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Well, since this is turning into a True Confessions thread. I only need my glasses for close work, but I wear them all the time so I have them when needed. I do always take them off and put them in an inside coat pocket after getting settled in my tree stand. I can see better without them thru a scope and they tend to fog up. Last week when I got ready to climb down from my tree stand, my glasses were not in the customary pocket. I searched all my pockets and finally decided I dropped them to the ground when I pulled my glove out of the pocket. I climbed down after dark and searched thru the leaves with my light being careful not to step on the glasses. Decided I would search for them tomorrow in the daylight, so I trudged home with no glasses. Got home and when I took my sweatshirt off over my head, the glasses magically appeared. Yep, they were on my nose the entire time. Glad I didn't find em in the fridge.

I bought a couple of neon green measuring tapes so I wouldn’t lose them. Well I know have three yellow ones and the green ones are nowhere to be found. Sometimes I walk into the container and when I get in there I can’t remember what I went in for…. Back outside for a reminder. Then I forget what I was working on. Vicious circle

Boys are at their moms house for the next few days so I took the opportunity to do a little cleaning and organizing in the garage. Alex decided that the Commando 8 he named “Archie” isn’t going to do anything this winter so I took it and stuffed it under the shelf. Easy enough to get to if we do decide we need it. some of you guys may get a kick out of this. I certainly get a smile every time I see it still. Aiden wrote this on my tractor shelf back when they were little and Alex still couldn’t write for himself. then on the inside of the same board under the shelf where you could only see it if you are under it he wrote this. I always laugh.

You guys jinxed me….. been working on my weedeater and walking around looking for my screwdriver. It was in my pocket.

I keep both SAE and metric adjustable wrenches in all my tool boxes... sometimes i use my adjustable SAE for metric and adjustable metric for SAE... works in a pinch...

There is a big peg board at the hospital maint. shop. Comb. wrenches and all sorts of mostly modified tools. We had a guy we called Spike who retired. He cleaned out his tool box in the boiler room and all of a sudden we had 4 or 5 wrenches of the same size on the pegboard! Then he decided to sell "his tools" He had them in a cardboard box. One of the guys looked thru the box and found 3 tools with his name on them!

Excerpts from "Reflections on Pearl Harbor" by Admiral Chester Nimitz. Sunday, December 7th, 1941--Admiral Chester Nimitz was attending a concert in Washington D.C. He was paged and told there was a phone call for him. When he answered the phone, it was President Franklin Delano Roosevelt on the phone. He told Admiral Nimitz that he (Nimitz) would now be the Commander of the Pacific Fleet. Admiral Nimitz flew to Hawaii to assume command of the Pacific Fleet. He landed at Pearl Harbor on Christmas Eve, 1941. There was such a spirit of despair, dejection and defeat you would have thought the Japanese had already won the war. On Christmas Day, 1941, Adm. Nimitz was given a boat tour of the destruction wrought on Pearl Harbor by the Japanese. Big sunken battleships and navy vessels cluttered the waters everywhere you looked. As the tour boat returned to dock, the young helmsman of the boat asked, "Well Admiral, what do you think after seeing all this destruction?" Admiral Nimitz's reply shocked everyone within the sound of his voice. Admiral Nimitz said, "The Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could ever make, or God was taking care of America. Which do you think it was?" Shocked and surprised, the young helmsman asked, "What do mean by saying the Japanese made the three biggest mistakes an attack force ever made?" Nimitz explained: Mistake number one: The Japanese attacked on Sunday morning. Nine out of every ten crewmen of those ships were ashore on leave. If those same ships had been lured to sea and been sunk--we would have lost 38,000 men instead of 3,800. Mistake number two: When the Japanese saw all those battleships lined in a row, they got so carried away sinking those battleships, they never once bombed our dry docks opposite those ships. If they had destroyed our dry docks, we would have had to tow every one of those ships to America to be repaired. As it is now, the ships are in shallow water and can be raised. One tug can pull them over to the dry docks, and we can have them repaired and at sea by the time we could have towed them to America. And I already have crews ashore anxious to man those ships. Mistake number three; Every drop of fuel in the Pacific theater of war is in top of the ground storage tanks five miles away over that hill. One attack plane could have strafed those tanks and destroyed our fuel supply. That's why I say the Japanese made three of the biggest mistakes an attack force could make, God was taking care of America. Any way you look at it--Admiral Nimitz was able to see a silver lining in a situation and circumstance where everyone else saw only despair and defeatism. President Roosevelt had chosen the right man for the right job. We desperately needed a leader that could see silver linings in the midst of the clouds of dejection, despair and defeat. Our national motto is, IN GOD WE TRUST, he watched over us in 1941 and continues to do so today. CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR OUR COUNTRY

Edited - Sometimes it's just faster to go buy another set.

