Etiller

Finally went to the city yesterday to take my nightmare computer in and get some stuff at Princess Auto. I got a simple $2 fan belt pulley for an electric motor I had kicking around, and had the motor welded on the roto tiller in about an hour, when I got home. That is with scrounging up scrap metal mounts and stuff. The motor is unfortunately not very adjustable, and to change the belt the whole motor would need to be unbolted and somewhat removed, but the belt is brand new (from a $2 box of belts I got at a farm auction). I put that together at about midnight and tested it out, it seemd unstoppable, and even I was amazed at how quiet it was. I should call it the wisper tiller. I will try and take a video in the morning. Because the Etiller doesn't have a big heavy motor over the front, the whole thing is very light, and it will sit there all day tilling if you leave it alone. Farmers say rototilling keeps the moles away, hopefully that has nothing to do w the loud obnoxious gas motors. I intend to put the rototiller on a timer, stuck nicely in the garden. Then it can come on at night for an hour, wile the moles are looking for new places to dig holes. I can peg the extension cord to the ground, and if the tiller decides to wonder off, it simply unplugs its self. If the earth grinding noise doesn't keep the moles away, I don't know what will.

The Lawn tractor in all the vids ate 2 “transamatic” belts. Yes I even bought the right belt, they were more expensive, but that was prolly just Canadian Tires extra mark up. So The hour before I put the rototiller together, I removed the ol “transamatic” transmission and the 2 counter rotating belts that would get caught up in each other, and I put one simple princess auto belt from the motor to the rear end. Kind of sad it was somewhat between sizes, the big belt was too loose for the idler to tension, and the short one was too tight to successfully disengage the idler. So the lawn tractor got the shortbelt and its direct drive, one gear. The rear end does have a forward neutral and reverse shifter. It moves a little fast for cutting the grass in those tight areas, but it keeps you on your toes. No more sitting back w a beer, mowing the grass in first gear. Its two hands, white knuckeled, on the steering wheel hanging on for dear life, no brakes no clutch flat out. I will add brakes I guess, but they will just stall the motor out, annoying. Maybe then I wouldn’t need to install a kill switch, even easier. I think the brakes are all there they just need to be tightened.

That is all the latest, I have to get ready to go camping tonight.

Latest crazyness

I found a use for my outboard motor, in Alberta, hence the picture. Notice it is outboard powered. So next time I get to Victoria, I will haul my outboard back, put my speed boat up for free on usedvictoria (guaranteed gone) and haul the empty boat trailer back to Alberta.

I am creating some web sights to make some extra money. Although so far they are just expenses. It is a project I could do in Toronto. When I have a sight worth looking at I will post links. Michelle has accepted a job at her favorite school, starting today actually, but part time for the rest of this year. Then next school year would be full time I think.

The verbal spontaneous agreement was that we would go to Toronto for July and Aug. I expect we will have the place all cleaned up by then and put it w an agent for those 2 months, for sale. Selling it our selves is not happening so far.

I received my Electrical Masters certificate in the mail on May 25. I was very happy about that, but there is no indication of marks, nor a wallet size card. I don't think it is as hard as it used to be, just less than 70% of the people pass these days. I presume that doesn't count the folks that drop out of the prep class. I think there was only 2 or 3 in the class of 20 that dropped out. But one of the drop outs was your hard core 424 union member, always ALWAYS wearing 424 shirts and hoodies. There really is no such thing as a stupid question in class, just stupid people, he proved that.
And just when I thought I reached the top of the electrical food chain, they offer me to come take some ECA courses and join the Electrical Contractors Association. Irritating.

Internet has been crazy, not working all the time. I finally got them to come by and replace the part I suspect to be the problem, and now my lap top will go online, but Michelle's won't, and the other lap top is all together dead. I briefly wanted to be a service guy for the internet company till he told me his pay, and shift for that day. He gets $20 for a service call, and they gave him 2 calls that day, one at 9 am one at 3 pm , and very far apart, distance wise. So it is prolly a 6 hour day w all the driving, for $40.

