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Dam!

over9five — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 18:46:47 GMT

Beaver dam, that is. My friend lives just over the line in New Hampshire. His land is bordered on two sides by a large stream. Every few years beavers move in and build their dams which start to flood his property.
Well, it's been about five years but they're back.

So what we end up doing is making a big hole in the dam. We did that this morning. Dropped the water level 14 inches just in the hour and a half we were there.

Now tonight when the critters come out to rebuild, we'll be waiting on them. With flashlights and a rifle. To do this at night, you need someone with a very bright light to light up your target. I have painted my sights white, and taped a small flashlight to the side of my rifle to illuminate the sights.

Wish us luck!

Project Driveway Complete!

over9five — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 16:24:17 GMT

The Bobcat arrived as (re)scheduled, and I liked it so much I called the stone place and had them deliver 5 more tons! That brought me to about a 22 ton pile at the bottom of my driveway.

I will never shovel stone again, it was well worth the $225 for a day. Very easy to use, though I scared myself a couple times backplowing and feeling like I was going to tip over backwards.

Driveway is great. Should last a few years till I have to do it again.

Rain Delay

over9five — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 13:08:07 GMT

It's rained here every day but maybe two for the past month. So today I had my Bobcat coming... I wake up to thunder and lightning and POURING rain. Great. This is NOT going to be fun. I'm thinking of the thing slippin' and sliding up and down my steep driveway, all the time being drenched and possibly struck by lightning.
But I reserved it, paid for it, so I will do it...

Woohoooooo!!! The rental company called and said, "Do you really want to do this today??"
No I Don't!

Rescheduled for next Friday!

Project Driveway

over9five — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 23:59:56 GMT

My driveway's horrible! Gravel/stone driveway with a steep hill in the middle. It has decayed over the past several years, due to rain washouts, etc. Last year I put 5 tons of a graded base (stone/stone dust) on it. The truck came and dumped the stone and we shoveled it into a wagon, and pulled it up with the tractor and shoveled it out. A lot of work!
So a couple months ago, I got 10 tons delivered. We did maybe a quarter of it like last year....... and kinda stopped.
Well it has to get done, so I went down to Rent-A-Center and rented a Bobcat for next Thursday.
AND seeing I now had a Bobcat, I decided to get 10 more tons of the graded base. That got delivered today.

Right now, the driveway looks like this:

It's worse than it looks....

Here's my approx 17 ton of stone:

It's not as much as it sounds.....

....but I'll probably end up wishing I had rented a backhoe!!!

Project F150

over9five — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:35:19 GMT

This project came out quite well. Truck should last a few more years!

^ I used a piece of unistrut to connect the rear bumper back to a good part of the frame.

^ Bottom view of the same piece of unistrut and angle iron to fix frame.

^ New rear fuel tank with "Holy Straps" holding it up.

^ A long piece of unistrut with spacers mounts the bed to the frame.

Went well. Luckily, my son and his friend were around to help lift and lower the bed and generally helped a lot!

New project F150

over9five — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 21:34:13 GMT

Yikes! My F150s leaking fuel out of the rear tank bigtime (anyone smell it in the Chema lot?). Anyhow, it's because the bed frames have rotted causing the bed to drop about 1 1/2 inches pushing the tank against its hangers.

The bolts were standing above these holes and above the bed. The bed frame I removed here was worse than the next bedframe you can see here.

Oh, but wait... it gets even funner. Can you see the frame just before the bumper? (I need arrows, Dizzee will have to show me how to do that someday!).

Not good. Nothing solid to weld to..... All that frame thats rusted not only holds the rear tank in, but holds the bumper on too.

I have a plan......kinda...... but it's gonna be ugly. I will be nominated for Mickey Mouse award of the year, tho!!!!!!!!!

To be continued....

Mission complete!

over9five — Sat, 04 Apr 2009 15:16:20 GMT

The Cherokee is back together. Came out pretty good, I think.

The new grill and headlight surrounds are chrome, unlike the old ones.
I'm just glad it's done. We've been down two cars for a while now. My children were so lucky to be able to share my F150, but that's hard to do when both work!

Rebuilding

over9five — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 21:46:41 GMT

Well, the only parts that came were the new bumper and mounts. Today we straightened everything we could. As Dagoof recommended, I ended up taking the fender off to straighten it. Came out pretty good, I think.

Installed the new bumper mounts too.

It was a lot of work straightening everything, but I think it's ready to receive the rest of the new parts (whenever they get here!)

Kids and cars II

over9five — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 21:18:47 GMT

Here's the biggest problem (I think). See how the left fender is pushed over? I don't see a way to access the inside to push it back, and I need to so the grill lines up with the screw holes.

The bumper mounts are bent too, but I can hit them with the sledge.

OK, what the hell is this round thing mounted to the inside of the bumper? It has (had) a vacuum line going to it.

Kids and cars

over9five — Sat, 21 Mar 2009 21:47:28 GMT

Remember my daughter flipped her car about a month ago? Well, the insurance company totalled it, paid it off, and gave her $1000.

Well last week, my son got in an accident. His car was not totalled, but having only basic insurance the insurance company won't pay to repair his car.

So here's my next project. The parts are ordered, my sledgehammers ready:

So someone make me feel better. Anyone elses kids smashing up their cars?