Above 1200 Sq/FT The Warthog Hidey Hole

[jbmatth]

Not much to report, I am taking a half day today and all day tomorrow to get a few things knocked out in the shop before working on the barn for a bit. Also the "new" pup was at the house when I got home, and ran around as I was shuffling things then started walking down the road. Hadn't seen him since, very strange. I left some food out but he hasn't returned, maybe he just needed a recharge before continuing on his trip, I wish him the best.

Willie,
I guess the oven was a bit like Christine, but not as possessed, you better watch out for it to return. Lucky for you it doesn't have wheels to drive back to get you.

JB

 

[shopnut]

Sorry to hear about the damage to the tractor hood. I guess it can always be fixed. But with my luck, I would fix it and probably damage it again the next day. Sometimes having a few battle scars on the equipment allows us to work faster, not worrying as much about damaging stuff.

Interesting about the dog just passing through. I guess some dogs, like some people, enjoy that sort of life!

 

[jbmatth]

Shopnut,
I figure with it being in rough shape to begin with and knowing it is more of a ranch tractor than a farm tractor working row crops it'll get beat up much more to come.

He was nice enough to stay and really seemed to like us but he just wasn't ready to settle down I guess. As Grizz put it, he is a wonderlust.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

Well another weekend has passed and I still don't feel like I was able to get anything close to what I wanted done. I picked up another load of power poles, all of them were in good shape:

I couldn't get any help drilling the holes so I did it myself very slowly, and had more to dig by hand. Eventually I had them all in, set, leveled, and tamped in:

Seems smaller when I put the tractor in and Grandpa's old truck later:

I realized with the ChitBox when I drove it last the headlights leave a lot to be desired, picked up a couple of cheap ones online along with a wiring installation kit that came with the relay, fuse, and switch for $11. I got a little better light than the cheapest possible and they cost $24, so for $35 total and 10 minutes I'll take it:

I continued to work on the steering improvements, I welded on a 4" long, schedule 160, 1/2" pipe ****** to the old tie rod locations then started making CAD gussets and welding with a pre heat, nickel rod (ERNICU7) and cooled in the sand box. (It was a box I put sand in:

Turns out I went a little overkill and when I went to press the bearings/rotor/hub back on it hit the rotor, time to grind a bit off to make it fit. Just part of it I guess, live and learn.

I also mowed most of the yard, cut a few stumps and limbs out, set the first couple posts for the horse fence then the weather turned and it got cold. Called it a day then taught the girls how to make sugar cookies and use a rolling pit and we had Halloween cookies for dinner.

JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

JB, your building poles are looking stuck in the ground! Good job!

The steering improvements sound similar to some of my redneck engineering outcomes...that looks great!...oh, now it doesn't fit right here....engineer on!

 

[jbmatth]

JB, your building poles are looking stuck in the ground! Good job!

The steering improvements sound similar to some of my redneck engineering outcomes...that looks great!...oh, now it doesn't fit right here....engineer on!

Some of those poles were interesting to lift and get set, next time I'll cut them closer to length before burying them. I realized after the fact some have quite the bow to them as well. Hopefully nothing that'll keep me from framing it and hanging tin.

Yeah I'm doing the wrong thing the right way some of the time and the right thing the wrong way the rest of the time. In the end it'll hopefully work, if not that is why I have a spare car.

JB

 

[isonic]

Looks great. Pretty neat that you can get power poles for free. I wonder if MN does anything like that?

 

[jbmatth]

Looks great. Pretty neat that you can get power poles for free. I wonder if MN does anything like that?

My understanding is a lot of places do, the poles are treated lumber therefore are not supposed to be burned. They either have to go to the landfill as waste, or be given/sold to people using them for stuff like this. The CO-OP even has a guy that pulls them out with a forklift, lets me cut them, then loads them on my trailer. Can't really argue that price really. Worth a phone call at least.