I have a big electrical job to do for a friend out here, installing heaters in their house. I have to bid that, because it is a good friend I won't make much money on it, but I can get to her house by dune buggy, without traveling on any pavement, so I will have some fun with it, and get a better idea how much it costs me to do stuff, for quoting jobs. I am not very good at that.

I have given up my office/man cave, to Michelle, so she can finish her school work and all. I am building another new office, with a larger window that faces south. This one has a very poorly finished concrete floor, I am not sure what to do w the floor yet, but it will probably involve self leveling cement, and I would have to heat it.

Rachelle took her rototiller back, so I talked my buddy Darrel out of a rototiller from his scrap yard. I left him the old worn out 5hp, and i am adapting a 120v motor to it. So far it will just be to till in between our rows of vegetables. Which I guess isn't needed so much if we go to Toronto for the summer. I also started a fun vegtable project w the old digi camera. I permanently mounted it to a fence post over the garden, and take a picture every day when I water it, to eventually make a 2 min video of 4 months of growing and picking veggies. But I guess that won't work out. Chris would take 8 picks for us on the weekends, wile we weren't here, but that will be missing too much.

Big camping trip this weekend, really the first time we have used the camper we bought. It has a toilet installed, but no water pressure yet. I think there will be 5 campers for the weekend, I kind of lost count. I welded up a spare tire mount on the back of the camper, so we don't forget it. Despite the laws forbidding us to tow a trailer behind a trailer (only trailers behind fifth wheels are aloud), I welded a hitch receiver on the back of the camper. Some fascination w towing I guess. All that time was not wasted, as I made a cooler holder that goes in the hitch receiver. Going in the camper for another beer is a hassle. Putting the cooler in the back of the truck creates all kinds of pinch points between the camper and the truck, that drunk people shouldn't have to deal with, and the tail gate won't come down with the trailer hooked up. I am sure there will be lots of pictures and video this weekend.

Still haven't got more chickens, pig or nothin. Though the neighbor had shitsu cross puppies, and I think Michelle really wants one, that would be in a few weeks they are good to go.

Fun video

My goal was to condence a few hours in to two potentially entertaining minutes. This is the result, one day I will figure out how to over lay music, unfortunately there is no sound on stills. I figured out my $40 video recorder will work w a half gig SD card, but not a 2 gig. So now at least I can take an hour and a half of low quality video, before saving it. I will video more, it seems to bring me good luck, I work faster, and the problems almost solve themselves somehow. It has only been twice, with the motor starting, only on video, and then I figured out the drive belt was routed wrong on video.

The new toys

Managed to hook up w Darrel today, went to his yard to take his lawn tractors he said I could have. I am always shocked at how little pick up trucks can carry. So I only got 2 of 4 lawn tractors. The ol Lawn Scout, was going to be our grass cutter. Its only a 6hp, with a single menacing 30 inch blade. I checked it out first, started rite up w 'liquid fire' starting fluid, but the carb would not get gas into it. I rebuilt the carb, and found one damaged needle and seat. Still wouldn't work after the rebuild, and the plumes of smoke from its short runs being bottle fed gas, lead me to believe that is one really worn out motor. I pulled the motor off and disgaurded it, thinking I can buy a brand new motor from china for bout $200, the mower can be easily sold for that at any time. The second tractor I had great difficulty getting started. I actually took video of my last ditch efforts, to show how frustrating it was being, and it fired rite up on the second try. Without any editing or cutting of the vid, you can see at the end, letting the clutch out, it smokes the drive belt off. The very cool 'shift amatic' cvt clutch system is all siezed up. I got it unsiezed but I have to get new belts for it now, hopefully wide V belts will work.

With that tractor working I stripped the menacing 30" blade off the scout, and am now fitting it on our original tractor, that had a 36" blade.

Also attached, in all the wrong order, is a picture of the 40's Fargo truck I may buy for prolly three hun. Most he will get crushing it will be $200, if steal goes up any, and he loves me cause I always have cars for him. But I still have some measurements to do to prove it will be easy to transfer the Fargo body onto the 57 frame. They are both old frames that were just strait beams, so as long as those frame beams are the same distance apart, all will be good.

