But your talk about the Carneys hits a spot with me. I had been staying with a friend in Mexico for a while and it was time to come back and make some money. Beginning of the year and in the early 70's jobs were not exactly jumping out at you so I signed on with a traveling carnival. Yup TRUE Carneys!! Worked most of the year up the west coast and most of the way back down before leaving and coming back across the country. The carneys are a truly different type of people, very self sufficient and very protective of their own group. And, at least back then, VERY proud people. They had no desire to do anything else in life. There were 3rd and 4th generations in that group. In saying all of that it was not all green grass and roses. A lot of alcohol problems and drugs. And they were not a people to trifle with after the show closed for the day. It was definitely a tough crowd. They had to be to survive. That was also where I learned how hard people with disabilities and birth defects had it. Most younger people today will have never seen the older shows with the "Freaks" and the Dwarfs and Giants. Nobody would accept these people in "the real world". Carlos Delgado was a dwarf that befriended me right from the beginning since we worked together doing setups and takedowns. He showed me the ropes and how to stay out of trouble. One night somewhere in Central Ca. in middle of the night we ran into a group of drunks that planned to beat Carlos up, they had no interest in me. I was having no part of it being the big guy in the crowd. Carlos waved me off and it was all over in minutes. He cleaned house!!! Carlos was 4"0' tall and could bench press 200 plus lbs.. He told me on the way back that while Dwarfs are generally quite strong due to their short limbs and compact muscles they also tend to have short lifespans due to multiple other health issues. He passed away in his mid 50's. He was probably 35 at that time. Thankfully those days are for the most part over I think and most of those people can live somewhat normal lives now.Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Moderators: rickf, raymond, Mr. Recovery
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
And NO! I am not going to look that song up, I don't even want to know!!! But your talk about the Carneys hits a spot with me. I had been staying with a friend in Mexico for a while and it was time to come back and make some money. Beginning of the year and in the early 70's jobs were not exactly jumping out at you so I signed on with a traveling carnival. Yup TRUE Carneys!! Worked most of the year up the west coast and most of the way back down before leaving and coming back across the country. The carneys are a truly different type of people, very self sufficient and very protective of their own group. And, at least back then, VERY proud people. They had no desire to do anything else in life. There were 3rd and 4th generations in that group. In saying all of that it was not all green grass and roses. A lot of alcohol problems and drugs. And they were not a people to trifle with after the show closed for the day. It was definitely a tough crowd. They had to be to survive. That was also where I learned how hard people with disabilities and birth defects had it. Most younger people today will have never seen the older shows with the "Freaks" and the Dwarfs and Giants. Nobody would accept these people in "the real world". Carlos Delgado was a dwarf that befriended me right from the beginning since we worked together doing setups and takedowns. He showed me the ropes and how to stay out of trouble. One night somewhere in Central Ca. in middle of the night we ran into a group of drunks that planned to beat Carlos up, they had no interest in me. I was having no part of it being the big guy in the crowd. Carlos waved me off and it was all over in minutes. He cleaned house!!! Carlos was 4"0' tall and could bench press 200 plus lbs.. He told me on the way back that while Dwarfs are generally quite strong due to their short limbs and compact muscles they also tend to have short lifespans due to multiple other health issues. He passed away in his mid 50's. He was probably 35 at that time. Thankfully those days are for the most part over I think and most of those people can live somewhat normal lives now.
But your talk about the Carneys hits a spot with me. I had been staying with a friend in Mexico for a while and it was time to come back and make some money. Beginning of the year and in the early 70's jobs were not exactly jumping out at you so I signed on with a traveling carnival. Yup TRUE Carneys!! Worked most of the year up the west coast and most of the way back down before leaving and coming back across the country. The carneys are a truly different type of people, very self sufficient and very protective of their own group. And, at least back then, VERY proud people. They had no desire to do anything else in life. There were 3rd and 4th generations in that group. In saying all of that it was not all green grass and roses. A lot of alcohol problems and drugs. And they were not a people to trifle with after the show closed for the day. It was definitely a tough crowd. They had to be to survive. That was also where I learned how hard people with disabilities and birth defects had it. Most younger people today will have never seen the older shows with the "Freaks" and the Dwarfs and Giants. Nobody would accept these people in "the real world". Carlos Delgado was a dwarf that befriended me right from the beginning since we worked together doing setups and takedowns. He showed me the ropes and how to stay out of trouble. One night somewhere in Central Ca. in middle of the night we ran into a group of drunks that planned to beat Carlos up, they had no interest in me. I was having no part of it being the big guy in the crowd. Carlos waved me off and it was all over in minutes. He cleaned house!!! Carlos was 4"0' tall and could bench press 200 plus lbs.. He told me on the way back that while Dwarfs are generally quite strong due to their short limbs and compact muscles they also tend to have short lifespans due to multiple other health issues. He passed away in his mid 50's. He was probably 35 at that time. Thankfully those days are for the most part over I think and most of those people can live somewhat normal lives now.1964 M151A1
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
The weather around here has been really nice. Though the pollen count is....not so nice. Yesterday I stayed inside because of the storm clouds rumbling behind my eyeballs, coupled with my pollen-induced malaise. There are medicines one can take for that sort of thing but the stuff gets you through the day and leaves you too woozy to sleep well at night. So, I sat yesterday out. But today was the same as yesterday and I wasn't going to stay on the bench two days in a row.
TOO MUCH TO DO!
My freebee tractor, Nickel, has been sitting since last autumn with a freshly rebuilt carbonator whose bowl joyfully overflowed (after being rebuilt)...and then there were the troubles with the starter which, despite my shelling out some real serious dough for a new starter, continued to cast a dark cloud over the whole 'Happy Little Tractor Experience'.
So today, I put on my ranch pants, doped myself up with some kind of junk recommended by the good Doctor and went out into the great, big, pollen-covered world. I plucked the carb off the tractor like it was a ripe plum and pulled the bowl off, half suspecting to find a sunken float...which would be a bit of a stretch, considering there are dual floats in this Holley carb.
One of the things that I love most about wrenching, it is often a humbling experience and that sort of thing does much to keep one squarely in the center of life's beaten path. To refresh your memory, I am the guy who rebuilt this carb. Twas I. I am ALSO the guy who installed the needle upside down in the float valve. Twas also I.
FLYING JOLLY CHIMP MECHANICAL B*TCH SLAP Achievement Badge - AWARDED
In actuality, I felt a great deal of relief because if that was going to be the worst thing I would be facing with the carb, well, that was perfectly alright by me. I sure didn't have any spare parts laying around for any additional carburetor work. Sir Billiam showed up and I showed him my goof-up. In order to verify that I had sorted things out, we hooked up the fuel to the carb while it was still off the engine and, yup, switching the flip fixed it.
I stuck everything back on and Bill wanted to hear it run. While he rounded up a battery, I monkeyed with the throttle control linkage which was still jacked up from the first owner and was still unresolved. I was not ready to put the new throttle control parts on just as I would just have to take them all off again on the next iteration of fixing the power steering. I fiddled with things until the throttle lever was reasonably able to telegraph at least some directions to the carbonator. Things were moving right along.
Hooked up the battery, turned the key and ol' Nickel fired right up and what a racket from down around the starter! This was the same awful ratchety noise I had been hearing from the very first day I had this tractor running. I pulled the new starter off; the one which Big Mo had assured me was correct for the application -AND- he had also assured me no shims were ever made for this particular starter so. The matter of interference between starter and ring gear SHOULD have been moot, but then one might argue that it should also have been moot on the OLD starter. What in Sam Hill was going on? The whole thing was vexing...
and that is putting it nicely.