For some reason I work with guys who spend half the day taking their glasses on and off. There's one guy still there I called Microscope Eyes. He would take his glasses off and read the tiniest #'s on resistors, motors ect. Another guy needed them to read. One day he's in the cooling tower fixing a float and he dumps the contents of his shirt pocket into the tower water. Glasses, case and gum. He retrieves the glasses and case. I say "aren't you going to get the gum you cheap $%#@%&*? I'm blind as a bat without my glasses. If I put them in the fridge, the only way to find the fridge would be to hang onto the dog or make sure there was some salami inside!

You are not old until you forget where your barber shop is. It took me an hour the other day to find mine. That is when you know nothing and don't care.

The as-purchased roller rocker trunnions interfere so machining the end of the trunnions was required.

Since my last post I started working on building the engine which is a Kohler Command CH740-25HP. The engine will have billet aluminum connecting rods and forged pistons. The stock 2618 cast piston to cylinder wall clearance is 0.002". The 4032 forged piston requires 0.004" clearance. So the block went to the engine machine shop for honing. The OEM pistons have a 12cc dish whereas the forged pistons are flat top, raising the compression ratio. The engine came with 23.2cc closed chamber cylinder heads. The resulting static compression ratio being 11.92:1. Machining a 2.2cc dish in the forged pistons, using a 0.062" thick head gaskets and 26.2cc open chamber cylinder heads reduced the static compression ratio to 10.08:1.

I forgot where this thread was...yep, it was in the fridge.

Losing items is normal as we age Paul, but when you find your lost car keys in the refrigerator, you may have a problem.

And yes, Jada is 15 today! Happy Birthday Girl! 1 year and you can drive! Maybe we should start working on her truck (and a job) soon!

It is a sign of the need for more combination wrenches. I hang mine by size on nails driven into the wall, at least two of every size. Guess I have about nine or ten 7/16". When there are none on the nail that is my sign that it is time to clean the shop up!

I spend more time looking for the tool I just used than getting anything done. A lot of kicking self goes on. Marv

Wait... before you do all those drastic measures, go buy some Kroil. You cannot find it at the usual places. Either go directly to the manufacturer or an industrial supply company. Why Kroil? PB Blaster, and WD30 are nothing compared to Kroil. Professional equipment maintenance personnel use only Kroil. I have pulled several WH steering wheels, bell cranks, hubs and rear hitches by using Kroil and some heat. You have to be patient. Liberally spray the frozen joint once a day for 5 days. Try to spray is down the keyway which goes all the way thru the bell crank. It takes a while for the stuff to creep in. Then on the 6th day, apply the heat. Bell cranks are the most difficult because the only way to apply axial force to the bell crank is to yank the assembly until the bell crank hits the sheet metal. Steering wheels are difficult because if you smack the back of the steering wheel, you may destroy the plastic.

What's that song i think it was Alan Jackson??? Pop a top again... well I did with an Amigo.. This thing is just amazing. It's got transmission bands like an automatic. No less than three sets of planetary gears. A very ingenious shuttle shift not to mention how the mid/rear PTO works. Now to figure out how every thing comes out. Very pleased how good every thing looks. Just a bit of rust on the high/low bull gears. The shifter sets in the round hole and is held in the top cover by a dog point similar to a horse. Only goes fore and aft. Two ranges ... four with the two speed axle.

Locked my keys in the ignition of my truck at the orange box store today…. Luckily they borrowed me a 6’ plow stake and some dunnage boards to wedge my door open and pop the button. Instead of questioning my intentions, the cart guy offered his advice that they sell the little hand pump air bladders in the store. C’mon man, let me break into my truck like a true criminal!

My grandson asked me why I had eight 9/16" combination wrenches...simple, every time I need one and can't find it, I buy another. It's funny though how sooner or later they all end up in the same place. That's when you are looking for the 1/2" wrench.

I mentioned earlier a rack & pinion will be used for the steering. Had to machine the tie-rod mounting bracket.

The engine will have roller rockers which require machining to remove the stock rocker pedestals and machining surfaces for the cylinder head insert to support the roller rocker studs.

