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Well, I decided to jump into the 414-8 shown below. Asking price was 500. Purchase price was 300. - All 4 tires are pretty badly cracked. I have a set of Carlisle rear tires in the correct size off my '73. - Mower height adjuster is broken off at the (HORRIBLE) factory weld. A very simple fix. - Gas cap needs to be replaced. - Knob to front mule is broken. - Knobs for shift levers are AWOL. - Trans oil is milky, needs drain, flush, refill. - Slightly "notchy" shifting into 3rd, both high & low range. I am hoping the drain/flush//refill and linkage adjustment will fix t. If not, an 8-speed arrives tomorrow. - Transmission "boot" for gear selector lever is shot - Left outer deck spindle bearing squeaks when PTO is engaged. No grease on the zerk fitting, hoping grease fixes it. - SLIGHTLY worn right (inner) tie rod end. - SLIGHT front wheel bearing play. - Seat is all torn up and taped - Gas strut on seat completely worn out - Edge of hood by dash is damaged/bent - Lots of paint falling & chipping. A bit of surface rust. - I'm sure it's the wrong battery, but it's brand new. Cheapo lawn tractor battery. Struggles to start it. - Battery hold down loose, likely because of wrong battery. - Engine runs great! Does not idle extremely low. I'll disassemble and clean the carb. - Needs an oil change. So, ok deal?

While everyone may have worn a pair of Levi’s jeans at some point in life, they may or may not know about Levi Strauss Day on February 26. A day dedicated, of course, to the founder of the jeans brand that we all love — Levi Strauss. No wonder it is celebrated on his birthday. Levi Strauss & Co. is the first company to make blue jeans. The history of this iconic brand spans over two centuries. Strauss opened his wholesale business as Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco. Strauss sold merchandise from his brothers in New York City. These included clothing, bags, napkins, bedding, and even combs. He moved on to tents before getting to jeans. One of his customers, Jacob W. Davis, went into business with Strauss to produce blue jeans, making him an inventor of the riveted denim pants in 1871, before patenting the style of pants in 1873. But, how did Davis get in the picture? Davis was a tailor himself, who came up with the design after a request by a lady that she needed some solid working pants for her woodcutter husband. He produced pants from the denim purchased from the Levi Strauss shop, using copper rivets to strengthen the stitching. This trendy new garment traveled through word of mouth, increasing demand to a point where Davis was up to capacity and unable to handle the demand and needed to patent his design. Strauss stepped in financially; he helped Davis patent the jeans and issue the license, which finally made them business partners — and successful ones at that!

I found this discarded flue pipe plan on @Pullstart's shop floor...

Makes sense to me!

No. 4017 resides in a museum in Green Bay WI. https://nationalrrmuseum.org/union-pacific-4017-big-boy/ Much cooler to see them out doing what they were made to do.

Started re-assembling my 520HC enough to turn over the engine (after some noodle scratching and forgetting that thr safety switches all work now). Just ordered a new set of decal stickers to I can freshen them up once I'm finished painting. Starting to get to the fun bit now!

T

What did I do today? I DIDN'T. ...eat.... But I will soon. I just completed a TWENTY FOUR hour fast. Suppah is fish and green beans.

...Clearly I haven't put up enough pictures of my own adventures in fabrication.

I don't think that will matter to much seeing that box full of bulbs he has.

Some may call it " Trial & Error" Designing, but to a retired Engineer, that's just good old data collection & validation !! Rube Goldberg would be right proud of you Kevin.

A new massage place opened on our high street recently, now don't get all thinking that where I live is a den of vice. It's not Attercliffe for goodness sake. But I decided to give Lily's Thai massage emporium a go, support local business and what have you. I fully expected a deep sports massage, but wow. It was deep, I mean really deep. This tiny Thai lady was amazingly strong. I came out feeling like I'd accidentally wandered into the launderette and been put on a spin cycle. I'm not sure i such an establishment will take off in our vicinity, English folk are a prudish lot and when I walked out I got some disapproving stares from some of the locals. It's a legitimate sports massage place, if it had physio on the sign it would be fine. Saying it's just a massage shop makes people think it's seedy. I may have to try it again just to see lol....

