Here it is Thursday, another week is almost over and we are still spinning our wheels. The big tractor is still not fixed. It is such a minor issue, it is driving me crazy. To those of you who missed what has been going on, our big tractor, [which runs practically everything here] sprang two small pencil lead sized leaks in the gas tank, although small, this was enough to spray diesel fuel all over the motor and we had to shut the machine down. First we fooled around for days trying to get the tank out; we couldn’t find a steering wheel puller large enough, which meant we had to remove everything off the top of the motor in the other direction in order to pull the tank out. Big fun. Everyone got to see me rant and blaspheme about bad industrial design in regards to how this machine is put together. Here is a good example of a bunch of pencil pushing engineering geeks in Detroit designing a machine and never considering what it would take to take it apart and repair it. I have in the past paid good, serious money for apartments smaller than this tractor,, it is already as big as a house, and the designers couldn’t allow an extra inch under the hood and sheet metal covering the dash to make the gas tank an easy in and out slide, oh no. we had to get a pry bar, takes two guys trying to squeeze it in. So in the meantime, we were all very entertained by the assorted garbage that was rolling around inside the tank, the bottom of a metal funnel, parts of a previous sending unit, filters for the petcock valve, old fuses. The guys got the tank off, cleaned out, and we welded it. Sigh, it didn’t work, the tank was so old and thin we would burn right through the old rusty metal. So now we are waiting for a new tank from Missouri, it is supposed to get here Monday. The guys are finding religion in as much as they are praying that the new tank will be slightly smaller. We shall see. On a happier note my vet came by and picked out two monster ash logs to be delivered to a chainsaw carver, for a dog and a cat carving for his clinics front lawn, glad to see the logs put to good use because they were too big to put through the saw mill and it seemed a shame to make them firewood. We will have to wait for the tractor to be fixed as we can’t budge them without some heavy duty machines, all three logs are over 3 feet across, as long as we are going to have to load up the roll back with this tonnage, I am throwing on a log for myself and have the guy do me a goat sculpture as well, why not?
Posted on: Thu, 18 Jul 2013 13:14:54 +0000