Thursday, August 23, 2012

Tuesday, August 21, 2012

The Value of the Truck Doubled

I installed a hoist on my old truck yesterday. Now it should be worth twice as much as it was before!!

 This is the hoist completely installed. Bought the hoist two years ago from Harbor Freight and finally got around to installing it on my old truck.

 This is the hoist in the full up position. It will be interesting to see how it works. Bought with the intention of using it for an engine swap on my Barracuda. Hopefully it'll work.
This shows the support beams I put in under the bed of the truck. The box isn't strong enough to just bolt the hoist to it even with the angles that came with it to stiffen it.  The beams are cut from a metal signpost. I bolted them to the frame of the truck and then bolted the hoist to the beams. Now instead of just twisting the sheetmetal of the truck box, it would have to twist the whole truck.

This shows the support beams in place under the truck bed and bolted to the frame. One of the reasons it took awhile to install the hoist was I needed to come up with something to support the hoist. A friend had some metal signposts and I got one and cut the pieces from it. Now it's done and one of these days I'll actually use it.

When I told my friend last night that I got the hoist installed, he asked if it was before or after the rain. I said, "Before, during and after"!!

Friday, August 10, 2012

A Captain Goes Down With His Ship

Decided to do a shakedown cruise with the boat today with mixed results. It's a 1965 Crestliner 14ft runabout. Did get it in the water, that's about the only good thing that happened.
 At least it wasn't a "3 hour tour"!! The Old Lady has been joking about the S.S.Minnow and asking what's the Finnish word for minnow?? It's "sintti"*.

I picked a small inland lake where I figured there would not be a lot of people so I could do my thing without a lot of people around. That way I could take my time as it turns out there is a learning curve to this boating thing. Also there was nobody to laugh at me other than The Old Lady, and she does that a lot anyway.

This picture was supposed to show the boat sinking. The water was coming in at a good rate around the drainplug. I pulled it back out of the water to fix the plug, but couldn't find anything wrong after the water drained out. So put it back in and had the same problem, but this time I tightened the plug and stopped the water coming in. At least this time I got the outboard motor to run. The last time (about 8yrs ago) I put it in the water I couldn't get it started. But there was a problem with the way it ran. It would kick back while running like if it was out of time, but not constantly, it would run for a little while and then kick back and run again. A while back I called it a Lemonrude (Evinrude) and people laughed, maybe I was more right than I thought!! If I can't get the motor to run smoothly, I may have to buy another one.

We did do a little spin around the lake and at one time the compass was spinning like a whirling dervish. There must be a large deposit of iron ore under the lake.

Another thing that happened was I blew a brake line on my truck. The line to the rear wheels blew and I only had front brakes after that. At the time I thought maybe I blew a wheel cylinder because I could see a trail of brake fluid on the ground. At least it happened while launching the boat, not when I needed to do a quick stop from highway speeds. Because I knew the brakes were not up to par, I tried to keep it under 60mph on the way home. When I got home, I crawled under the truck and saw the brake fluid was coming from the line just before it connects to the flexible line to the rearend.

*google is a wonderful thang

Numbers

The top number is the temp and the one below it is the humidites.  Of the two sets of numbers the upper set is inside and the lower set is outside.


Beginning to think these numbers are like blood pressure numbers. The top one is bad, but the bottom number is a killer. At the time I took the picture it wasn't that hot, but it still felt very sticky and uncomfortable.

Altho, now that August has arrived the weather has cooled off and is more or less comfortable. Now that I've said how nice it is, it'll get HOTTER THAN HELL!!!!!!!!!!!(and not Hell, MI)

Getting The Snowblower Ready For Winter



Originally these pieces didn't have bushings in them. The shaft they hold wore the holes out to the point where they were egg-shaped. New ones (at 40 bucks a pop) don't have bushings or bearing in them either, they are just cast steel with a hole thru the thick part for the shaft. I got a couple of bushings (probably for a starter) for a few dollars each and made the holes bigger and round again and pressed in the bushings. I'm thinking this will be an improvement on the design. If not, by the time the bushings wear out, the rest of the machine will be shot.

This is the shaft and bushing blocks installed. Last year I bought a new drive wheel (on the left) and had just turned the blocks around to wear in the opposite direction. 

