Between 705 & 1200 SQ/FT Big Country Texas Shop

[83VillageRepair]

I also changed out my flag that got tore up by the recent weather. It froze in the ground sleeve so I had to use the loader to pull it.

 

[83VillageRepair]

I spent the rest of the day flagging my north property line. I plan on clearing the Cactus and trees this winter in preparation for building a fence. No pictures but I will take some next weekend when I finish.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Fell into a decent deal on Facebook marketplace this morning. I can't stop myself from buying Lista and Vidmars when they are reasonable.

 

[83VillageRepair]

I spent the rest of the day working on the rally car. The wiring is all messed up (rat chewed and incompetent repairs). I also am removing all of the lean burn wiring.

Made good progress today. The factory Mopar manual is very good for wiring.

 

[zanyad]

Fell into a decent deal on Facebook marketplace this morning. I can't stop myself from buying Lista and Vidmars when they are reasonable.

Lucky. I can't seem to find anything at what I'd consider a decent price, everything seems to be at least $1k.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Lucky. I can't seem to find anything at what I'd consider a decent price, everything seems to be at least $1k.

I think being right next to an air force base is helpful. They just pop up every once in a while and I jump quickly

 

[83VillageRepair]

 

[86turbodsl]

Fell into a decent deal on Facebook marketplace this morning. I can't stop myself from buying Lista and Vidmars when they are reasonable.

I'd pick up every decent priced one of those i could. I'd be Strouty if i could afford it!!! Ha!

 

[83VillageRepair]

I'd pick up every decent priced one of those i could. I'd be Strouty if i could afford it!!! Ha!

Me too! We all want to be Strouty

 

[83VillageRepair]

Mowed my lawn for the first time in the new year.



I also cut up the rest of the stakes I need to mark my north and west property lines. I had a bunch of bent up rebar that I chopped up into 4' 6" stakes. Tomorrow I will survey and stake those. My 20 acre parcel was split off from a larger 300 acre parcel so was never fenced.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Got my property lines staked. Next I need to clear 20ft on each side of the line. I also picked up a bunch of oil field trash.

 

[83VillageRepair]

I love this time of year in Texas. Light jacket only

 

[83VillageRepair]

I posted in the garage sale forum but I will repeat here.

Bought this Massey Ferguson Super 90 for short money. I have been needing a general purpose tractor. I will post more when it arrives (wouldn't fit on any trailer I have access to)



I also got 3 more propane tanks for my welder.

 

[83VillageRepair]

I got my new tractor home this weekend. I will try to get it running this weekend. It didn't fit on any of my trailers so I hired a friend of a friend to bring it the 60 miles home.



The next day I helped some friends run down south of San Angelo to pick up an LS donor vehicle. It was a fun trip and good to stretch the legs on the F250 and trailer. Had a good breakfast in Julio's in Angelo, Carne los chilero burritos mmmn mmmn!



We took two trailers so we could haul a skid steer to load because the wreck was not a roller. Only problems were a flat tire on my friends trailer and the hood blew open the the junker. We only had it ratchet strap down and the suspension flex was enough to loosen the straps. I normally like to chain for that reason. All in all a good day. Sunday spent with the missus, dinner and the new Tom Hanks movie.


Here is a picture of the donor and the future home of the LS (lens was little dirty or I used a potato to take the pic).



This weekend we get back to work on the rally car.

 

[jollygreengiant]

Lets see some more pics of that "Mighty Fine" tractor you brought home.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Lets see some more pics of that "Mighty Fine" tractor you brought home.

If you scroll up a bit there are some pics from the day I bought it. I will do a proper photo spread this weekend. First up is to get get rid of that gawd awful exhaust protector and get a tractor muffler and flapper installed

 

[83VillageRepair]

We had our brief spell of winter here but it ended on Thursday. Nice wet ground so I decided to take advantage and get rid of some brush I had piled up. I had a concert on Friday night so I kept it small so I could get it completely out before I had to leave.


I am helping a friend pick up a car on Saturday so I will get back to burning on Sunday.



Gabriel supervised all day

 

[83VillageRepair]

More of the same on Sunday. Small controlled fires. Spent the day outside with the dogs. I know they enjoyed it.

 

[ned911]

I tried to burn brush in Travis county (Austin) once.... that went over really well even with the proper permits.

 

[83VillageRepair]

I tried to burn brush in Travis county (Austin) once.... that went over really well even with the proper permits.

I'll bet in that area. I purposely moved to rural Texas to avoid all of that. It also helps that my nearest neighbor is almost a mile away. I do only burn brush and wood. There are people around here that burn anything.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Got the rally car running on Friday. Still needs some tuning. Couldn't imbedd the video so here is a screen shoot of the first tire spin.



Saturday spent the day with the missus and Sunday got back to scrapping brass and copper

 

[83VillageRepair]

Burned more last weekend and cleaned up around the shop.







Hopefully I will get it all done before burn bans are put in place. It is supposed to be a dry year.

 

[83VillageRepair]

This weekend I went and picked up this 48-52 Ford pickup box trailer that I bought at a police auction. Unfortunately it was completely full of trash. Luckily I have access to roll off dumpsters. First picture is the auction listing.

 

[83VillageRepair]

I spent the rest of the day working on the rally car but only remembered to take one picture.