Remember back to when I had first met this tractor? The starter was found to be shimmed with washers. I decided to at least give that a try again in order to help figure things out with what was going on in front of me at the moment. The result was that the starter really wasn't too keen on hooking up with the ring gear. It did....eventually....but clearly, it still wasn't right.
We let the tractor run while I snooped around, playing Doctor Kildare and listening to the tractor's guts with a big screwdriver stuck in my ear. What I came up with was this - where things with bearings were meant to be whirring, whirring could be heard. Where things were meant to be going clickity-clickity, they were going clickity-clickity. But that awful ratchety noise was kind of just resonating around in the general area of the interface with the starter and the ring gear. SOMETHING was hitting. But HOW?
Despite the fact that Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character he was reputed to have uttered the genius phrase - "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." So HOW was the starter gear continuing to play patty cake with the ring gear? I pulled the starter off again to eyeball the gear face. Indeed, it had been touching the ring gear, ever so slightly. It wasn't greatly damaged but the evidence was clear. As I was handling the starter I noticed that it was hot...
...and as Roosevelly Roosevelt said in Good Morning Vietnam, it was SO HOT, I saw a little guy in an orange robe burst into flames!
Well, it wasn't quite that hot, but OH, what a great line! Clearly, the starter motor had been running....so...the other starter motor must have also been running....until its little bronze bearings finally gave up the ghost. And because the starter motors had been running all along, both continued to try to throw their drive gear outward toward the ring gear. As for the ring gear, it was busily racing around and around like mad, at 'running engine speeds' and high-fiving the starter's drive gear as it raced by.
To prove that theory, I reinstalled the starter, pre-positioned the power lead to the starter in such a way that it could be yanked off without much chance of an arc and instructed Bill to remove it after I had started the tractor. With that, the ratchety sound went away and ol' Nickel's engine sounded like a tractor's engine ought to sound. Nickel sounded like she was ready to go to work. Music to my ears. So, I nailed it. I identified the problem which, in some way, helps make up for my little carburetor faux pas.
Leave the gun.
Take the cannoli.
At this point I still don't know how power is getting to that solenoid when it ought not to so I still have some work ahead of me. Something in the wiring is 'bass-ackwards' but if you were to judge me by my carburetor rebuilding skills, you might conclude that I'm probably going to be good at getting 'bass-ackwards' sorted out.
Cheers,
TJ
TOO MUCH TO DO!
My freebee tractor, Nickel, has been sitting since last autumn with a freshly rebuilt carbonator whose bowl joyfully overflowed (after being rebuilt)...and then there were the troubles with the starter which, despite my shelling out some real serious dough for a new starter, continued to cast a dark cloud over the whole 'Happy Little Tractor Experience'.
So today, I put on my ranch pants, doped myself up with some kind of junk recommended by the good Doctor and went out into the great, big, pollen-covered world. I plucked the carb off the tractor like it was a ripe plum and pulled the bowl off, half suspecting to find a sunken float...which would be a bit of a stretch, considering there are dual floats in this Holley carb.
One of the things that I love most about wrenching, it is often a humbling experience and that sort of thing does much to keep one squarely in the center of life's beaten path. To refresh your memory, I am the guy who rebuilt this carb. Twas I. I am ALSO the guy who installed the needle upside down in the float valve. Twas also I.
FLYING JOLLY CHIMP MECHANICAL B*TCH SLAP Achievement Badge - AWARDED
In actuality, I felt a great deal of relief because if that was going to be the worst thing I would be facing with the carb, well, that was perfectly alright by me. I sure didn't have any spare parts laying around for any additional carburetor work. Sir Billiam showed up and I showed him my goof-up. In order to verify that I had sorted things out, we hooked up the fuel to the carb while it was still off the engine and, yup, switching the flip fixed it.
I stuck everything back on and Bill wanted to hear it run. While he rounded up a battery, I monkeyed with the throttle control linkage which was still jacked up from the first owner and was still unresolved. I was not ready to put the new throttle control parts on just as I would just have to take them all off again on the next iteration of fixing the power steering. I fiddled with things until the throttle lever was reasonably able to telegraph at least some directions to the carbonator. Things were moving right along.
Hooked up the battery, turned the key and ol' Nickel fired right up and what a racket from down around the starter! This was the same awful ratchety noise I had been hearing from the very first day I had this tractor running. I pulled the new starter off; the one which Big Mo had assured me was correct for the application -AND- he had also assured me no shims were ever made for this particular starter so. The matter of interference between starter and ring gear SHOULD have been moot, but then one might argue that it should also have been moot on the OLD starter. What in Sam Hill was going on? The whole thing was vexing...
and that is putting it nicely.
Remember back to when I had first met this tractor? The starter was found to be shimmed with washers. I decided to at least give that a try again in order to help figure things out with what was going on in front of me at the moment. The result was that the starter really wasn't too keen on hooking up with the ring gear. It did....eventually....but clearly, it still wasn't right.
We let the tractor run while I snooped around, playing Doctor Kildare and listening to the tractor's guts with a big screwdriver stuck in my ear. What I came up with was this - where things with bearings were meant to be whirring, whirring could be heard. Where things were meant to be going clickity-clickity, they were going clickity-clickity. But that awful ratchety noise was kind of just resonating around in the general area of the interface with the starter and the ring gear. SOMETHING was hitting. But HOW?
Despite the fact that Sherlock Holmes was a fictional character he was reputed to have uttered the genius phrase - "When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." So HOW was the starter gear continuing to play patty cake with the ring gear? I pulled the starter off again to eyeball the gear face. Indeed, it had been touching the ring gear, ever so slightly. It wasn't greatly damaged but the evidence was clear. As I was handling the starter I noticed that it was hot...
...and as Roosevelly Roosevelt said in Good Morning Vietnam, it was SO HOT, I saw a little guy in an orange robe burst into flames!
Well, it wasn't quite that hot, but OH, what a great line! Clearly, the starter motor had been running....so...the other starter motor must have also been running....until its little bronze bearings finally gave up the ghost. And because the starter motors had been running all along, both continued to try to throw their drive gear outward toward the ring gear. As for the ring gear, it was busily racing around and around like mad, at 'running engine speeds' and high-fiving the starter's drive gear as it raced by.
To prove that theory, I reinstalled the starter, pre-positioned the power lead to the starter in such a way that it could be yanked off without much chance of an arc and instructed Bill to remove it after I had started the tractor. With that, the ratchety sound went away and ol' Nickel's engine sounded like a tractor's engine ought to sound. Nickel sounded like she was ready to go to work. Music to my ears. So, I nailed it. I identified the problem which, in some way, helps make up for my little carburetor faux pas.
Leave the gun.
Take the cannoli.
At this point I still don't know how power is getting to that solenoid when it ought not to so I still have some work ahead of me. Something in the wiring is 'bass-ackwards' but if you were to judge me by my carburetor rebuilding skills, you might conclude that I'm probably going to be good at getting 'bass-ackwards' sorted out.
Cheers,
TJ
Last edited by m3a1 on March 28th, 2023, 8:31 am, edited 4 times in total.
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Remember our discussion, forget the big wires and concentrate on that little ignition wire. I think that will be your problem. Get it started and then yank that one off of the solenoid and I will bet the bad noises go away. Then you just need to find out where the power is coming from on that ignition line.
