ray...
The happy Nada Farmer, remembering mistakes from 56 years.
Keep coming back, I'm sure I'll break something else ......soon .
I'm starting to think, (which is generally where the trouble begins) that if something is one way, and "it seems to me" to make sense another way, then there might be something I'm missing. For instance the FrankenTractor had a couple chains on the lower arms of the 3 point hitch, which I got working, and I figured when I got around to it I would replace and reconnect them. Well as everything revolves around the ability of the tractor to drive the implements I wanted to try the new one, the brush hog. So I connected the brush hog to the 3 point and figured out how all the parts interconnected. Then I took it for a quick trip around the field. I figured that if it would make the periphery it would also cut anywhere in between. The slope is most pronounced at the edges of the fields after all, and If it handles the slopes, then surely it will work fine where it is flatter. It was an interesting test.
The Brush Hog is, I'm sure, the largest one that the machine could even attempt to handle. I discovered why they make an adjustable stop on the 3 point hitch control. If you lift the attachment too high, the drive shaft can hit the attachment, while attempting to rotate, or in this case while continuing to rotate. OK, that explains the condition of the safety cover on the drive shaft, it is a series of small concentric rigs of yellow plastic that used to be a protective covering to prevent getting caught in the rotating portions of the cutter. Hey, it was that way when I got it! Really! But it would have been in the same poor condition after the first run anyhow. Also, I found out the purpose of the little chains. I just spend three days getting the tires rearranged on the FrankenTractor so I'd have the "nice, new looking" tires on the machine I intended to use. Big healthy tread, really sticking out of the tires at all angles. And those little chains keep the lower implement arms from rubbing the corners off the big ol' rubber cleats on the back tires. So I bought the parts to reattach those suckers right away!
And then there's the brakes.. You know, the brakes worked just fine when I was swinging around on the ice in front of the garage. Lock a tire, spin around it, make a really nice sharp turn. Well they ain't squat on a hill side trying to stop a careening mower-tractor which is trying to break the land speed record toward the little barn... So, I need to adjust them a little tighter than they are I guess. Fortunately I have learned over the years, leave a way out, a run out area, don't get too close on the first pass. I also discovered the wisdom of putting the implements, somewhere not too close to other things I might like not run into, like maybe the motor home. I didn't hit it, but I got close enough to realize the possibility exists and it would make me mighty unhappy if I banged the brush hog into the front and took out a headlight or two. So for now the implements are next to the machine shed, though ultimately I'd like them in it.
I didn't do any real damage to anything, I'm sure I didn't help the condition of the drive shaft covering, and I'm pretty sure I didn't hurt the brakes as they didn't seem to be making contact anyway. Though I would have liked to have a movie of that ride, from a distance. As I stood up on both brake pedals and rode that monster down the entire hill, trying to get more weight on the brake pedals than I weigh.. Surprised I didn't bend the steering wheel. Oh , and I moved the seat back a couple holes on the spring/bracket, I think somebody small might have had this machine last. But at least they used some "NEVER SEIZE" on parts I have removed, which gives me a modicum of hope that it was cared for at one time.
Just to keep things moving along, I'm going to dredge up some experiences from the past as they surface, you know mentally resurface, or I do it again, and remember what I learned from the last time. Or didn't. For example.
Never hold a tool in your hand while "pulling rubber from a crimped area"!
I know that needs a little explanation, OK here goes. I was rebuilding the Black Volkswagen for Megan, after Chris ran Russell's truck into it in New York. You remember that story, right?