JB

 

[XJSuperman]

We can find them in Iowa pretty easily. There's a lot of them being replaced with larger steel or multi-piece wood structures right now. Often found on farms and other properties. Usually if you ask the answer is "come and get them outta here".

We use them at our Jeep show in the obstacle course, and have been putting up a shelter building with them.

 

[jbmatth]

We can find them in Iowa pretty easily. There's a lot of them being replaced with larger steel or multi-piece wood structures right now. Often found on farms and other properties. Usually if you ask the answer is "come and get them outta here".

We use them at our Jeep show in the obstacle course, and have been putting up a shelter building with them.

It is interesting that you were able to get some from random people, the ones I'd asked all wanted to charge for them, then I'd have to load myself typically. Oh well, they had a hundred or so there and probably 80% are in good shape.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

A bit more work on the Chitbox/Bronco III/Festiva, still working on the tie rod drops/knuckle modifications. To recap I went from the previous owners revision 1:

Rev. 1 was terrible, it would shake terrible, the bolts holding it in would come loose or even break almost instantly.

Rev. two that was better and allowed me to have decent steering:

That sadly put the 7" long bolt trying to keep everything tight and control steering thus stressing it in multiple ways at once. This led to failure of both of the bolts, one bent and stretched, the other broke. So on to Rev. 3:

Much more support for the raiser for the tie rod end. Now the bolt only has to hold it together and shear at the heim joint. The biggest fear I now have is the knuckle will have more stress at the joint where the gussets were welded to it, I did my pre-heat and post slow cool down but can't say for certain it'll not break. I'll take a spare for each with me from the parts car just in case.

Lastly I didn't grind anything, it was the dust cover causing the interference, I just removed the dust cover.

JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Even a blind hog gets an acorn once in awhile!

 

[jbmatth]

Marc,
I said that once in high school in chemistry class and a classmate's reply was, "So you are saying you finely found your nuts?"

Got a good laugh out of that one.

JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Marc,
I said that once in high school in chemistry class and a classmate's reply was, "So you are saying you finely found your nuts?"

Got a good laugh out of that one.

JB

haha, thanks for the chuckle, JB!

 

[BUGTHUG]

looks like "pole henge"

 

[jbmatth]

It could be a fun little playground, who knows what trouble I could get in up there.

In other news I'm headed out this afternoon to get some used roofing material for the barn, it'll save me over $700 compared to the cheapest new price. Used but much better than open air storage.

JB

 

[CNC_RICK]

That little car looks like lots of fun. I feel for your JD 4010 with the pole. Until I read your story, I didn't know that they made a 4010 in a gas version. My John Deere MT suffered from a roof collapse. I've straightened out the sheet metal a bit.

 

[jbmatth]

That little car looks like lots of fun. I feel for your JD 4010 with the pole. Until I read your story, I didn't know that they made a 4010 in a gas version. My John Deere MT suffered from a roof collapse. I've straightened out the sheet metal a bit.

Rick,
Thank you for posting, and welcome to the adventure, I don't believe you've posted here before. I wasn't familiar with the MT but it looks very similar to my B. One reason the gas version of the 4010 isn't more prevalent today is that the Zenith carb is notorious for being junk. The one on mine was rebuilt before I bought it and it does work okay, but has still been running pretty rich. I need to pull all of the plugs out and clean them off after only around 20 hours of run time. It is still a work horse and helped me set 6 posts this weekend for the fence I'm building for the new horse.

For me at least for this tractor the body work is just a cover and it doesn't really bother me it is dented, it started off that way so no harm no foul.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

It was another busy and fun weekend, it started off finding a load of used barn metal for less than half the price of new and it has patina for no extra charge, drove the 170 miles to pick it up after work Friday:

The pieces were 21' (6.5m)long and hung off of my 16' (5m) trailer just a bit. There was so much weight on the trailer behind the axle it was pulling up on the ball on the truck which would have made some scary hauling. So I took everything I had and loaded it on the front of the trailer. He also threw in the two scrap fans to help a bit more. The haul was okay but not ideal, I had trailer sway one time and hope to never have that again. It is all unloaded now in the barn awaiting more work to be done on it.

