Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux

[rickf]

Welcome to your new posting louie!

[Mr. Recovery]

charger, Is this what you are talking about?

I think he is talking about one more like this, my son got it from a shop he worked at because the timmer stoped working.

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[m3a1]

I know that camel joke! Haven't heard it in years!

So, in this age when almost EVERYONE has a smart phone (with a built in timer function) they gave up on a working battery charger because it's timer wouldn't shut it off automatically? We are in deep kimchee as a society.

Brought a Hossfeld #1 Universal Iron Bender home from the scrap project. It's a bit tatty but with a tidy up, it can (and will) be put back to work. I reckoned that, sooner or later, the dies would show up and, happily, they eventually did. Of course these machines have dies for almost any kind of project and no, I wouldn't be so lucky as to find a set with one of everything, but the basic set I found appears to be intact. Couldn't be more pleased.

I already have a cheap, knock-off that is offered by Harbor Freight and both these machines are an invaluable tools for making all sorts of unique, interesting and decorative shapes with metal. In fact, I would dare say that the Made In China version is every bit as good as the Hossfeld. Quite a bit of thought went into their design and once you get the hang of it, these machines make many jobs far easier.

Cheers,
TJ

[Mark]

I still use a flip-flop phone.But getting closer to buying a smart phone

[m3a1]

This thingy, after having had a piece cut off by this thingy,

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and then bolted to THIS thingy,

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and then THAT thingy, once it has been bolted to the whole other thingy

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becomes THIS thingy.

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Soon, the fun will begin.

And here's a bonus pic; a slightly better view of the old horse drawn grader.

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Cheers,
TJ

PS - If you're wondering what the base is from, go here...

http://vintagemachinery.org/photoindex/ ... px?id=4331

[Mark]

A portable band saw, we used it a lot in the line work bit, especially on the towers, substation.Well, on wood poles too, bolts too long.Beats the heck out of a hack saw that we used in the old days.

[m3a1]

That plate is actually a king pin plate off a semi trailer (one of the many odd pieces of scrap steel laying about) and the deep-cut bandsaw made short work of knocking down that king pin's height. If you look carefully, you can see I started cutting that king pin off at the height of the plate. I thought better of it and went to the band saw and put away the death wheel. Took off only what was needed to repurpose the plate. Not exactly pretty but it was all that was really necessary. It has been routinely over 100 degrees and I just didn't feel like going the extra mile with it.

Cheers,
TJ

[m3a1]

Now, THIS is a monster of a work bench. That's 3/16" steel plate with 1/4" steel legs. My little tipper trailer, Peach, serves me well once again. Having the ability to tip the bed made this work bench easy to load.

The work bench has a provision underneath for a drawer (now long gone) and part of one of the legs was cut off for some reason. I'll zip a new piece on and she'll be cherry. Can't wait to put this big guy to work!

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Cheers,
TJ

[rickf]

Tell me again HOW much property you have?!!!!! I would love to see where you are putting all of this stuff!

[m3a1]

Shhhhhhhhhh!

Loose lips sink ships...

Secret underground lair, perhaps?

[m3a1]

Got up today, watched the Good Doctor fall into bed, had my morning coffee and mused about what to do on the 4th of July 2022.

Thought about getting Dirty Gertie all gussied up and running her up and down Main Street just to 'show the flag', as they say.

But, I had some small projects to do first, one of which meant going across town to Home Depot so, I hopped in the ol' Suburban and when I got to Main Street, well, it might just as well have been 5AM because there was N-O-B-O-D-Y out there....

at ALL.

So, showing the flag wasn't going to be on the menu for today....at least where Main Street was concerned. Not going to all the trouble of getting all the goodies out for no one in particular. Heck, they even cancelled fireworks owing to that "abundance of caution" thing. How did we EVER get along in days gone by?

What to do?

What
to
do?!!

I reckoned the most patriotic thing I could do today was put my ranch pants on and git to work on Mister Bones. My half track has been waiting patiently for a very long time for some finishing touches in the engine compartment. So, I created, then connected the few final wires necessary to fire it up. Claiming it's ready to fire up is a pretty bold statement, considering all that might yet go wrong but, I think I've driven stakes through the hearts of 99% of my gremlins.

Will I start it today? Nope. Maybe tomorrow. In the mean time, here's a little pic of one SERIOUSLY GOOD LOOKIN' military vehicle!

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Not as nice as others I'm sure but, Mister Bones is mine.

All the best to you, my fellow Americans. Happy 4th of July. Long, may the stars and stripes wave!
TJ

[rickf]

We are WAITING!

[m3a1]

Okay. All those YouTubers who boast about starting up this, that, or the other thing ain't got NUTHIN' on me.

This morning, after FIFTEEN YEARS of sitting dormant, my half track fired up without much effort. Well, not much effort today, but yeah, there was plenty of preparatory effort leading up to it.

Oh sure, there were some hiccups this morning.

Chiefly, I had problems up front which is to say my winch was engaged at the half coupling and I didn't disengage it because the lever in the cab indicated nothing should have been going on up front, Unfortunately, that was not the case and there is NOTHING quite as relentless as a Tulsa PTO-driven winch. In baseball terms -

Here's the wind-up....annnnnnnd

THERE'S THE PINCH!

