry basket...which was weird because it had not been submersed in the stuff. It had only been used to strain out the pieces - a strange and unexpected result.

My next question THEN became, what happens to the pieces after they're out of the Evaporust? Are they prone to flash-rust? Left with the residue on them, will they rust, or stay nice? Alas, we are not going to get those answers just yet because with my many present responsibilities, I elected to hose down the pieces I had cleaned, using a silicone-based metal saver but, there a plenty of other jars of twist bits in the works, some re-using the blackened Evaporust liquid, some freshened up to 50-50 with clean Evaporust and some in 100% perfectly clean Evaporust. So, answers to those questions are in the works.

Work at Nice Lady's place continues, now more slowly and methodically. Scrappers have retasked their large machinery to more profitable matters and are due back at some point in the future for the final gleaning. Meanwhile, we are clearing things "to the baseboards"...just working along now, removing stuff to appropriate piles and finishing up the area with a clean sweep including raking and going over the freshly cleaned spaces with magnets so as to be able to call that space DONE. The big yard, however, is another matter altogether. The place looks like a bomb went off and blew 97% of the metal into the stratosphere...what remains, looks like the Ukraine.

One of the problems at Nice Lady's place is the presence of all the many cats and one angry peacock (which loves to roost on her golf cart...and, predictably, it poops peacock poop all over it). Peacock poop is especially nasty stuff, by the way but, it IS fun to say. Swear your grandkids to secrecy and then challenge them to say Peacock Poop ten times over and over again, really, really fast until their little lungs run completely out of air and they collapse into their breakfast cereal. Then sit back and watch your kids slowly lose their minds. Isn't being a grandparent wonderful?

Now, there are at least 50 cats roaming Nice Lady's place. 8 acres with 50 cats is 6.25 cats per acre. Except the clearing/scrapping process has left at least half that acreage devoid of anything capable of supporting the stuff that cats like to eat so, instead, let's call it 4 acres with 50 cats....which works out to 12.5 cats per acre. It's probably actually less than 4 acres because Nice Lady FEEDS all those cats and they hang pretty close to the feed trays and, like the lilies of the field, they neither toil, nor spin. What they DO is hang around there like a bunch of freeloaders waiting for the next handout, pooping, and you know...

making other little cats.

Assuming each cat poops once each day, over the course of any given year, that's 18,250 cat poops per year. Divvy that amount up, over 4 acres, that's 4,562.5 cat poops per acre, per year....so again, 12.5 cat poops per day, per acre. It adds up. Yeah, all that poop eventually dries up and mixes in with the soil but just a little wind makes all the dust and whatever is IN that dust around there...become airborne...

Airborne ALL THE WAY! Gawd!

So today, with the wind at 12 knots and gusting up to 22 knots, we elected to save our lungs and opt out of working at Nice Lady's place for the day. There are limits to what a man can tolerate. Frank's place was our next, best bet and I have been really wringing my hands over not having wrapped up the recovery of the 49 Ford in a timely manner. We loaded Cooper the Wonder Dog up and trucked over in order to, once again, slug it out with the trapped Ford chassis & engine. I got the death wheel out and after some prudent slicing and dicing, we disassembled the back half of the chassis and loaded those pieces up to be hauled off and scrapped.

Neatness counts.

We finished clearing the path for the remaining front half of the chassis to be dragged out of it's cage made of trees and piles of Frank's scrap metal and then we stopped the whole process just short of a pulling it to freedom in one screeching halt in order to return home....to install eight, heavy duty D-rings onto the deck of Peach because, what is now left of the 49 is going to be Peach's first official load and Peach needed tie-down points.....badly. On a steel deck completely devoid of tie-down points, there were plenty of holes that needed to be drilled and, for once, I just happened to have plenty of drill bits!

Cheers,
TJ

[raymond]

7 days since last update

I thought maybe you had given up on "Beverly Hillbillying"

Notice how I turned Beverly Hillbilly into a verb

[m3a1]

Yes, and sorry for that. We have been busy busy busy. Just a lot of scut work being done at this point. Even No Account Boyfriend has been getting in on the action. We have noticed certain items disappearing and then re-appearing on his personal loads for the salvage yard. Why should I care? He's actually helping us, even though he thinks he's helping himself and believes he's fooling us in the process. We're on to him and quite frankly, we're grateful for the help. I couldn't hire another set of hands for the pittance he's actually getting for his labor so the joke's on him.