I have lots of ideas for a hybrid tadpole style trike, using perhaps my chopper 250cc motor, I would hope to get 100mpg, getting it registered would be another issue, but I want to build at least a prototype. I can always put quad tires on it and rip around in the bush. Darrel has volunteered the suspension parts I will need to make the front end of my latest creation.

Racing mowers?

It was very ironic that I had made a video of all our animals the other day, as the following morning, the dog, allegedly slaughtered all the chickens and we got rid of her. We had had the stray dog for 3 weeks, and had gotten very attached to her, but not fenced her in, thinking still that she might belong to someone. She stayed here most of the time but wandered off on occasion. One morning I never saw her kill a single chicken, nor saw any traces of blood or feathers on her, just three chicken death scenes and no chickens. Similar to when the hawk took a chicken. Even if the dog didn't kill the chickens she didn't protect them either, and cosmo is very small and fluffy like the chickens, so the big dog had to go. the local chicken farmer tells us she probably buried the chickens somewhere for later.

We have had some gorgeous warm weather, and I decided to pull the rotten kitchen window frame with the broken glass out of the wall, making a huge 55" x 32" hole in our kitchen. But not before I pulled a double pain window out of a huge three pain frame that came with the house, rotting in the back 40. I did get pictures, but if you can imagine a window about 50" tall and about 100" wide with three 50" x333" pains in it. I managed to take it all apart without damaging two of the three panes, and then salvage enough of the frame that wasn't rotten, to make one frame that holds one pane. The rest is really too rotten or split to re use. So then the old grinder with a masonry disk to cut through the stucco, I made the hole in the kitchen even bigger, to fit the new window. Perhaps I can get a picture of the fabulous window installation, and even more amazing was my color match on the house and a nice fade in job I did on the filler blocks at the top of the window, because the new window was not as tall. Wile I covered up the mismatched wood filling the missing stucco, I also sprayed over the big black stain on the wall from the old chimney drip. If you recall our big black reverse icicle from earlier posts, it stained the wall bad. I pressure washed it steam cleaned it and gave up, painted over it, now it looks like the cleanest part of the house.

I ran over a small 5" stump with the lawn tractor. It knocked the stump right out of the ground, exasperating it from its somewhat rotten roots. But not before snapping the cogged blade timing belt. The mower continued to work, but only one blade cut, and it would contact the other blade as the other blade randomly vibrated around on its bearings. I have serial numbers and model numbers, but no massey furguson dealer within 100 miles can come up with a part number to order a belt for me. They are pretty sure they can order the wrong belt, at a cost of $100, and a week to get here. So Michelle has convinced me that she needs the lawn tractor to drive to work here in Andrew. She would drive the dune buggy, but I think it is the coffee holder on the lawn tractor, and the casual speed that really has her loving driving it. I said I will dial it up for her and enter her in the mower races, that can be found online at letsmow.com And the search began for a new to me lawn tractor. Like the racing web sight says, the best kind are the free kind. My buddy with the salvage yard is retiring, and he has 3 in his yard. Plus he has an old 40's Fargo truck, which he wants to sell. Flat head 6 and all. It is a fair bit cooler than my 57, but in far less shape to drive. I am considering buying the body to go on the 57 frame which would be a very sexy truck. I should be able to get these lawn tractors and the Fargo for a very reasonable few hun, and we can make our own little racing circuit, plus still have something to cut the grass, with a little work. Further more I think we could have more fun on a couple o 40mph lawn tractors, than we have on the much more expensive, and expensive to repair dune buggies, and therefore they could be sold, untying our tether to material objects. "You want to take possession tomorrow, sure, keep the lawn tractors."

We have had all kinds of computer drama over the last month. My hard drive died on my Lenovo 3 days after the warranty, then 2 of the three lap tops would not bring up web pages. That still isn't fixed, but it is far too nice outside to be inside for hours fixing computers. I can't believe I am inside writing this.

For pictures I think I will just add the before and after pictures of the roof and house, I have been itchin to work them in somewhere. The after picture was wile there was a gaping hole in the kitchen wall too, where the ladder sits outside. The roof looks finnished, and it almost is, just some caulking and screwing to Finnish it.