I finished the Bronco III/Chitbox rework, gave it a toe adjustment and pulled it out of the shop to do some work on the wife's Jeep. She mentioned she thought the brakes were making noise and the shocks had finely arrived so I went in guns blazing. Pulled the front wheels and the brakes...looked nearly new. I didn't expect that so went to the rear and found the problem:

We bought the Jeep new in 2016 and it now has 108,000 miles (173,000km) on it. When I rotate the tires I have in the past just looked at the front brakes as they "should" go out first or so I thought. Lesson learned and now $130 later everything is repaired and back to normal. Oh and the new Bilstein 5100's were installed as well:

Not too bad to install except the room at the front to remove them, in the stock photo below you can see how little room there is on top of the shock:

The Bilstein's require the use of an Allen wrench, but there isn't room for any that I owned. I found an old 5mm and cut it shorter and no problems from there, add another "custom" tool to the arsenal.

The rest of the weekend was spent setting posts for the horse fence until the tractor died at least. I tested a few things and the battery was getting weak so I called it a day at 5pm Sunday. Oh and good news, I didn't have to mow this weekend, hopefully done for the year.

JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

Busy weekend for sure JB!

My oldest daughter's Fusion eats back brakes like crazy also. I've put two full sets on it since we purchased the car 4 years ago....of course, she is hard on brakes, drives TO the stop sign before she slows down! It's a bit frightening, and I'm glad she pays her own insurance now!

 

[jbmatth]

I didn't even mention I only worked for a couple hours Saturday so we could go for a meal 1.5 hours away then went to the rodeo for a bit of fun.

Marc,
I'm surprised they do that, I'm just not used to it I've only ever replaced rear pad for wear out one other time, the rest have been due to mechanical failure. Oh well, lesson learned.

JB

 

[Bob Heine]

I had trailer sway one time and hope to never have that again.

JB

JB, I did a load in our little 7-foot home made utility trailer with 2x8s hanging off the back like that. Everything was fine until the trailer swayed a tiny bit. Then it swung back the other way. Braking made it worse but the idea of hitting the gas to straighten it went against every instinct i had. Did it anyway and then slowed down when it stopped trying to come alongside. You are so right to never want that to happen again.

 

[jbmatth]

That is very true Bob, I "know" the rules of trailer sway but my instincts didn't want to work with me. First I hit the brakes knowing it was wrong, then tried to accelerate which didn't seem to help, then just let off slowly and pulled toward the shoulder as it came under control.

From that point on I slowed toward the top of hills, and took it easy going down then sped up before the next hill to have enough speed to make the hill without having to downshift. It was a very mentally taxing drive, but made it home safe and sound.

JB

 

[mybigwarwagon]

I have had one trailer sway on me. It was loaded with a Suburban. I didn't lose it, but it took me a half mile to get it under control alternating between gas and brakes to tame it. Just before it decided it wanted to lead a gal had got between my buddy Tim, who was following me, and I. He said she followed the truck all over the road TAILGATING. I didn't even know she was back there.

 

[jbmatth]

Willie,
I know it was a pucker moment for me, and may have taken that long to get it under control but can't say for sure. Luckily someone had just passed and the 3 other cars were far enough back they could slow down in time. It would have been much worse if that happened in the middle of Tulsa going through there when it was relatively packed.

All,
I have a few small projects I want to try to knock out this week, blinker acting up on The Lemon, install and add-a-leaf on Lever Action, trim the wheel wells on the Chitbox, fix a leaking trailer tire, get the tractor running again, and troubleshoot the ignition switch on the truck of the rancher renting out our place for his cattle and hay.