1964 M151A1
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
I'll get into that when I get it up front and into the driveway and, once again, displace Doctor Smith's car to the curb. Presently, Nickel is puking out power steering fluid all over the place and I've got to get those PS lines arranged so that they are bypassing the leaky bit before I can drive the tractor up onto the driveway for this next effort. Once there, I'll be able to get to the business of removing all the body panels, including that surround around the fuel tank and steering column and, with that, going through the wiring should be a snap as everything will be exposed.
All this has to happen in order to rebuild the steering column and get that PS leak resolved. With the body panels off, lots of other things are going to happen as well.
The Ford 2000 is, in my opinion, a tractor that is far more compact than it ever needed to be. Welcome to the late 60s when manufacturers began ignore the momentous and complicate the obvious! As a result of all the tidy compactness, much of what goes on mechanically, is difficult to get to and then, made even more difficult to get to with the presence of the loader attachment.
Speaking of difficulty, here is another nice little tractor. One that probably has very low hours and has the added benefit of being a former military vehicle. The chief difficulty would be getting to it because it is presently still lashed to the hangar deck of the USS Hornet (CV-8), some 17,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. Enjoy!
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... the-waves/
I have a feeling that at some point this starter-ratchety-noise issue made the original owner so nervous that he/she/they simply stopped using the tractor (which is probably a good thing considering how poorly they treated it). That racket must have also given ol' Frank some pause. So much so that he set the whole thing aside as a project for later. WAY later....and then I came along. Challenge accepted! As for me, I'm too foolish to take such noisy hints of doom as anything more than a passing annoyance and now that I'm over this particular hump.
It's fine...
I'm fine...
Everything is fine...
I'm glad that I am that foolish...because (so far) it has paid off and has been a lot more fun than, say, staying inside and doing crossword puzzles.
Cheers,
TJ
All this has to happen in order to rebuild the steering column and get that PS leak resolved. With the body panels off, lots of other things are going to happen as well.
The Ford 2000 is, in my opinion, a tractor that is far more compact than it ever needed to be. Welcome to the late 60s when manufacturers began ignore the momentous and complicate the obvious! As a result of all the tidy compactness, much of what goes on mechanically, is difficult to get to and then, made even more difficult to get to with the presence of the loader attachment.
Speaking of difficulty, here is another nice little tractor. One that probably has very low hours and has the added benefit of being a former military vehicle. The chief difficulty would be getting to it because it is presently still lashed to the hangar deck of the USS Hornet (CV-8), some 17,000 feet below the surface of the ocean. Enjoy!
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-nav ... the-waves/
I have a feeling that at some point this starter-ratchety-noise issue made the original owner so nervous that he/she/they simply stopped using the tractor (which is probably a good thing considering how poorly they treated it). That racket must have also given ol' Frank some pause. So much so that he set the whole thing aside as a project for later. WAY later....and then I came along. Challenge accepted! As for me, I'm too foolish to take such noisy hints of doom as anything more than a passing annoyance and now that I'm over this particular hump.
It's fine...
I'm fine...
Everything is fine...
I'm glad that I am that foolish...because (so far) it has paid off and has been a lot more fun than, say, staying inside and doing crossword puzzles.
Cheers,
TJ
Last edited by m3a1 on March 28th, 2023, 8:34 am, edited 1 time in total.
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Well, electrical was my specialty so that part of it is easy for me. the steering would be more of a hassle. Plus, have you seen the price of hydraulic lines lately?!!!!!
1964 M151A1
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone
1984 M1008
1967 M416
04/1952 M100
12/1952 M100- Departed
AN/TSQ-114A Trailblazer- Gone
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
The leak is at an O ring in the column
-
Mr. Recovery
- Brigadier General
- Posts: 2895
- Joined: December 5th, 2007, 9:03 pm
- Location: New Port Richey, Fl.
- Contact:
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Hey TJ, looks like you are going to have a new place to shop and some new neighbors! 
https://www.mysanantonio.com/business/a ... jiWiqNw8Ts
https://www.mysanantonio.com/business/a ... jiWiqNw8Ts
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
1960 M151 Run 1
1963 M151 Willys DoD 10-63 in Baltimore
1989 Alley Cat. "work in Progress"
NRA Life Member
American Legion Post 275 Fl
US Army 6 years 2nd Armored Cavalry Bindlach Germany
Colorado Army Nat. Guard 5 years
Md Air Guard 15 years active duty on C-130's
1963 M151 Willys DoD 10-63 in Baltimore
1989 Alley Cat. "work in Progress"
NRA Life Member
American Legion Post 275 Fl
US Army 6 years 2nd Armored Cavalry Bindlach Germany
Colorado Army Nat. Guard 5 years
Md Air Guard 15 years active duty on C-130's
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Yup, and expanding our local store as well!
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
On a lark, we went back to Warrenton. Monday, last, had been such a bust I figured how bad could it be the second time around? I reckoned, out of all the sellers who had been absent on our first visit, a second pass was warranted. Good fortune sometimes requires a good effort. Another 'plus' would be that the weatherman said we would have reasonably good weather; partly cloudy, 80 degrees, and something like a 2% chance of precipitation.
Perfect. Bill was up for it.
There was a smallish, specific area he and I wanted to look over which meant there would be no real need for the golf car(t). Acknowledging the distinct possibility that we might stumble upon a something largish, we elected to take the Bat Trailer, whose lights were still unfinished. So, on went the magnetic light kit (part of which would come off the trailer and be dragged down the freeway until some other motorists caught our attention).
DANG IT!
When I informed Doctor Amy that Bill and I would be going back, she said she would go along with us. Then she wasn't going, Then she was. Then she wasn't and finally, after jerking us around for HOURS on the matter, she finally committed to going at the very last second...which delayed our departure by 45 minutes and, coincidentally, her indecisiveness denied me almost an extra hour of sleep...which I really could have used. Remember the drugs that make pollen filled days bearable but then ruin your sleep?
Yeah. THAT.
By the time we got to La Grange (yup, THAT La Grange - that 'Texas town', immortalized by ZZ Top) it was fully overcast, 58° and drizzling to a point just shy of being classified as actual rain. I don't know what it is about Texas towns that keeps song writers busy but here's a short list -
https://www.wideopencountry.com/songs-about-texas/
In LaGrange we stopped at the local grocery store (a big outfit, called H.E.B.) and laid out of few precious dollars for either a cheap, compact umbrella or a cheap poncho. I went with the poncho. I reckoned the U.S. military had already weighed the pros and cons of poncho v. umbrella so I just followed their lead. Besides, rummaging is often a hands-on experience and I wanted my hands to be free instead of having to juggle a stupid umbrella.
When we finally got there, the weatherman was no where to be found but every bit of his "2% chance of precipitation" was there, and STILL going on. I daresay we found the other 92% as well. Had we experienced the remaining 6% I would have classified it as actual rain. As a result, 2% of the shoppers experienced 100% of the 94% chance of precipitation, 100% of the time, while the other 98% of the shoppers wisely stayed home, where it was warm and dry 100% of the time.
Our shopping experience began with a conversation between three people about where best to park (allowing that it was drizzling and our walking would be best kept to a minimum) which resulted in my sleepily driving through an area hoping to illicit some sort of agreement on the matter. Granted, this area was perhaps an area I should not have been with a trailer in my unusually fatigued state. As a result, I clipped off a small barely noticeable piece of the fiberglas trailer on a huge tent peg (on a tent the size of a circus tent), which was unfortunate but not nearly as unfortunate as having a large piece of garnish molding bent all to smithereens in the process.