This year I also bought new belts (the Toro dealer wanted $30 for one belt and I got both belts at an auto parts store for less than that.) for the machine. The machine is 15yrs old and this is the only thing I've had to do other than change oil and the sparkplug.


This is how it looks when it's all back together again. Still need to put the cover plate on that will hid all these moving parts. 

Made some adjustments to various linkages and now it works like it did many, many years ago. LET THE FUCKER SNOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Thursday, August 9, 2012

Things Found On Facebook This Morning


Y not??

A little knowledge is a dangerous thing!!



Poor Baby, how you suffered!!!!!!!!!!!




Proof at last!!




That sums up the problem in a nutshell, MOTHERFUCKERS DON'T LISTEN!!!

Tuesday, August 7, 2012

Toilet Training




















































I've been in restrooms that could have used this sign.









































Asswipe for hard-asses!!

Latest Project

 One of the "social equals" (a dozen years ago I helped fix up the local hall and an article in the local weekly paper mentioned we were building 'peers' to stabilize the building) I built under the place. I built two piers to support a beam to stiffen up the floor and to support the weight on the floor.
The beam I built from two 14ft. 2x10s. Thought it would be hard to get it under the place.
Used pieces of PVC pipe as rollers to slide the beam under the place. I cut an old piece of PVC into short lengths for rollers. It was surprisingly easy to move the beam under the place. I had thought it would be hard crawling around on hands and knees pulling the beam under the place. Only had to crawl under a couple of times to put rollers ahead of the beam. Was able to push it in most of the way while standing outside.
The beam in place. I got it up on the "social equals" and jacked it up in place and blocking under it to hold it up. I lifted one end at a time onto the lower blocks and then onto a 4x4 before finally up on the top blocks. After jacking I put pieces of wood under the beam to keep it up in place. Also put some screws thru the beam into some floor joists to make sure it won't move.
                             

The reason I decided to put the beam under the floor. It looked like the floor was starting to sag from the weight of the cast-iron stove and the stone hearth pad under it. It won't be long before we'll be firing up the stove again, so I better get busy cutting firewood. Had to buy a new chainsaw 'cause my old one died. 

Saturday, August 4, 2012

Had That Feeling Many Times


Stupid Human Tricks

Talking with The Old Lady this morning about close calls we've had because of other driver's stupidity. She mentioned how recently she almost rear-ended someone because they almost stopped on the highway to see what a cop was doing. Probably writing a ticket or assisting a motorist. Slowing down is one thing, but you don't have come to a stop. I recalled how someone stopped on the highway (two lane blacktop UP on the Tundra) to let a school bus stopped on the highway make a left turn (why the FUCK they thought they had to stop to allow the bus to turn, I'll never know) and I came over a hill with a loaded semi. I laid on the air horn and passed them on the shoulder because there was no way I could stop in time. Hopefully they had to go home to change!! If the driver of the school bus had been dumb enough to make the turn, it could have been a real nasty accident.

Until then I had thought the stopping to allow on-coming traffic to make a left turn was a Cape Cod phenomenon. During their busy summer months it almost makes sense as there is usually a steady stream of traffic in both directions on the roads on Cape Cod. When it makes no Fucking Sense Whatsoever is when I am the only car behind the one that stops to allow a left turn. That happened to me and after about the third time this asshole stopped to let someone make a left turn or pull out of a side street, I laid on the horn to let him know I was not pleased. He got out of his car and came back to mine and said he was being courteous to other drivers and did I have a problem with that. I said, "I sure as hell do have a problem with that when I'm the only fucking car behind you and if you would just keep moving the other car could make its turn after I go by!!" Flipped him off and drove around his car to get in front of him!!

And something that happens fairly often UP here on the Tundra, someone pulls out in front of a loaded logging truck. Those trucks can have up to 164,000 pounds of logs on them, but some people either don't see them or think they can stop on a dime!!

Wednesday, August 1, 2012

Breastfeeding

























Sex sells, but breastfeeding isn't about sex. It's small-minded-sick-religious FUCKS that think it's obscene!!
That's what tits are for, not just to sell shit!!

EXACTLY

























Considered joining the NRA back in the 70s when they were still halfway sane. Now they couldn't pay me enough to be a member.