Good news the blinker issue on The Lemon was a connection on the socket for the rear bulb which explains why it was intermittent. I verified a lot on the tractor and all checked out so I pulled the carb to clean it out. Some debris, but nothing crazy, and it still doesn't work. It'll start with starting fluid, but won't stay running on fuel. I'll troubleshoot more after work. I only have 2 holes left before I can start stretching fence, so close.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

I stayed busy last night trying to figure out the tractor some more, it is driving me nuts! I have it running now, there was a small obstruction in the seat for the float I couldn't see without removing it. But it was still running terribly when it wasn't partially choked. I tried to verify timing but the pickup didn't like being so close to the coil and such. It wasn't until later I discovered I was trying to time it off of #6 not #1, I had them backwards.

Oh well onwards and upwards. I pulled a flat off of the trailer to work on it only to discover it was the bead that is leaking, should be easy enough to fix.

I also made some clearance for the rear tires, just a touch off of the bottom of the bumper for the rear tires:

Many of you may remember the dixie horns installed on the cobra back on the 2017 HRPT:

Well a a few weeks ago I installed a battery to make them portable:

This morning I tired to troubleshoot the no crank, no start on the 2005 Silverado my leaser owns, turning the key to crank it gets a signal to the fuse box, but not to the crank fuse. The ignition switch seems to be okay, but the colors it had were different than the notes I had on hand. This thing hurts my brain.

JB

 

[mybigwarwagon]

That horn looks ummmmmmm great?

How long does it honk on one charge.

 

[jbmatth]

Thank you Willie...I think. No clue how many honks I get, I used it probalby 7 times and the battery still shows full charge, I suspect it'll last for more blasts than I want to go for in any given weekend. Plus I take 4 batteries with me on the Gambler trips, two of these 2 ah and tow 4 ah batteries.

All,
I reset the timing on the 4010 and checked everything over and all is set correctly on the ignition front, plugs cleaned and gapped, cleaned points, cap, rotor etc. Still runs terribly. I'm going to order a carb rebuild kit and give that a try, any time it tries to load up it starts to die. I suspect the diaphram for the accelerator pump is what is causing issues, at least I hope that is what it is.

I also pulled Lever Action in the shop to prep for installing the add-a-leaf, this was the first U bolt I pulled out:

I'd say it was near enough end of life, I will pick up a new set today and go from there. Sadly the plate on the bottom of the axle housing where these bolts attach was holding a lot of mud and caused this corrosion which also corroded the axle tubes. They are going to be okay for now, but I'll eventually have to replace the axle so I have that to look forward to.

JB

 

[mybigwarwagon]

Yikes. That could have gotten bad in a hurry. Glad you found it.

 

[jbmatth]

Yikes. That could have gotten bad in a hurry. Glad you found it.

I agree, it makes sense now that I see it, but there is so little rust on the frame of this truck that I can see it kinda blows me away. I probably need to look into the remainder of the frame to see if there is dirt sitting somewhere that could do this other places. I've also got a line on a full frame from a 3/4 ton that I may just be able to swap it all over and have a 3/4 ton truck...with a 4.8l engine.

JB

 

[CNC_RICK]

Zoiks... those U-bolts have met their plastic limit... Glad you found them. Question for you.. Ive written to you a couple of times and would like to start my own thread. Thought there was an "introduce yourself" place to go, but cannot find it....

 

[Grizz1963]

U-Bolts........ hmmmm.

Love these horns.

I just spent £10.00 or $13.00 and bought the noise for the Rezin Rockit

https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/215488/grizz-purgatory-rezin-rockit-advice

Should be fun.



Had one on my last Blazer I sold last year, made everyone jump or smile.

 

[jbmatth]

Zoiks... those U-bolts have met their plastic limit... Glad you found them. Question for you.. Ive written to you a couple of times and would like to start my own thread. Thought there was an "introduce yourself" place to go, but cannot find it....

The other three didn't look as bad, that one was very rusted. I do have new ones to put on once I get the add-a-leaf installed though. I think there is an introduction thread, but don't spend much time on any threads but the ones I'm subscribed to now. If you have a garage you can start a thread in the "Garage Gallery".

U-Bolts........ hmmmm.

Love these horns.