...and I still can't figure out how that bit got so bent.
After that, I stopped trying to please everybody and I just went and parked at the closest available space which left us with a long walk. We would all shop for about 4 hours and we would do it, damply. Waves of 'almost rain' interspersed with a moment of 'NOT almost rain' meant that I just kept my cheap poncho folded up and out of the way and suffered through it. I was born wet. Long experience has taught me I always dry out.
The first few picks ended up being odds and ends to complete a small project of mine which had become completely stalled, put away for so long I have no idea where it is and it will now see completion...eventually. I passed on the front 20 feet of a giant amphibious aircraft on a trailer. I passed on an 8' long, professionally made cutaway rendition of a U.S. submarine (probably by the manufacturers of the real submarine and presented to some Admiral who was in charge of big budget Navy contracts and who is now in command of a pine box, six feet under). I passed on half a LaSalle which was also a cutaway (in fact, it was cut lengthwise because, who doesn't need half a car?) and I passed on a Steelcraft Army Scout Pedal Plane which was so tattered and rusty it would have been an utter shame to restore it.
Eventually, I got back to the gal who had, on my previous visit to Warrenton, straight-armed me on just about everything I was interested in buying. On this visit, I only found only one thing that interested me; a Merkle Korff Flexo-Motion Motiondiser. (Easier to say if you've a mouthful of marshmallows.) These are commercially produced, general purpose, 110v motorized turntables. They have tiny motors, substantial gearboxes that push worm gears, that drive helical gears; all very 'uptown' and with a name like that, probably German.
These units are very compact, incredibly strong, quiet, and they can be run under a load for a very long time without complaint. I had never seen one in the flesh. These are exactly the sort of thing that someone in retail might salvage from a front window display that is being binned. It will be taken home and go straight to their basement and placed on homemade shelves to collect dust, never to be seen again. Until now.
At a glance, I could see the people who designed it obviously cared about their product. What's not to like? Negotiations went like this -
Me, pointing - "Waddya want for this thing?"
(NEVER call an item by its proper name. ALWAYS use a term that devalues the item. Example: A diamond becomes 'a rock'.)
Wife, munching on a sandwich - "My husband told me not to sell that."
Me, pretending not to hear that last bit - "Does it work?"
Wife, looking nervous because I was obviously dragging her straight towards negotiations and it would be rude of her not to play along - "I don't know."
Me, continuing to drag her into negotiations but, not going straight for the throat - Do you know what this thing is?
Wife, trying to deflect - "No."
(I had established that she didn't know what 'the thing' was, or if it even actually worked. A nice bit of devaluation if I must say so myself.)
Me - "Well, would you entertain an offer?"
Wife, now squirming and really desperate to be rid of me - "I guess..."
Me - "How about $40?"
(admittedly, that offer was about $10 and maybe $15 too high but, I wanted her to get off her arse and go find her husband...or otherwise, have to walk away from $40. Items like this don't come along very often and it was worthy of the financial effort.)
Wife - "I'll go talk to him."
Husband arrived and greeting me warmly (he was in the mood to do business) - "You're interested in that?" (He was also pointing to the item and devaluing it. All the wrong moves.)
Me - "Well, yes, but I'd like to know if it actually works. Do you know what it is?"
Husband - "It's an electric turntable. I-I think it works."
(AHAH! So, he'd plugged it in and something was amiss but not SO amiss that he was willing to declare it completely dead.)
Me, sounding cheery because I wanted him to know I was still interested, despite its questionable condition - "Yeah, it's a powered turntable.'
(I launched into my interest in having it which included having large, moving, Christmas and Halloween displays and it turned out that he was also into that sort of thing. But after this chinwag, I concluded he felt he was in over his head on this particular piece. There would certainly be some troubles with this unit.)
Husband, trying to sound magnanimous - "Yeah, I'll part with it for $40."
(He would have that much in it just trying to get it to work if its problems were fatal.)
Later, I discovered its only problem was some oil in the gear box had thickened with age and once that was resolved, it worked perfectly. In fact, as I sit here and bang out this drivel on my keyboard, the Merkle Korff Flexo-Motion Motiondiser is here on the table beside me, busily humming along so that it can be proof tested for long hours whilst under supervision.
So, we did the deal and had a laugh together about his wife straight-arming me on just about EVERYTHING earlier in the week. She was a nice gal but completely out of her element when it came to selling stuff. I found out that she and her husband had sold a couple of items for an absolutely ridiculous, knock-your-head-off price to some "foreign guys". These were the nice, very presentable pieces that I had been interested in on my previous visit. I gave her a knuckle bump for having managed to make those Big Sales, in order to foster some good will. No hard feelings. Maybe we would be doing business in the future. Remember, good sellers are made by good buyers.
What I didn't know was I would be seeing those 'foreign guys' in action a few minutes later.
With my business concluded, Doc and I gaggled up and wandered over to a nearby tent. This tent is always a regular stop for me. I never find anything to buy there as it is mostly girly stuff. In this tent's married duo, the wife runs the tent sales. The husband almost always has a vintage car for sale out front and I always stop to have a look. Gearheads unite! This year's submission - a 1931 Ford Roadster, for $15K. It was an estate sale purchase and an older restoration that was definitely on the decline but, the engine started immediately and ran very smoothly. I saw evidence of a leaky radiator and of course there is more to a car than just a smooth-running engine but, at first blush, it appeared to be one set of tires away from road-worthiness. But, verily, Model Ts are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get... The seller had it running because HERE, standing right in front of me, were 'the foreign guys' and...
they wanted that car!
Good manners dictated that I should keep my distance from the negotiations, but that I also remain there, admiring the car. Few things make an item more desirable to a prospective buyer than another possible buyer waiting in the wings. It's an atavistic urge; one that has been hard-wired into humanity as a manner that helps ensure survival of the fittest. The winners go on to sire more winners. The losers become a tasty treat for the local wildlife. It's a system that seems to have worked. So, by being there but keeping my mouth shut, I might have been helping to the owner to close the deal. The foreigners didn't know I wasn't the least bit interested in owning a Model A...at least not one that predated 1932. So, I kept my mouth shut and my ears open.
What I learned was, these guys were from Belgium and they would ship Belgian stuff to the U.S. in containers and sell (or trade) to the many sellers when they could find them gathered in one place (such as this) and then do some shopping in order to take American stuff back to Belgium, or elsewhere, for resale. The Belgians didn't want to drive the Model A. They wanted to BUY it...for every bit of the buyer's asking price. All that was left to do was to get their confederate (the money guy) over to where the action was.
It never hurts to find out how things work. Learning how to listen is a big part of that. I reckon the sellers (such as the Husband/Wife teams) all knew these Belgian whales were making the rounds and rightly resisted any and all lower offers until the opportunity to sell to 'em passed. This hurt us little buyers, early on. Once the whales were gone, it would finally be open season for the rest of us. Thus, now that I know what is likely to be going on behind the scenes in Warrenton (and when), my new rule is: Never go to Warrenton until about midway through the event.
I wanted to see this deal get completed. Doctor Amy and I retired to a small, open air burger joint across the way to watch the action and in short order (that's a burger joint pun, in case you missed it) another foreign guy shows up and starts waving a helluva thick wad of cash around. How could I tell he was also foreign? Well, they all talk with a lot of gestures, likely because their language skills were lacking.