After letting paint cure I got the tower and lift arm installed

If you can get your hands on a valve spring compressor you can take the valve out and see how it slides up and down in the guide. If it moves nice and smooth I seriously doubt that valve is your issue. You can also lap the valve and see how it seats. If it looks good move on and wait for that coil. Maybe remove the coil, hook an ohmmeter to it and try heating it with Nancy's hair dryer and see it anything changes

Oh how I love those! ...wait- we're talking tractors still, right?

Well I am definitely a fan of Motion Industries. They waste NO time!

Hospitals must harbor plenty of ghosts--patients, doctors, nurses, administrators, and facility maintenance folk!

Update, I decided to not go with wood pellet. I went with a coal stoker since I live in anthracite country. I'm looking forward to getting this installed and running at my Dad's house. Best Coal Stove Pioneer LE/TV- Leisure Line Stove Company

No mistakes in trial and error or research and development. Just one step closer to success.

We don't often get to correct Bob. Those 6v Emergency bulbs are seeing a full 6volts.

A big rear end😁

Spray Rustoleum clear when the final color coat is still wet. You can handle it in 2 hours.

Yeah, I'm using the Rustoleum red cans and I'm a bit disappointed in how slow it is to cure, even in the baking Australian summer heat. It's taken a week to get what I consider to be handling cured, but still feels tacky, and if I'm not careful it will stick to whatever it's touching once it's warm. Also the decals will probably take a few weeks to get to me from the US, so no chance of rushing them on! Having said all this, I'm not looking for showroom condition. Just to give is a little birthday to make it look 20yrs old instead of 30.

A few years ago it seems like that I watched a video about the rebuilding of Big Boy? Quite an undertaking very interesting. I'm going to locate the rebuilding and watch it again. We rode the train from Springdale, to Van Buren Arkansas. Big Boy was to be in Van Buren but we missed it. As I remember it's about a 4 hour ride one way then you can tour Van Buren for a few hours then return to Springdale. There was a tunnel we passed through and there was a grave yard for men who died building it. Also crossed a trestle was more than 100 feet high. We went in the fall about the time leaves fell. Probably a good thing because we could see further without the leaves. We are fortunate to live in a country were there is such a wide array of interesting places to visit. thanks for posting Pete!

No baked taters? My favorite! (really, only the skin)

I'd say longer. Our experience shows us that a rattle can paint takes a >>> minimum <<< 2 to 4 months to CURE.

On a MUCH lower level of intensity...the DI team I’m helping starts their final push today with the area competition in a week. Dress rehearsal of their presentation and, I hope, final assembly/test of the transport “gadget”. I’m told there are only a couple of teams in their age group trying this challenge and the judging has an age weighting factor. Oughta be interesting! 🙂

seen a number of them in the west , goose bumps are a regular reaction , always had a railroad related info card in our have to see stops . if you were in a close , but unknown to you , view , the drivving diversion was more than worth it . have an imnense majisty , that just has to be seen / felt , our jet boat trip up the rogue river oregon coast , next to JEDADIAH SMITH NATIONAL FOREST , calif you are just a speck , toot toot , pete

Failure is what motivates one to success.

I just checked the lash and both are spot on. With the book calling for a 1.130 exhaust valve I'm just having a hard time putting one that much smaller in there. But maybe that's me. I've had the generous offer of borrowing a leak down tester but since doing a hot test would require putting everything back together I figure I might as well go through the steps I outlined. With what I've already done that should eliminate everything else from being the problem. Since this tractor isn't used for anything winter related I can go ahead and mount the mower deck. There's an area out back that I want another path and it will be mostly mowing so I can recreate all the conditions except the summer heat. The new coil is hung up in Indianapolis along with two other unrelated packages. Who knows when it will get here. In the meantime I'm still listening.