I just spent £10.00 or $13.00 and bought the noise for the Rezin Rockit

https://forum.retro-rides.org/thread/215488/grizz-purgatory-rezin-rockit-advice

Should be fun.



Had one on my last Blazer I sold last year, made everyone jump or smile.

At the very least the horns are funny, but after the 20th time. Not a bad deal to get that for so cheap though, good buy there.

JB

 

[Bob Heine]

Thought there was an "introduce yourself" place to go, but cannot find it....

Rick, you're right, there is a place to introduce yourself:

• Click on The Forum at the top of the screen
• Click on General Garage Discussion
• Click on Introduce yourself here!
• Click on START A NEW THREAD

 

[rmack898]

Jb, just a thought here but did you ever check compression on the 4010?
Sometimes we can get too involved looking at symptoms without ever checking the vitals.

 

[jbmatth]

Rick, you're right, there is a place to introduce yourself:

• Click on The Forum at the top of the screen
• Click on General Garage Discussion
• Click on Introduce yourself here!
• Click on START A NEW THREAD

Bob to the rescue.

Jb, just a thought here but did you ever check compression on the 4010?
Sometimes we can get too involved looking at symptoms without ever checking the vitals.

I have not, I should do that, I'll add it to the list of things to check. It is a bit down the list all of a sudden while I try to get a few other things done before the Okie Gambler this weekend. I'm burning that candle at both ends these past few weeks and I can feel it.

JB

 

[jbmatth]

I had another trip out of town this weekend to get a buddy married, he was my "little brother" in our fraternity in college and found himself a good one. While we waited for a friend Friday we made a quick trip to an outdoor shop and found something I had to have:

It is a Typhoon XII which is a 12 ga. shotgun that can fit 3" (75 mm) shells if needed. It came with 3 5 shell magazines and I can get 10 or 20 shell mags or a 20 round drum if I want...and I do. I have only put 10 shells through it so far and wow it has a bit of kick. Very fun though and I look forward to playing with it a bit more in the future.

On the way back the trip was going fine until I glanced down and my temp gauge was pegged which has never happened before. I quickly discovered why:

Belt broke, luckily no pulleys were taken out with it, I keep an extra in the car along with the tools needed to fix it and I'm glad I did. Shortly I was back on the road which was nice because I was only 15 minutes from home at the time.

Now I'm doing the final touches for the Okie Gambler 500, I have the add-a-leaf installed and buttoned back up on Lever Action. I replaced the bearings on only of the trailer hubs when I discovered they were making noise. Good catch, they probably wouldn't have made this complete trip. Then worked a wiring issue on the trailer and plug to get the lights back working appropriately again.

Pulled the Chitbox into the shop and cleaned it out some before now working to install a 12v outlet. The existing one doesn't work and it wasn't an easy fix after some trouble shooting so here we go again. That's about it for now, just going over everything to get ready.

JB

 

[OutlawDrifter]

You've been busy again JB...or continuously...

When I replace a belt on a vehicle, the old one gets put in the cardboard/paper "sleeve" with the part number and it goes somewhere in the vehicle, for situations just like that.

You can never have enough guns...or at least, that's what I tell myself. I need to start looking for another gun safe before too long.

 

[jbmatth]

You've been busy again JB...or continuously...

When I replace a belt on a vehicle, the old one gets put in the cardboard/paper "sleeve" with the part number and it goes somewhere in the vehicle, for situations just like that.

You can never have enough guns...or at least, that's what I tell myself. I need to start looking for another gun safe before too long.

I typically do the same thing, sadly this was the last for this car so I do need to order a new one and all of the idlers, tensioner, and might as well do the timing belt, tensioner, water pump...

I agree, for a while my plan was to buy one new one a year, I missed a few years but picked up a couple this year to help make up for lost time. I have my eyes on building a long range AR, I think I'll have to talk to some fellow GJ folks for advice/parts list.

JB

 

[XJSuperman]

Glad to hear you made it back. Im diggin the Typhoon. I think I need one in my life.