I received a call from the fellow who bought the front clip from the 49 Ford Custom. Turns out he's a mover and a shaker on a Texas ghost town revival project and he's shown some interest in my 47 Ford Super Deluxe..so, that may be going to a new home once I harvest the engine and transmission from it. Cannot say with any assuredness that the deal will actually happen but, old cars, particularly those like the 47, are the jewels in the crown of the ghost town and the 47 would be a perfect fit. If it sells, will I miss it. Of course I'll miss it...but there's always something more interesting just around the corner, eh?

Today, we hooked Peach up to Bill's truck and with me trailing in Longfellow, we convoyed over to Frank's place. All the preparation for winching the front half of the chassis out through a narrow, dog-legged passageway was effectively for naught when it became apparent that, with my recent acquisition of several sheaves, I was very well equipped to simply lay some cable out, run it through the sheaves and pull the whole thing out in a zig zag fashion with Longfellow doing the work.

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So, we had some fun with all the new kit and just tinkered around with it; all of it being more play-time than actual work. The weather was glorious and it just felt right to be playing hooky from the scrapping project and having some fun. Everything worked out nicely and the sheave I had recently repaired (the red one) worked exactly like it should with the actual sheave (that's the pulley part) running straight and true. Once my prize was nearly out and lined up upon the lane through Frank's woods, we just turned Longfellow around and dragged the whole thing down that lane and out into a large open space, all lined up nicely and very much ready to go for a ride on Peach.

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Peach is a tipper trailer so there was very little to do but anchor The Billmeister's little portable winch (a 2000-pounder built to be hung on a ball hitch) on the front of the trailer deck by means of a chain and tilt the bed up. Bill had wanted to play with this winch and today would be the perfect day for it. I had been coming up with all sorts of ideas as to how to eventually mount a receiver for my ATV winch on the trailer but after today, there just seemed very little point in doing anything more than running a chain between the two front D-rings and hanging any small winch I might be using, on that. Peach is payload rated for about 1000 pounds so there is no need for anything other than an ATV winch. Easy peasy.

We hooked up to the transmission mount, put Bill's truck in neutral and brought the mountain to Mohammad, so to speak. Truck and trailer rolled backwards to the load and only then did we set the brakes. It was comically easy....that is, until it was time to pull the whole thing up, ONTO the trailer. Bill's winch began acting unhappy almost immediately, so we checked to ensure nothing was hung up (the trouble turned out to be the initial climb-over onto the trailer) then doubled the line over with a sheave. Observing service intervals, we pulled some more until it began acting unhappy again. So, we tripled the line over with another sheave and from then on it was all downhill with some minor side-to-side adjustments along the way. Actually, it was all UPHILL since the bed was tilted up...

...but you get the idea.

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Having good equipment is really my thing. Even when the equipment is old and ugly looking. In fact, I prefer it to be old and ugly looking. No pretty paint to be concerned with and most thieves would glance at it and assume it wouldn't be worth stealing. All I have to do is keep things clean and lubricated and then go straight to work. Sheaves, chains, cables, trailer...all look disparagingly ugly and all work absolutely perfectly....just like new. Don't let the rust hang you up, brothers...it's cherry!

Cheers,
TJ

P.S. I added a pic to the earlier post. Enjoy!

[m3a1]

Peach. The $100 trailer.

YES, I had to buy new tires, bearings, races (all of these things are consumables on any trailer) and of course the tie-down points I installed (which would have to be added to ANY trailer that didn't have them already) so, I STILL consider this to be a $100 trailer and one helluva deal.

IMG_8781.jpg

Magnetic lights complete the transformation from a junkyard relic to usefulness. Why magnetics? Because Peach is a tipper and there's really no suitable place for lights that doesn't place the lights at risk of damage. Add to that the idea that if Peach happened to be stolen, whoever stole it would be at additional risk of being pulled over for having no lights. Bonus!

Cheers,
TJ

[rickf]

Am I going to have to come down there and teach you rigging?! Look at your pull up onto the trailer and you will see right away why it was so hard. You were pulling the tail end down hard into the trailer bed. If you had hooked the chains under the frame it would have lifted the rear up off of the bed and slid right up with nothing but the front section dragging. Good thing Frank wasn't watching you!

[rickf]

Peach. The $100 trailer.

YES, I had to buy new tires, bearings, races (all of these things are consumables on any trailer) and of course the tie-down points I installed (which would have to be added to ANY trailer that didn't have them already) so, I STILL consider this to be a $100 trailer and one helluva deal.


IMG_8781.jpg


Magnetic lights complete the transformation from a junkyard relic to usefulness. Why magnetics? Because Peach is a tipper and there's really no suitable place for lights that doesn't place the lights at risk of damage. Add to that the idea that if Peach happened to be stolen, whoever stole it would be at additional risk of being pulled over for having no lights. Bonus!