The seller looked nervous when he saw all those greenbacks being waved about. He gently pushed the guy's show hand down and bid them to come into the tent. Inside, the Belgians would lay out $15K and maybe even more if the guy was collecting taxes and they would all work out the details as to the car's disposition. It was fun to watch it go down and the corn dogs I ordered weren't half bad, either. Somebody, somewhere, was getting a nice, tidy Model A.
We spent a little more time looking around. I got on the FRS radio (cellphones don't work there) and gave Bill a shout. He must have been making the rounds at a dead run because he was WAY out ahead of us. I told him I felt we were nearly done. Turned out he was nearly done as well. Done, AND damp.
My final purchase was a mid-1970s board game produced by Ideal. It had caught my eye on the prior visit. Normally, board games don't hold my interest but this one was called TANK COMMAND. The box had great graphics with two kids having a tank battle on a board game with moving parts; each side equipped with four tiny plastic tanks...and some missing pieces. No matter. It's not that I want to play TANK COMMAND. I just happen to like tiny tanks...especially when they're found on sheet cakes appropriately decorated to show 'em engaged in a tiny tank-cake battle. Perfect for any D-Day gathering! So, getting a full set of tiny tanks was a bonus, Chiefly, I was interested in the box TANK COMMAND came in. The cover was cool but even better, on the side it had clever photos of two imposters who looked a lot like Monty and Rommel, duking it out on their TANK COMMAND board.
Had Rommel and Monty actually gone at it that way, it probably would have saved a lot of lives.
Like I said, the box's graphics were amazing. I have a large collection of militaria and sometimes I will stray off that path a little bit; as long as it's military flavored I'm happy. I don't know yet, how the thing might add to a display, but I got it on the sly, so there ya go. When I got home I looked the game up on the internet. Turns out, entertainment-wise it was a total bomb; ponderous and boring with lots of little pieces to eventually get lost to the family cat and then stepped on at night in a dark hallway.. One British website considered it to be, "a first, and bitter lesson about truth in advertising" Yikes! When it comes to polite, yet damning insults, there's really nothing quite like 'Parliamentary Procedure'.
See the full, hateful description in all it's glory, here -
https://www.hypnogoria.com/orrible_tankcommand.html
So, I came back from my second trip to Warrenton, with a few goodies; poorer, but enriched; damp, yet enlightened.
Cheers,
TJ
Perfect. Bill was up for it.
There was a smallish, specific area he and I wanted to look over which meant there would be no real need for the golf car(t). Acknowledging the distinct possibility that we might stumble upon a something largish, we elected to take the Bat Trailer, whose lights were still unfinished. So, on went the magnetic light kit (part of which would come off the trailer and be dragged down the freeway until some other motorists caught our attention).
DANG IT!
When I informed Doctor Amy that Bill and I would be going back, she said she would go along with us. Then she wasn't going, Then she was. Then she wasn't and finally, after jerking us around for HOURS on the matter, she finally committed to going at the very last second...which delayed our departure by 45 minutes and, coincidentally, her indecisiveness denied me almost an extra hour of sleep...which I really could have used. Remember the drugs that make pollen filled days bearable but then ruin your sleep?
Yeah. THAT.
By the time we got to La Grange (yup, THAT La Grange - that 'Texas town', immortalized by ZZ Top) it was fully overcast, 58° and drizzling to a point just shy of being classified as actual rain. I don't know what it is about Texas towns that keeps song writers busy but here's a short list -
https://www.wideopencountry.com/songs-about-texas/
In LaGrange we stopped at the local grocery store (a big outfit, called H.E.B.) and laid out of few precious dollars for either a cheap, compact umbrella or a cheap poncho. I went with the poncho. I reckoned the U.S. military had already weighed the pros and cons of poncho v. umbrella so I just followed their lead. Besides, rummaging is often a hands-on experience and I wanted my hands to be free instead of having to juggle a stupid umbrella.
When we finally got there, the weatherman was no where to be found but every bit of his "2% chance of precipitation" was there, and STILL going on. I daresay we found the other 92% as well. Had we experienced the remaining 6% I would have classified it as actual rain. As a result, 2% of the shoppers experienced 100% of the 94% chance of precipitation, 100% of the time, while the other 98% of the shoppers wisely stayed home, where it was warm and dry 100% of the time.
Our shopping experience began with a conversation between three people about where best to park (allowing that it was drizzling and our walking would be best kept to a minimum) which resulted in my sleepily driving through an area hoping to illicit some sort of agreement on the matter. Granted, this area was perhaps an area I should not have been with a trailer in my unusually fatigued state. As a result, I clipped off a small barely noticeable piece of the fiberglas trailer on a huge tent peg (on a tent the size of a circus tent), which was unfortunate but not nearly as unfortunate as having a large piece of garnish molding bent all to smithereens in the process.
...and I still can't figure out how that bit got so bent.
After that, I stopped trying to please everybody and I just went and parked at the closest available space which left us with a long walk. We would all shop for about 4 hours and we would do it, damply. Waves of 'almost rain' interspersed with a moment of 'NOT almost rain' meant that I just kept my cheap poncho folded up and out of the way and suffered through it. I was born wet. Long experience has taught me I always dry out.
The first few picks ended up being odds and ends to complete a small project of mine which had become completely stalled, put away for so long I have no idea where it is and it will now see completion...eventually. I passed on the front 20 feet of a giant amphibious aircraft on a trailer. I passed on an 8' long, professionally made cutaway rendition of a U.S. submarine (probably by the manufacturers of the real submarine and presented to some Admiral who was in charge of big budget Navy contracts and who is now in command of a pine box, six feet under). I passed on half a LaSalle which was also a cutaway (in fact, it was cut lengthwise because, who doesn't need half a car?) and I passed on a Steelcraft Army Scout Pedal Plane which was so tattered and rusty it would have been an utter shame to restore it.
Eventually, I got back to the gal who had, on my previous visit to Warrenton, straight-armed me on just about everything I was interested in buying. On this visit, I only found only one thing that interested me; a Merkle Korff Flexo-Motion Motiondiser. (Easier to say if you've a mouthful of marshmallows.) These are commercially produced, general purpose, 110v motorized turntables. They have tiny motors, substantial gearboxes that push worm gears, that drive helical gears; all very 'uptown' and with a name like that, probably German.
These units are very compact, incredibly strong, quiet, and they can be run under a load for a very long time without complaint. I had never seen one in the flesh. These are exactly the sort of thing that someone in retail might salvage from a front window display that is being binned. It will be taken home and go straight to their basement and placed on homemade shelves to collect dust, never to be seen again. Until now.
At a glance, I could see the people who designed it obviously cared about their product. What's not to like? Negotiations went like this -
Me, pointing - "Waddya want for this thing?"
(NEVER call an item by its proper name. ALWAYS use a term that devalues the item. Example: A diamond becomes 'a rock'.)
Wife, munching on a sandwich - "My husband told me not to sell that."
Me, pretending not to hear that last bit - "Does it work?"
Wife, looking nervous because I was obviously dragging her straight towards negotiations and it would be rude of her not to play along - "I don't know."
Me, continuing to drag her into negotiations but, not going straight for the throat - Do you know what this thing is?
Wife, trying to deflect - "No."
(I had established that she didn't know what 'the thing' was, or if it even actually worked. A nice bit of devaluation if I must say so myself.)
Me - "Well, would you entertain an offer?"