Look at me. Do I look like I’d be lying?

After never having enough light at the lathe I thought tonight was a good time to rectify that. With a piece of extention cord, a small chunk of conduit and a free light this is what happened. Easily goes up and down and swings out of the way. Sometimes it's the small things that count

Going to try a plastic fuel pump and may work on the old leaking one sometime thanks again for the help

but not all….

I'm not sure if I should admit this given the particular environment.... But I'm going to go ahead.... I kept putting my reading glasses down in places where I didn't need my reading glasses so I went and bought more reading glasses. I now have about EIGHT pairs of reading glasses strewn about the workshop and other areas including kitchen living room bathroom dining area blah blah blah blah... Richie. Tape measures. I bought that same two neon green tape measures and I lose them just as often as the other regular yellow colored ones.

A glasses on top of the head moment!

Nice shirt

I've got 3 or 4 pull & pry bars. I have that many 'cause they would disappear when I wanted one. The solution was to buy another. Their designated place is the left hand side of the upper drawer in my bottom roll around. At any given time there are one or all three (or four) in there. When there are none, it is time to start picking tools up.

I did a run to mid MI today and grabbed a D series tiller for @jeremi3210 and Jacob of course… it’s a monster! Paul was a great host, with a propane heater, hot cup of Joe and he even started his awesome wood stove up too! Ran up to the big city after that and delivered a seat pan from Uncle Jim to AC Man Jeff’s cousin for his 520H Retro too.

The only thing I can add, is to turn your front tires around “backwards” for snow use. When you have them in “forward” arrangement, they turn into skids. Backwards, they actually grab and turn.

You guys are amazing!!

Got the blower attached to the front hitch and I need to cut the bracket and drill new holes BECAUSE I didn't realize this one bolted to the frame so I'll make it so that it'll attach to the front hitch. And i ordered the wrong hydro hoses from wheel horse parts and more (awesome customer service) and got the right ones coming!

You can see in the second picture it’s an 8-speed, so I’m going to go with it’s a C-85 with a B-115 5-speed hood!

Smart kids... You done well...

After about the 3rd lock out, I keep a door key for my drivers in my wallet.

The engine will have a roller camshaft and lifters. The block requires machining clearance for the lifter tie-bar.

again your comments are on time, just finished syphoning fuel from tank, when all your fuel cans are already full, (Winter preparedness!) and you need to dyphon a full tank, off to the store i go for a gas can that will be added to my collection!, watching gas going through syphon hose i was shocked at how dirty, including hunks of something!, tank is empty (‘cept for fumes!) additional removal is the Trac-Vac system that was on WH when i purchased it at auction( Trac-Vac was my reason for bidding on tractor) to have easier access to all i need to get at( line snd petcock) on fuel tank, would removal of tank make cleaning easier?, would like this tank CLEAN! Well, thats the anal in me😱, and just put some new fuel in and pour out till no more dirt?, Coming out of the 4th turn here, almost home, new issues await but one foot in front of the other is how i get home. lol Thanks for reading and responding to this small story. John Rizzardi

Take the axle with you to TSC or ACE and find one that fits. Remember, they are soft metal and you can file them to get that perfect fit.

The electric Heaters are alright. Nothing to write home about

I'll go with typo on the decal makers part... surely not @Vinylguy... he woulda sent out replacements toot sweet... I vote for Sylvia's explanation tho.

Well with working in the ship yards for 2 years, 4 years living on a Navy ship, couple years painting, 10 years in a truss plant and 20 years handling inked paper it’s a wonder I don’t identify as Joe Biden. 😂😂😂😜

If @elcamino/wheelhorse thinks that there's another person that looks like @squonk then he surely lost it.

I tried teaching my girls how to drive tractors at a young age. Pretty simple, given how slow these tractors are. ...then I made the mistake of cranking two tractors at once. Don't EVER do that! My son on the other hand, seems to be a natural. He wants to go "over there" on a tractor, and off he goes. Start, stop, whatever. Sounds sexist as can be, but so far he hasn't tried "bumper tractors" like my girls did, and he doesn't care for breaking the machine. Maybe I'm a bad teacher.

I’ve had children and tractor accidents too. I reminded them that they are unharmed, and that is what we get to celebrate. Keep ‘em wanting to ride!

701 Bill ... looks like she gets painted on the hood stand.... afraid I was gonna bend or break something i couldn't fix. Odd there was a roll pin in there that sailed right out.