Cheers,
TJ

I am guessing that you do not have to register small trailers in Texas?

[m3a1]

You assume too much. The downward load is nearly inconsequential with the deck at that angle especially with this being a smooth steel deck and the CG of that load well forward (in relation to the direction of the engine) of where it would be on level ground. I was able to lift the rear of the chassis with one hand so the balance was surprisingly light. No real reason to rig it any other way than the one involving the least effort.

And as I have said before, my back isn't what it used to be...

As you know, rigging is a bit like arguing over what is the best way to butter your corn-on-the-cob. There are many ways to do it but it's tough to say which is the best way. After all, it ain't...


ROCKET SCIENCE!

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The problem was the tie rod ends and the brake backing plates and other bits hanging down were getting up against the trailing edge of the deck.....which is why you see a rock jack there at the front. With just a little lift on the front X-member of the chassis all was well.

And yes, light trailers are registered in Tx. Haven't decided how I'm going to mount the LP and I'm not going to fast-forward on mounting it, only to have to do it over again.

Cheers,
TJ

[m3a1]

Today wasn't very interesting but we can't have Raymond having withdrawal symptoms. Kinda gave me a warm feeling knowing I was missed.

So here we go..

What went on today was just more of the same. We began with the 6'x6' platform (our imaginary grader) with it being used as a sled to cart off what had probably been a fairly nice slide-in camper at one time. We chained it up to Longfellow, pulled the thing alongside the camper, and with a heave, rolled the camper right over onto its side and onto the 'grader' and then without ceremony, dragged it over to the yard to the location where it could be disposed of best.

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I was right about using the platform as a grader. With the additional weight on it, really good things happen.

It was exciting to see the camper go because it was such an eyesore. That prompted me to begin a sort of purge all along the lane going through that area. Lots of little stuff needed to be picked up off the ground and deposited into Longfellow and then, with another load of largish things placed on the imaginary grader, I made my way back to the yard making stops in all the appropriate places; steel here, tires there, aluminum over there and a few sellable items up front.

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Around and around I went and I began to notice that the lanes were leveling out, giving the place a sort of finished look....which did much to assist us to get the 'look' we had been trying to achieve; that being a tidy, well-kept farm yard. There are still a lot of little places that need to be mucked out but we are definitely gaining headway and the doubters are beginning to become believers. Much work yet to do, along with the occasional and welcome little discoveries popping up here and there..

Cheers,
TJ

[Mark]

Makes me wonder if you will plant some grass in all the bare spots/areas after you get done rearranging stuff?But the ground doesn't look like good grass growing soil to me.

[m3a1]

Ha! I can't make weeds grow!

But you're absolutely correct about the soil. First off, it's caliche soil.

(you can Google that...)

I may not have mentioned the provenance of this place. It was an actual salvage yard, then it became an automobile junk yard, then Nice Lady and her husband bought it and it became his personal dumping spot. So with all that nastiness...and 50 cats doing their 'thing' I'd say that growing stuff there may be a pretty tall order.

Speaking of dumping, Vern (the fellow who rents the other barn and who runs his flea market out of it)...well, his enormous pile of junk outside that building hasn't grown...but it certainly hasn't gotten any smaller either. I suggested that Nice Lady consider upping his rent for the space his outdoors pile is consuming (money that might eventually cover the cost of having it carted away) or set him to removing it.

But I'm not going to deal with it.

Nope.

Cheers,
TJ

sed primum capulus bibimus

[m3a1]

Another day of scrapping. Señor Bill continues to be absent...something about taking a few days off to go shooting. Last report was, his brand new 12 gauge is beating his wrinkly old --- up a bit. So much for losing a lot of weight.

So, I continue plodding along, solo. *sigh*

Had things I wanted to accomplish today and, in good faith, I began them. Unfortunately, while I was pulling the scrap steel out of a tall bin, a cat exploded out of the thing and was going 27 different directions all at once and eventually leapt over my left shoulder and was gone. I peered over the edge (it's a really tall bin) and there were four brand new kittens, eyes not yet open.

CRUD

Since I have seen a few things, I know a few things and the Number One Rule is....no touchy. Number Two Rule is....back off. Number Three Rule is....get outta dodge on tippy toe and hope MomCat comes back. I observed all three rules but before I left, I restored some semblance of shade to the nest. At last report, MomCat did come back and all is well. Hopefully, she will see fit to move her brood to somewhere less in my way. If not, I'll find somewhere else to work.

Cheers,
TJ