100% correct. Can I blame it on not having finished my first cup of coffee? I guess my mind went back to when, as a contractor, we were working in a very large orthopedic firm in Warsaw. At the time their main plant had a 14 acre footprint and was about 50% 2 levels. They had the type of emergency lights referred to here. You can imagine how many. Doing routine checks they would find several bulbs out. I tossed out the idea of wiring the bulbs in series. The downside was that they would likely come up short on the lumen output. But in reality I thought it would still be plenty. We experimented in one large office area. Even though the office workers were quick to complain they didn't even notice. Keep in mind here. That's 6v bulbs now operating at half voltage. The light output actually is cut to about 25% their normal doing that, not half like you might think. In Tonys case he'll have 6 volt bulbs operating on a 12v supply wired to supply........half voltage......which is.....................oh yea.......................6 volts. Tony, the good news is that it will work. The bad news is that when one burns out they both will be out.............and they won't last any longer.

Yes, just a simple series circuit. The downside it what they said, one burns out they both go out. But a bulb operating at half voltage will last about a million years.

Just for some joy, and to feel like the last 2 months haven't been a waste, I wanted to give it a quick fire up to make sure it still works, and to hear the mighty roar. Swapped the earth over as instructed above. Put the fully charged battery back in. Turned the key. Click-click Check all my wires, check the earths, check the fuses. Click-click. Multi meter comes out tracing out voltage, nothing getting past the relay, but shorting out the starter terminals turned it over. Starting to get sad that maybe I've flooded out the relay with all the washing... Then I remembered that I gave all the safety switches some love so they actually work now, and I still had the seat pan off, and the gear stick plate off. Put all of those switches back in, and pressed them down, turn the switch and off it roared! Also the adjustments made to the idle means it actually idles now when before it was digital and either on or off! Noticed a particularly loud knocking sound, but not sure if its a tin hitting something or probably a valve needing adjustment... problem for amother day. All that's left now is to finish repainting the panels, and mount the new seat. I will finally have a horse ready for working again. Starting to get excited now!

Not a bad deal and a very good foundation for a fixer upper. Found it this time EB

That’s a good grab for sure! It’ll provide some project entertainment and then you’ll have a great reliable rig for quite some time. Hard to be an eight speed with single cylinder Kohler in my book.

Of course, there are corollaries that must be considered as well... Floor space showing in the shop? Buy... Rafter space in the shop? Buy... Wife out of town and won't notice another red thing in the shop? Buy... Bored? Buy... et cetra...

I had the honor of working with Duff at Dartmouth College! We were in their security department together and he was great to work with, being that he was a Dartmouth alum, he knew so much about the college and was very smart, and very classy guy! I hadn't known him for long when we discovered each of our love for which was a true bond! I will miss him! C-85

That is exactly what I did. Tension, plus penetrant, couple of love taps, more tension, time, penetrant, then rattle gun. Came off way easier than I was expecting. Unlike the clutch in my chainsaw which is truly siezed on.

I have repurposed 6V emergency lights on my snow machine. They even come with an adjustable base. It's actually easier to wire in series than in parallel. .

I sat and scanned through the rest of the Michael Martino book this morning. Straight from the Horses Mouth. Found this interesting little tidbit.

Yes. They will widen the rear track, bringing the rear wheels closer to the edge of the mown swath of the 42” RD deck.

I leave all mine off, easier to clean out the pulleys & slides after EVERY time I mow. I have a set if you can't find them.

When removing a flywheel with a harmonic balancer puller I have found that hitting the end of the puller screw a couple times after it is under tension tends to pop the flywheel off its taper.

Effin take that!

Yes, I’ve been recording my thought process and reasoning. I’m fixing for a test fire, before I weld the burner into the tank.

Nice! That's a great project. I was just recently watching some youtube videos on building those and it probably linked after watching one of your other videos. There's a bunch of waste oil out there that I procrastinate on recycling but also saw some video stuff about mixing it with diesel to run through the chinese cab heaters to burn it. Basically double the volume of fuel and mix it 50/50 with the diesel.

Please tell me you're gonna put this on your youtube channel?

I have this bike rack, I might use some of the straight tubes for a heat exchanger of sorts.

We got about 10" total. Very fluffy. All plowed out now. Got stuck. Got unstuck.