We changed the oil, timed it, tuned the carb and pop riveted the rear trunk emblem and a patch on the air cleaner where we removed the lean burn computer.

We took it on a half hour test drive and it went pretty good.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Last weekend got cut short because I had to leave on a work trip to Nashville on Sunday. I had a good week there and to hear some great music.

This weekend burned more brush on Friday.





I have a couple more weekends of burning at this rate. Going really slow so I could put it out if necessary. If you have been here a while you will know why.

 

[83VillageRepair]

When I got back the JCB wouldn't start. It had been giving an alternator/battery alarm occasionally the week before. Charged the battery but no joy so I changed it. It starts now but still alarming even though I am reading 13.5 Vdc at idle. Disconnected the battery in case there is a short.

 

[83VillageRepair]

The rest of the weekend was spent mowing for the 1st time this year.




These little cheap pumps from harbor freight pumps are great for gas, diesel and oil. Never pour gas again

 

[Ford52PU]

love those HF pumps but I only seem to get a year out of them before they die.
Pretty sure the little trailer you picked up is a 49-50 year metal bed floor the 51-52 had a wood floor.

 

[83VillageRepair]

love those HF pumps but I only seem to get a year out of them before they die.
Pretty sure the little trailer you picked up is a 49-50 year metal bed floor the 51-52 had a wood floor.

Thanks for that knowledge. I didn't know the years of the metal floor. I figured you would like it. Those pumps are cheap and Chinzy but I buy them when they are on sale.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Getting ready for my annual trek to the great car mecca in SD. Re-decking my trailer (see my free wood post earlier in the thread). I am also going to flush and fill the IDIT 7.3 with precharged SCA coolant and do an oil. I tried to buy tires locally for the trailer but couldn't find anything cheaper than $200 per tire so I bought Gladiator Load Range F on Amazon for $116 per tire with free delivery. They were delivered the next day.

I used once pre-loved form wood so cleaned with a angle grinder and wire wheel.

 

[83VillageRepair]

I had some Cabot oil based deck stain around so I used it.

 

[83VillageRepair]

The tires I purchased. I would rather shop local but $200 savings is worth it and I have a tire machine. Pays half of my fuel for the trip and every ST tire I find is from the same country of origin.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Today put new tires on the rally car and changed u-joints. Drives much better. Need to do a little clearancing on the front fenders

 

[Bob Heine]

changed u-joints. Drives much better.

@83VillageRepair, many years ago our Lincoln Town Car was making a little noise underneath and replacing the u-joints made the noise go away. They still had all the needle bearings in them. Maybe I was hasty and wasted my money, seeing how much life they had left. Having second thoughts about replacing brake pads before they're down to the metal backer .

 

[83VillageRepair]

@83VillageRepair, many years ago our Lincoln Town Car was making a little noise underneath and replacing the u-joints made the noise go away. They still had all the needle bearings in them. Maybe I was hasty and wasted my money, seeing how much life they had left. Having second thoughts about replacing brake pads before they're down to the metal backer .

Someone tried to get this car on the road before it was impounded. New alternator, starter, plugs and wires and front brakes and rotors. They threw a lot of parts at it but seemed to be short on talent.

All of the fusible links were out and the driveshaft was about to fall out. It runs good now. Need to button up the wiring and change tie rod ends and maybe shocks before the rally in June. We could drive it like it is if we had to.

 

[68400BIRD]

Just finished all five pages. Great read. It’s amazing how much garbage people leave all over the place. You can probably mow the acreage in half of the time now knowing that you won’t be hurdling a piece of metal out from under the deck. Good luck helping your dad in SD. We just got hit with more snow yesterday in MN. But, the weather is supposed to start turning today.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Just finished all five pages. Great read. It’s amazing how much garbage people leave all over the place. You can probably mow the acreage in half of the time now knowing that you won’t be hurdling a piece of metal out from under the deck. Good luck helping your dad in SD. We just got hit with more snow yesterday in MN. But, the weather is supposed to start turning today.

Talked to my brother yesterday they got 8" supposed to get more this week.

There is still about 10 acres that I haven't cleaned up. Steel is up now so this summer I hope to get all the scrap steel hauled off. Luckily only about 10 miles of back roads to the scrap yard

I went into the place with my eyes wide open. My wife loved the house and it had been on the market a long time so we were able to negotiate the price down and up the land included from 10 acres to 20. I could have got a junker to come in and clean it up for free but at this point it has become my hobby.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Just got back from my bi-annual trip to visit my dad. Plan was to take my pickup and trailer but got word dad was in the hospital so I just took off with Bronco.

Got him healed up some and out of the hospital but there wasn't much shop time. I did get up to the yard on the last day while my sister sat with dad. I brought home all the rest of the parts I need for my bonus build ford pickup yard art project. I also got some parts for the rally car and 1st gen bronco wall hangers.


Conoco station in Shamrock Texas


Snow drift at the Nebraska South Dakota state line.

 

[83VillageRepair]

It was a great visit. Lots of family stories and looking at old pictures.





On the way back I stopped at Carhenge, a religious site created by the ancient Druids in Nebraska.

 

[83VillageRepair]

Just got done unloading everything. I fit quite a lot into a 2 door Bronco. Drove 2000 miles and averaged 24 mpg (actual) at 70 -75 ish mph.