Wife, now squirming and really desperate to be rid of me - "I guess..."
Me - "How about $40?"
(admittedly, that offer was about $10 and maybe $15 too high but, I wanted her to get off her arse and go find her husband...or otherwise, have to walk away from $40. Items like this don't come along very often and it was worthy of the financial effort.)
Wife - "I'll go talk to him."
Husband arrived and greeting me warmly (he was in the mood to do business) - "You're interested in that?" (He was also pointing to the item and devaluing it. All the wrong moves.)
Me - "Well, yes, but I'd like to know if it actually works. Do you know what it is?"
Husband - "It's an electric turntable. I-I think it works."
(AHAH! So, he'd plugged it in and something was amiss but not SO amiss that he was willing to declare it completely dead.)
Me, sounding cheery because I wanted him to know I was still interested, despite its questionable condition - "Yeah, it's a powered turntable.'
(I launched into my interest in having it which included having large, moving, Christmas and Halloween displays and it turned out that he was also into that sort of thing. But after this chinwag, I concluded he felt he was in over his head on this particular piece. There would certainly be some troubles with this unit.)
Husband, trying to sound magnanimous - "Yeah, I'll part with it for $40."
(He would have that much in it just trying to get it to work if its problems were fatal.)
Later, I discovered its only problem was some oil in the gear box had thickened with age and once that was resolved, it worked perfectly. In fact, as I sit here and bang out this drivel on my keyboard, the Merkle Korff Flexo-Motion Motiondiser is here on the table beside me, busily humming along so that it can be proof tested for long hours whilst under supervision.
So, we did the deal and had a laugh together about his wife straight-arming me on just about EVERYTHING earlier in the week. She was a nice gal but completely out of her element when it came to selling stuff. I found out that she and her husband had sold a couple of items for an absolutely ridiculous, knock-your-head-off price to some "foreign guys". These were the nice, very presentable pieces that I had been interested in on my previous visit. I gave her a knuckle bump for having managed to make those Big Sales, in order to foster some good will. No hard feelings. Maybe we would be doing business in the future. Remember, good sellers are made by good buyers.
What I didn't know was I would be seeing those 'foreign guys' in action a few minutes later.
With my business concluded, Doc and I gaggled up and wandered over to a nearby tent. This tent is always a regular stop for me. I never find anything to buy there as it is mostly girly stuff. In this tent's married duo, the wife runs the tent sales. The husband almost always has a vintage car for sale out front and I always stop to have a look. Gearheads unite! This year's submission - a 1931 Ford Roadster, for $15K. It was an estate sale purchase and an older restoration that was definitely on the decline but, the engine started immediately and ran very smoothly. I saw evidence of a leaky radiator and of course there is more to a car than just a smooth-running engine but, at first blush, it appeared to be one set of tires away from road-worthiness. But, verily, Model Ts are like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get... The seller had it running because HERE, standing right in front of me, were 'the foreign guys' and...
they wanted that car!
Good manners dictated that I should keep my distance from the negotiations, but that I also remain there, admiring the car. Few things make an item more desirable to a prospective buyer than another possible buyer waiting in the wings. It's an atavistic urge; one that has been hard-wired into humanity as a manner that helps ensure survival of the fittest. The winners go on to sire more winners. The losers become a tasty treat for the local wildlife. It's a system that seems to have worked. So, by being there but keeping my mouth shut, I might have been helping to the owner to close the deal. The foreigners didn't know I wasn't the least bit interested in owning a Model A...at least not one that predated 1932. So, I kept my mouth shut and my ears open.
What I learned was, these guys were from Belgium and they would ship Belgian stuff to the U.S. in containers and sell (or trade) to the many sellers when they could find them gathered in one place (such as this) and then do some shopping in order to take American stuff back to Belgium, or elsewhere, for resale. The Belgians didn't want to drive the Model A. They wanted to BUY it...for every bit of the buyer's asking price. All that was left to do was to get their confederate (the money guy) over to where the action was.
It never hurts to find out how things work. Learning how to listen is a big part of that. I reckon the sellers (such as the Husband/Wife teams) all knew these Belgian whales were making the rounds and rightly resisted any and all lower offers until the opportunity to sell to 'em passed. This hurt us little buyers, early on. Once the whales were gone, it would finally be open season for the rest of us. Thus, now that I know what is likely to be going on behind the scenes in Warrenton (and when), my new rule is: Never go to Warrenton until about midway through the event.
I wanted to see this deal get completed. Doctor Amy and I retired to a small, open air burger joint across the way to watch the action and in short order (that's a burger joint pun, in case you missed it) another foreign guy shows up and starts waving a helluva thick wad of cash around. How could I tell he was also foreign? Well, they all talk with a lot of gestures, likely because their language skills were lacking.
The seller looked nervous when he saw all those greenbacks being waved about. He gently pushed the guy's show hand down and bid them to come into the tent. Inside, the Belgians would lay out $15K and maybe even more if the guy was collecting taxes and they would all work out the details as to the car's disposition. It was fun to watch it go down and the corn dogs I ordered weren't half bad, either. Somebody, somewhere, was getting a nice, tidy Model A.
We spent a little more time looking around. I got on the FRS radio (cellphones don't work there) and gave Bill a shout. He must have been making the rounds at a dead run because he was WAY out ahead of us. I told him I felt we were nearly done. Turned out he was nearly done as well. Done, AND damp.
My final purchase was a mid-1970s board game produced by Ideal. It had caught my eye on the prior visit. Normally, board games don't hold my interest but this one was called TANK COMMAND. The box had great graphics with two kids having a tank battle on a board game with moving parts; each side equipped with four tiny plastic tanks...and some missing pieces. No matter. It's not that I want to play TANK COMMAND. I just happen to like tiny tanks...especially when they're found on sheet cakes appropriately decorated to show 'em engaged in a tiny tank-cake battle. Perfect for any D-Day gathering! So, getting a full set of tiny tanks was a bonus, Chiefly, I was interested in the box TANK COMMAND came in. The cover was cool but even better, on the side it had clever photos of two imposters who looked a lot like Monty and Rommel, duking it out on their TANK COMMAND board.
Had Rommel and Monty actually gone at it that way, it probably would have saved a lot of lives.
Like I said, the box's graphics were amazing. I have a large collection of militaria and sometimes I will stray off that path a little bit; as long as it's military flavored I'm happy. I don't know yet, how the thing might add to a display, but I got it on the sly, so there ya go. When I got home I looked the game up on the internet. Turns out, entertainment-wise it was a total bomb; ponderous and boring with lots of little pieces to eventually get lost to the family cat and then stepped on at night in a dark hallway.. One British website considered it to be, "a first, and bitter lesson about truth in advertising" Yikes! When it comes to polite, yet damning insults, there's really nothing quite like 'Parliamentary Procedure'.
See the full, hateful description in all it's glory, here -
https://www.hypnogoria.com/orrible_tankcommand.html
So, I came back from my second trip to Warrenton, with a few goodies; poorer, but enriched; damp, yet enlightened.
Cheers,
TJ
-
raymond
- Major General
- Posts: 3426
- Joined: November 26th, 2007, 8:29 pm
- Location: God's country, Clarksville Mo.
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Let's see,..... you spent all those hours driving back and forth.
Spent a great deal of time, money and effort into getting your golf cart readied and loaded onto a trailer, which itself shed a tail light on the highway;
You flirted with death by possibly catching a cold from the cool air and rain.
