I did that repair about a year ago, ha the whole deck had a twist in it, compound type thing. Took a couple men and a boy 2 or 3 work days with some coffee tossed in. It leads a ruff life, so far we had it turnkey a couple times as far as we could tell.
Its got a couple replaceable skids i gonna weld on, they aint wearing them off but busting loose.
Had a nice layer of oil and grease with dirt thrown in.
That is kind of a good thing in some sense as not everyone can clean it like we can.
I should have got a pic of mil and i moving the groomer to the paint booth yesterday but,, this morning we take the rest of a mower boom apart and set it on the bench. I ended up with a tube 6 inches shorter than i wanted but on other hand it saves me 150 to make a splice.
Pin removal. Whoops, seems no matter what i do today its gonna go the other way and was working without glasses.
Vise repair was after pin removal.
He was trying to fix a stripped acme, i didnt have one but he find a shortcut and gonna find the right spring to go inside but it springs jaw open, really kind of slick in its own right.
I havnt welded anything in 2 days best i can recall. But paint prep and paint is another job. As paitent as it is tempting to be its hard not to want to do one coat and i should have got started a couple hrs earlier. Painting this stuff is hard, i got more runs than i wanted,, ha. I used paint pot and its so tempting to be a speed demon.
Ya,I gotta fix my pics. But yes, snow trail groomer. They pull it with 175 hp 4wd tractor. This was made as a copy of theoriginal and I was having a hard time figuring out what was wrong with it. I looked back and forth, knew it for some reason, even had the engineer look a little and wasnt till we were gonna remove the blades for paint e found out a slight geometry problem. Couldnt see it completely assembled. Probably couldnt see it from operator position and ruunning but one gang each side not completely tripping all the way, was hitting the blade about 1/2 way thru the cycle. It had some damage repaired but not the cause.
When look at the photos I remember.
Most doing welding for living do not realize the farmers do most of there own welding or ranch hand.
They save the difficult welding and or fail welds for portable welding guy.
Dave
Originally Posted by whtbaron
We were debating what this contraption was on another post... trail groomer?
My father and my self have did a lot of metal buildings for farmers and ranchers.
My father would not take a welder to a job site. As we are putting putting there building up they would ask for free welding done.
I gave the wheel hubs a spin today in prep for mounting the equipment back on the machine. I might get a pic of it but was a just in time save, one bearing and race which I had but a seal I didnt,,, damm. Helper peeled the tape and will soon paint the trim.
So, I find 3 major downtime problems, 1 and 2 effecting the machine pulling it and cause of much of the previous damage to the unit. This is a hard thing to bill for. They did some repairs but missed the cause. Up side its nothing a little time with the plasma cant solve.
So by the time I got the chores done, rig a machine or 2 and get my bench finally cleared for the next job its 4:30 something. I go to make a last pass and find I had plugged a truck engine in I dont need and someone left some lights on in another one.
Lets see,,, found a small coolant leak in the van engine, got a power steer leak too and have been living with it a little. A coule of the fixes dont look bad, did som minor brackets, painted 2 wheels and bought 2 tires at 200 a piece, snugged the rear brakes up a little going in to winter. Need to do some rudimentary body insulation and run brake controler yet.
Found a stash of left handed gloves. One of my goals at some point is to clear the main bench/benches of every item not needed. It usually happens about Sunday evening but managed it now but the day really isnt over yet.
Back again, managed to clean a windshield I missed and turn off the rest of the shop lights.
I will ramble in my own thread but this whole thing is about value a d what .makes it. Its why there is a difference in personal value and market value. The antique road show is interesting and similar to this. A lot of fuss over some top items and the price but i cant believe how low some great items are, furniture cost less than new, couldnt build it at minimum wage for 1/2 that. Some jewlery too.
I am regretting a high end saw we just bought. Sould have bought Menards. Its hard to get away from older thinking, that its some kind of investment in equity when it simply depreciates. I have a little problem with a Menards saw, i got a problem with a Stihl. Spending 4x didnt solve it.
Got a problem either way, one is cheaper at the end of the day.
10 years ago we would not have been on forums raving about 169$ welding machine. I hadnt used a Hobart EZE, every once in a while someone would come along and mention it worked ok and 3 or 400$ would put a dent in a 140 but now one can do that for less than half off the shelf nearly everywhere.
I have been using alternatives to Snapon and super Metabo but now they making cheaper models.
One factor is old equipment hasnt needed replacement and repairs modest.
I have a couple different views. As purchace agent, as value added salesman, assesment and history. Any time you can spend money to make it its a no brainer and it includes savings. If a guy had to go deep, a thousand dollars 40 years ago it was a big deal. Today do not have to do much work to regain 200$ and it doesnt need to do everything to do what you need to do.
The advantage of working alone NO IDIOT making mistakes you have to fix.
I can still blame the idiot as fantom person. Like Bigfoot did it. A mistake Roswell did I have to fix.
Dave
Originally Posted by whtbaron
One of the disadvantages to working alone is that I only have one idiot to blame for all my problems...
Inaulating van a little.
Ok, so it was a tin can and gonna be chilly. I managed to find a piece of insulation, was pondering going to the store, these are awkward then we started folding up cardboard and shoving it in the panels and it worked well enough. We can sheet or buy crap later, i didnt feel loke going to the store and they dont give it away anyway. I should have been done, it seems to take some pondering to do something like this.
I hadnt been out in the real cold, i was working other night and had a cold start at 25 or so wnd a 15 min drive and it didnt get very warm. I park inside, at 50 so i dont have to start out frozen but modern trucks are so good that in winter we leave them run some for heat when working. Being able to jump in a hot truck makes it so much easier.
The hot rod boys insulate cars with a product called Dynamat... it uses a foil backing to reflect heat in or out. There are also cheaper versions out there that have been tried. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...ulation.51399/
250 amp Miller DialArc AC/DC Stick
F-225 amp Forney AC Stick
230 amp Sears AC Stick
Lincoln 180C MIG
Vevor MIG 200A
Victor Medalist 350 O/A
Vevor Cut 50 Plasma
Les
I have used fiber glass insulation and aluminum sheets for insulating trucks and equipment.
It is not cold here but very hot.
But like the foil backing it would make the job easier
Dave
Originally Posted by whtbaron
The hot rod boys insulate cars with a product called Dynamat... it uses a foil backing to reflect heat in or out. There are also cheaper versions out there that have been tried. https://www.jalopyjournal.com/forum/...ulation.51399/
I got it mostly done, swept out, fix and find a little. Going to add a couple bright interior lights. A couple shelves are on the list. I even stripped a couple things, i have a ladder rack to install. I am tuning the tools, i have been carring a torch i havnt used lately but subject to change. I kind of know what i am going on, i can easily add on when we get involved with projects.