Well I was replacing the rubber seal around the engine, which is a bout a 2 inch flap of rubber held in place by being crimped in a track around the base of the engine compartment. I was using a large Craftsman screwdriver to spread the crimp out, to loosen the grip on the rubber seal, I was pulling the seal up, and out, when it ripped. it really just tore clear off, unexpectedly. Just surprised me at first, and then I realized my eye was really hurting, and that I had a screwdriver in my hand, and an eye that was really hurting. I covered my eye which was flooded with a wetness I was imagining was vitriolic fluid. I was pretty concerned at that point, and as I was home alone, I was wondering how I would get to the hospital, if I had just gouged my stupid eye out! I headed into the house and to the kitchen sink, which has a mirror behind it. I very carefully looked with what was left of my eyesight. You know, when one eye waters, so does the other, and the pain caused it to be a pretty heavy stream of tears. But I could still see out of my screwdrivered eye, well a little anyway. Enough to see there was no visible puncture wound, but there was a pretty weird mark on the white part of my eye, Fortunately, I was using the biggest Craftsman Screwdriver I had, a straight bladed monster that I was using as a pry bar. And on my eye I had an I bar shape right next to the lense. Wow, was I lucky! Just then Chris, and someone, got home, from somewhere, and I warned her it wasn't as bad as it might seem, but that I needed her to look at my eye and tell me if she could tell how much damage I had done. As I told her what happened she was both concerned and scolding, about what kind of an idiot rams a screwdriver into their eye? Where were my safety glasses? Why was I pulling rubber with a screwdriver in my hand? Blah, blah, blah! Okay, now when you have just gouged your eye out with a screwdriver, and you are in incredible pain, these are not the things you need to hear. Nor are they questions you are about to answer coherently. So I just looked at her with my good eye and said the one word that covers it all....DUHHHH! Well realizing I wasn't going to go immediately blind but not happy withthe pain level I decided to just quit for the evening and go lay down. It didn't quit hurting, in fact by the nextmorning I decided I wanted to go to the doctor, well I really never wanted to go, but I had to to get something to stop the pain. And I had to get it fixed so I could go to work the next day. Well it turns out I brusied a muscle in my eye, the cornea muscle. Now this thing is about as big as a squished pea, I mean stupid tiny, a wee little muscle, and it was driving me nuts! So the doc gave me a tube of numbing stuff and told me take a day off. Now you just don't take a day off from the FD. They want letters from doctors, and explanations and a note from your mom and well it's a real pain, and everybody knows what happened. Stick HIPPA up your butt. This is around the department in about an hour. 400 people know that when they say "it's better than a poke in the eye with a sharp stick" everybody looks at you and smiles, and adds "or a screwdriver, huh Ray?" Well anyway my eye got better quickly, and I had another priceless experience to share.
So put down anything you might be holding, before pushing or pulling, on anything else.
Not real catchy, but trust me, you don't want to jam any tool in your eye at high force or a considerable rate of speed.
The first apple computer we bought from a person we didn't know personally, was a Macintosh SE. It had a hard drive rather than the two floppy drives. What a neat machine. We went down to Akron U and saw it working in the office of a music type. He used it to create music for students and the band and well that didn't matter much, the price was reasonable, and the machine was sitting there, running just fine. So we bought it, packed it up and drove the dozen or so blocks home. I set it up for Chris in her area of the living room. And I think it worked for about two days. Then it wouldn't start, just sat and made an unhappy little noise, and had a sad face, at start up. Well in listening to it, I realized the main drive, the reason we bought it, wasn't spinning. We hadn't had anything with a hard drive before, they were pretty new. Our previous machines had floppies. A couple even had double sided, dual density floppies. But this sucker had a stuck hard drive, after a few gentle taps I gave it a twist in the air like I was trying to spin the drive from outside, and it worked! After a call to the music twerp that sold it to us, we realized we should have had him start it up for us in the office after it had completely spun down. Because he claimed it was a new problem, he never experienced before.
Yeah right, well we learned. It reminds me of the time I bought a van from a car lot on Main Street in Akron, I passed this lot every day for the twenty years they were there. They had an Ohio Bell Van, It was a supervisors van, a radio truck with very little damage and I knew they coated the insides of everything with grease, so it wouldn't rust out like most vans of it's age. When I went to test drive it, the guy went and got it and brought it up front, so I wouldn't have to drive it past all his other nice trucks, "it's kinda tight back there." Ok, so I drove it around the block and it was great, I'd just scraped a Ford van because of rust in the front end, which had caused the steering to get real weird and finally the steering box rusted off so bad I couldn't fix it. This one actually had water in the doors because the grease had sealed the drain holes. I bought it and drove it across the street to fill the gas tank. When I returned from paying for the gas, it wouldn't start, the starter motor was bad. I walked across the street and asked the shyster about it, and he said, "read the sign pal, all sales final, all trucks as is." And that was the last thing I ever bought from them they went out of business about a year later. I always recommended that my friends and acquaintances NOT BUY from that lot. I hope I had a part in causing their failure. After that lesson, our future test drives took a little longer.
Man, are we happy out here!