You were strong armed by the wife part of a husband and wife retailer.
You had some the best stuff sold out from under you.
And to top it all off, there were no Merit Badges or Achievement Awards bestowed upon you
Not sure I'd go back
Spent a great deal of time, money and effort into getting your golf cart readied and loaded onto a trailer, which itself shed a tail light on the highway;
You flirted with death by possibly catching a cold from the cool air and rain.
You were strong armed by the wife part of a husband and wife retailer.
You had some the best stuff sold out from under you.
And to top it all off, there were no Merit Badges or Achievement Awards bestowed upon you
Not sure I'd go back
Raymond
"On the day when crime puts on the apparel of innocence, through a curious reversal peculiar to our age, it is innocence that is called on to justify itself." Albert Camus
"On the day when crime puts on the apparel of innocence, through a curious reversal peculiar to our age, it is innocence that is called on to justify itself." Albert Camus
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Matthew 7:7 - Seek and ye shall find...raymond wrote: ↑March 30th, 2023, 8:23 amLet's see,..... you spent all those hours driving back and forth.
Spent a great deal of time, money and effort into getting your golf cart readied and loaded onto a trailer, which itself shed a tail light on the highway;
You flirted with death by possibly catching a cold from the cool air and rain.
You were strong armed by the wife part of a husband and wife retailer.
You had some the best stuff sold out from under you.
And to top it all off, there were no Merit Badges or Achievement Awards bestowed upon you
Not sure I'd go back
I would have added some pics from this last visit (photos that would explain this mania) but, alas, the site wouldn't accept photos yesterday. Let's try again..
"Don't bother me for a while, Honey. I'll be out back, in the amphib'....
Man Cave, writ large.
Buy this and suddenly, you need a pool....(or a bigger tub).
...and in case you need another project...
As found: The rare & wonderful Merkle Korff Gear Co. Flexo-Motion Motiondiser
Like I said.... a box of chocolates....
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Complications arose, ensued, were overcome - Jack Sparrow
Thank ye, Jack! Well said..
Complications began by having to look high and low for my mechanic's 'Go Bag' which, over time, had become my favorite 'take-it-anywhere-and-have-a-high-probability-of-having-everything-I-need-bag of tools'. After turning the whole place upside down, I finally remembered that I gave up on keeping my tools in a bag after one of the cats urinated in it.
Not on it.. IN IT.
There is nothing quite like animal urine to rust up favorite tools or ruin a heavy duty nylon bag and there is nothing quite like one stray molecule of cat urine to invite some gato to make another visit. So, no matter how well I clean it all up (short of autoclaving everything)... that cat's gonna come back again.
In response, I picked up a largish plastic tool box on sale (one of those big jobs that can hold full grown circular saws or old stand-up typewriters) and I never looked back.
No more nastiness on MY tools. Nope.
As for the tractor, the complications are many. It has been the proverbial Village Bicycle (everyone has had a ride)..and I am peeling the complications and the indiscretions back, layer by layer. Today would be a nerve wracking day because, truly, electrical just ain't my thang.
Got the ignition switch wiring sorted out by simply drawing out the whole thing on a piece of cardboard (sketching out what it was and what it was supposed to be) and that really helped but during the rewire phase because (1) I didn't want to make a stupid mistake and burn the tractor to the ground and, (b) I wanted to be sure I got every wire where it was supposed to go. The moment I was done with getting the ignition switch sorted out, everything sort of crapped out (which turned out to be that my battery had died) and, being rather nervous about the whole matter, naturally I thought that I DID make a mistake.
So, I had to swap batteries. Charging system in the tractor isn't hooked up (because the last guy decided to hang an alternator on the tractor and then wisely gave up on hooking it up) and since I've had this little beast I've been limping along with my junk batteries and a charger until other more important things get sorted out well enough to safely install a new generator.
Once I got the battery swap done, it STILL didn't want to fire and by that time, I was a nervous wreck. What had I done? It ended up being nothing more than a fuel issue (my carb really needs it's settings corrected but first, I have bigger fish to fry with all this other nonsense) so, for a while I just sort of puttered around with the electrical probe ensuring what was supposed to be hot, was hot, and what was supposed to be not hot, was not hot. I just busied myself until I calmed back down and grew bold enough to start digging back into things. The tractor did start with a little ether and then ran nicely...which left me feeling better and more confident.
To the matter of the tractor's actual starter, which had been running all the time since I got the tractor, I hit the books and concluded that the previous guy had a wiring diagram for a tractor with a 'A' or 'B' prefix when in fact he was working on a tractor with a 'C' prefix. And when THAT didn't work for him, he simply dropped back and punted. Oddly, even with an error of that magnitude, the darned thing ran, albeit with the starter motor running nonstop. I'm betting all that ratchety noise was the straw that broke the camel's back for that guy....which turned out to be good for ol' Frank, and eventually, even better for me.
And, as luck would have it, when I began working on the tractor way back when, I didn't have the shop manual and where wiring was concerned (and not knowing any better) I had simply replicated the previous guy's mistakes. After all, it ran, right?
Shouldn't Oughta Done It Achievement Badge - AWARDED!
Put a nickel in the jukebox, Rick. Here's another little ditty to get stuck in your head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jjrf0THhvs
Studying the wiring diagram, I discovered that the wiring for the coil was meant to come from the ignition switch (it was coming off the solenoid) and with the correct wiring arrangement, the solenoid should only energize that wire when the ignition switch was in the START position. Let off the key, and no more juice to the coil. So where was the correct coil wire going after coming off the ignition switch?
Eventually, I decided the most likely place for the missing wiring was in the wiring harness. (Hello, Captain Obvious!) All I had to do was go through the process of parsing out the wiring harness to see if I could tease out the correct wire for the coil and then trace it from the ignition switch to, well, wherever it went to. That destination turned out to be....nowhere. It just wasn't hooked up at all. So the wire that had been lost somewhere in the harness was indeed meant to be the primary source of stepped-down power for the coil...just like the wiring diagram said it would.
Compounding the difficulty with the front wiring harness was that it had been carelessly stuffed into one of the many crevices of the engine compartment where one of the pulleys had been munching on it....with predictable results. I was very lucky that it didn't grab a wire and spool it up and tear the whole harness to pieces. Apparently this dude just decided that all those extra wires were completely unnecessary and extraneous to the operation of the tractor. That is, perhaps, the most unbelievable part of all this monkey business.
Luckily, I found the coil's power wire to be still completely intact (one of the few survivors), along with its section of resistor wire and PRAISE THE SAINTS!, it was ready to be put back to work. I carefully taped up the chewed wires so as not to have to worry about electricity going every whichaway and then stowed them for easy access when the time came. After all that grooming, the coil wire got put back to work. I felt pretty good about having one more mystery sorted out on this rig. TWO, if you count unscrambling the wires to the ignition switch.
So, it would seem that the other coil wire (coming from the solenoid) is for providing the coil with a full 12 volts only on start-ups with the key switched to the START position and because the ignition switch connections are now sorted out and the starting circuit now only energized when I turn the switch to START, that is how it's working and how it was meant to be working. Oddly, the wiring diagram doesn't call for it but by all appearances, it's all original wiring so, if it works...it works.
If all this chit-chat about wiring leaves you feeling a bit dazed and confused (not stoned, like in the 1993 comedy movie of the same name but actually dazed and confused) then you have some idea how I felt dealing with it. Make no mistake...having the wiring diagram with all its little hints about wire colors and their purposes really is the only thing that got me through it. For some of you, this is rather 'old hat' but wiring ain't my bag.