The cable wound around the half coupling control yoke until, BANG, the yoke was crushed into tiny little bits. Then the shoulder of the half coupling began taking nice bites out of the cable. Fortunately my natural curiosity kicked in...

What the HELL is THAT NOISE?!!

...(I thought the engine was coming apart) and then I caught on to the disaster that was unfolding and hastily put a stop to it. In the final analysis, I lost about 20" of cable and the yoke (which will kept so as to make a dandy little reminder about double, nay, TRIPLE checking stuff).

But BEFORE all that, once the engine caught (and died) I knew I had it licked. After a little coaxing, the engine caught and roared to life with several backfire pops punctuating my excitement as a few of the valves (probably those that were making all the trouble in the first place) finally got back into the swing of things. Temperature came up to 185 and hung there very happily. Oil was seeping past the seal on the oil canister so, YUP, I had oil pressure. How much was anybody's guess. My next investment will have to be an oil pressure gauge.

Then there was the matter of all the oil and Marvel Mystery oil and PB Blaster that had gotten past the valves and into the exhaust pipe. I had an impressive cloud of smoke going. What blasted out of the exhaust made the ground behind the half track look like somebody had run over a bucket of tar with a steam roller; a nice big oval of jet black on my nice white driveway. YIKES! That will have to be cleaned up!

Fuel pressure was a little low so, I got busy and set it higher. The new carb was set very much spot-on out of the box and throttle response was amazingly crisp.

Now the work begins. There will be a host of little gremlins that have taken up residence in the machine but, for all its size and weight, it's a simple machine to figure out when something goes sideways.

Speaking of size, SOMEONE has secretly added about 4" to my steering column during my long absence. Getting comfortable behind the steering wheel is just NOT going to happen. It's definitely not comfy like being behind the wheel of Dirty Gertie. Getting into and out of the driver's seat has become a real adventure as well. Good grief.

Anyway, Mister Bones is on the mend.

Cheers,
TJ

[m3a1]

In the spirit of getting things done from the long list of things that have been long UNdone, I jumped back into the project of restoring a large, 4' diameter drum fan back to usefulness; one that I bought for $10...without any rear screen, or motor for that matter. I had a proper motor on the shelf but there are cats around here and rather than see one our precocious, furry little friends chopped into mincemeat, I salvaged a screen from a military fan before the rest of it went to the scrap heap and I'm trimming it back for use on my fan.

This amounts to getting some fender washers and screwing them onto the fan's chassis, just as you would with any large fan screen and then taking the trimmed-to-fit screen and laying it on the washers and spot welding the screen supports to the washers. Prior to welding, I had to dip each washer into Muriatic acid to remove the galvanized coating (and then neutralize the acid, of course) but that went very quickly. Working with acid is always fun.

Now, with all as it should be, I have a great big ugly fan that moves a lot of air down through my work area and that provides some relief from the heat. What did YOU do today?

Cheers,
TJ

[m3a1]

As a result of the winch issue and the immobilized control levers for the transfer case, I decided to take a deeper dive into the half track because I would really like to be able to have that transfer case in the OUT position most of the time. HIGH/LOW selector lever was stiff and barely mobile. I found the IN/OUT selector lever felt like it was set in stone.

This vehicle was parked under cover for the whole period it was stored but every bit of that was on earthen surfaces and we know what that means to the underside of a vehicle. No matter how good the overhead cover is, humidity finds its way into the earth, collects and rises again when the conditions are right. Between that and the fact that the actuators that slide in and out of the transfer case are usually also dirty....well, you have a recipe for a whole lot of crud on something that is supposed to slide in and out of a hole that is only just big enough...with only moderate effort.

The other problem is that the selector levers pivot on a shaft and that assembly has no means of being greased which is strange to say the least. Still, I'm rather sure NO ONE in 1942 ever dreamed such a vehicle would still be in existence in 2022 so, maybe the attitude was, why bother with it?

Now, the transfer case levers are located very much on the co-driver's side. I have no doubt it was his responsibility to operate them and when they were new, they operated spectacularly well. Not so much 80 years later! So the central deck plate in the cab had to be taken up so I could get to the linkages. I elected to use my dandy new cordless impact to remove the bolts. Normally, I prefer using hand tools on this older stuff but this is not the first time I've had the deck off and with the heat of the day coming up (plus a small swarm of adolescent mosquitoes fluttering about) getting that part of the job quickly over and done with seemed the better part of valor.

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After a decent cleaning and a liberal application of PB Blaster (where it counted) I began working the levers. HIGH-LOW selector began coming around rather quickly. IN/OUT selector stubbornly refused to move so, out came the big leather mallet and I gently began bringing the selector back and forth. Didn't take long and the thing began to move very reluctantly and not in it's full range of motion. I believe that is a result of the guts of the transfer case being in exactly the wrong position.

So, I'm not forcing anything. I have plenty of time before I have to get the front axle of the half track down off its stands in order to put the thing in gear and move it just a little bit so I'll just use that time to let things soak up the lubricants. I may back off the retaining nut a bit and see if I can persuade the selectors to move laterally; only enough to allow more penetrant to get down to the shaft. Fingers crossed!

Cheers,
TJ