Alright-alright-ALRIGHT! Back to the matter of the wiring harness, I spent some time surveying all the wires and decided repairs could be made but that it would be better to simply buy a new wiring harness and have done with it. After all, I am working with a 54 year-old tractor here and things are beginning to get a bit crispy on the edges. IMHO, the harness is very affordable and if peace of mind is worth anything at all, I reckon it's a fair deal and who knows, maybe the next guy who has this tractor will appreciate the effort.
Happily, what I have left of the wiring is good enough for me to bring it up front where I can work on everything I need to work on, and do it on a nice piece of driveway.
Cheers,
TJ
Thank ye, Jack! Well said..
Complications began by having to look high and low for my mechanic's 'Go Bag' which, over time, had become my favorite 'take-it-anywhere-and-have-a-high-probability-of-having-everything-I-need-bag of tools'. After turning the whole place upside down, I finally remembered that I gave up on keeping my tools in a bag after one of the cats urinated in it.
Not on it.. IN IT.
There is nothing quite like animal urine to rust up favorite tools or ruin a heavy duty nylon bag and there is nothing quite like one stray molecule of cat urine to invite some gato to make another visit. So, no matter how well I clean it all up (short of autoclaving everything)... that cat's gonna come back again.
In response, I picked up a largish plastic tool box on sale (one of those big jobs that can hold full grown circular saws or old stand-up typewriters) and I never looked back.
No more nastiness on MY tools. Nope.
As for the tractor, the complications are many. It has been the proverbial Village Bicycle (everyone has had a ride)..and I am peeling the complications and the indiscretions back, layer by layer. Today would be a nerve wracking day because, truly, electrical just ain't my thang.
Got the ignition switch wiring sorted out by simply drawing out the whole thing on a piece of cardboard (sketching out what it was and what it was supposed to be) and that really helped but during the rewire phase because (1) I didn't want to make a stupid mistake and burn the tractor to the ground and, (b) I wanted to be sure I got every wire where it was supposed to go. The moment I was done with getting the ignition switch sorted out, everything sort of crapped out (which turned out to be that my battery had died) and, being rather nervous about the whole matter, naturally I thought that I DID make a mistake.
So, I had to swap batteries. Charging system in the tractor isn't hooked up (because the last guy decided to hang an alternator on the tractor and then wisely gave up on hooking it up) and since I've had this little beast I've been limping along with my junk batteries and a charger until other more important things get sorted out well enough to safely install a new generator.
Once I got the battery swap done, it STILL didn't want to fire and by that time, I was a nervous wreck. What had I done? It ended up being nothing more than a fuel issue (my carb really needs it's settings corrected but first, I have bigger fish to fry with all this other nonsense) so, for a while I just sort of puttered around with the electrical probe ensuring what was supposed to be hot, was hot, and what was supposed to be not hot, was not hot. I just busied myself until I calmed back down and grew bold enough to start digging back into things. The tractor did start with a little ether and then ran nicely...which left me feeling better and more confident.
To the matter of the tractor's actual starter, which had been running all the time since I got the tractor, I hit the books and concluded that the previous guy had a wiring diagram for a tractor with a 'A' or 'B' prefix when in fact he was working on a tractor with a 'C' prefix. And when THAT didn't work for him, he simply dropped back and punted. Oddly, even with an error of that magnitude, the darned thing ran, albeit with the starter motor running nonstop. I'm betting all that ratchety noise was the straw that broke the camel's back for that guy....which turned out to be good for ol' Frank, and eventually, even better for me.
And, as luck would have it, when I began working on the tractor way back when, I didn't have the shop manual and where wiring was concerned (and not knowing any better) I had simply replicated the previous guy's mistakes. After all, it ran, right?
Shouldn't Oughta Done It Achievement Badge - AWARDED!
Put a nickel in the jukebox, Rick. Here's another little ditty to get stuck in your head. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-jjrf0THhvs
Studying the wiring diagram, I discovered that the wiring for the coil was meant to come from the ignition switch (it was coming off the solenoid) and with the correct wiring arrangement, the solenoid should only energize that wire when the ignition switch was in the START position. Let off the key, and no more juice to the coil. So where was the correct coil wire going after coming off the ignition switch?
Eventually, I decided the most likely place for the missing wiring was in the wiring harness. (Hello, Captain Obvious!) All I had to do was go through the process of parsing out the wiring harness to see if I could tease out the correct wire for the coil and then trace it from the ignition switch to, well, wherever it went to. That destination turned out to be....nowhere. It just wasn't hooked up at all. So the wire that had been lost somewhere in the harness was indeed meant to be the primary source of stepped-down power for the coil...just like the wiring diagram said it would.
Compounding the difficulty with the front wiring harness was that it had been carelessly stuffed into one of the many crevices of the engine compartment where one of the pulleys had been munching on it....with predictable results. I was very lucky that it didn't grab a wire and spool it up and tear the whole harness to pieces. Apparently this dude just decided that all those extra wires were completely unnecessary and extraneous to the operation of the tractor. That is, perhaps, the most unbelievable part of all this monkey business.
Luckily, I found the coil's power wire to be still completely intact (one of the few survivors), along with its section of resistor wire and PRAISE THE SAINTS!, it was ready to be put back to work. I carefully taped up the chewed wires so as not to have to worry about electricity going every whichaway and then stowed them for easy access when the time came. After all that grooming, the coil wire got put back to work. I felt pretty good about having one more mystery sorted out on this rig. TWO, if you count unscrambling the wires to the ignition switch.
So, it would seem that the other coil wire (coming from the solenoid) is for providing the coil with a full 12 volts only on start-ups with the key switched to the START position and because the ignition switch connections are now sorted out and the starting circuit now only energized when I turn the switch to START, that is how it's working and how it was meant to be working. Oddly, the wiring diagram doesn't call for it but by all appearances, it's all original wiring so, if it works...it works.
If all this chit-chat about wiring leaves you feeling a bit dazed and confused (not stoned, like in the 1993 comedy movie of the same name but actually dazed and confused) then you have some idea how I felt dealing with it. Make no mistake...having the wiring diagram with all its little hints about wire colors and their purposes really is the only thing that got me through it. For some of you, this is rather 'old hat' but wiring ain't my bag.
Alright-alright-ALRIGHT! Back to the matter of the wiring harness, I spent some time surveying all the wires and decided repairs could be made but that it would be better to simply buy a new wiring harness and have done with it. After all, I am working with a 54 year-old tractor here and things are beginning to get a bit crispy on the edges. IMHO, the harness is very affordable and if peace of mind is worth anything at all, I reckon it's a fair deal and who knows, maybe the next guy who has this tractor will appreciate the effort.
Happily, what I have left of the wiring is good enough for me to bring it up front where I can work on everything I need to work on, and do it on a nice piece of driveway.
Cheers,
TJ
Last edited by m3a1 on April 4th, 2023, 11:56 am, edited 3 times in total.
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Went grocery shopping today.
One aisle....
All chips....
'MERICA!
One aisle....
All chips....
'MERICA!
You do not have the required permissions to view the files attached to this post.
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
HEB?
That was my favorite store when I lived in San Antonio.
That was my favorite store when I lived in San Antonio.
Re: Beverly Hillbillies, Part Deux
Yup... Good ol' HEB. Now, if they had a better selection of Hot Wheels.....