Buggy Rental Twist

My van shudder keeps going.  I finally decided to google it.  Well it sounds like its a transmission issue.  Sounds like great motivation to put the VW motor n trans in.  Then I read further and it says worn out, or the wrong transmission fluid can cause the shuddering.  I figure that is worth a try.  Well wouldn't you know the "correct" tranny fluid costs twice as much as any other fluid.  Definitely not something me nor the previous 2 owners of the van would of bought.  So we'll see if that fixes the problem.

Went to get a quote on insurance to rent ATVs.  Said I am only interested in renting 4 ATVs, 2 days a week, weekends.  So they are like "how much are you going to gross?"  I'm like "$135 a day each, $540 a day."  So she says "$56,000 a year then?"  I'm thinking wow is it really that easy, to work two days a week spreading joy, and having fun, plus make $56k.  Of course it wouldn't work like that, since only half the year is nice weather.  We are going to try it out with 4 buggies.  We don't really have much to lose.  I am going to try to buy another 2 used ones, since nobody is selling anything but Giovani buggies new now, and they are crapola.  Although the Giovani buggies are half the price, they might make good rentals.

But wait, the Government is shutting down the Bruderheim sand dunes to Off Highway Vehicles (ohv for short).  Son of a....  Always has to get hard somehow.  Now we have to look at Redwater's ATV park, which I have never been to.  This is going to require guided buggy tours because people will get lost on its 5000 acres, compared to Bruderheim's 500, and it sounds like its riddled with Muskeg, prairie quicksand.  The 2wd buggies don't do well in muskeg.  Found these guys just north of Montreal, they do guided 2 hour buggy tours, each buggy makes them $107 - $146 an hour.  thats wile the tour guide, me, gets to drive his favorite buggy around, pointing out muskeg to avoid and stuff.   The $1000 dollar weekends just turned into a short 4 hour day.  I'm going to have to shoot for making $60k just over summer weekends, and have a hell of a lot of fun.  Here is the Montreal pricing, copied from their website.

The Potential New Buggy Trailer

We were presented with a problem.  We have two awesome dune buggies, 2 people in the family, but only a one buggy trailer.  The weather is still awesome, 20ish degrees, and I wanted to go to the sand dunes or one of the other glorious ATV parks I recently discovered.  Ripping down the old railway tracks here at home is only fun for so long.   Also if we rent machines, we want to be able to transport a minimum of 4 buggies to the sand dunes for the day.  I have to find out the maximum allowable width, but we need at least an 8' x 15' deck to haul 4 Hammerheads.  I found this piece of work, an old camper, genius decided to make a fully enclosed work trailer with.  He started with a fully insulated OSB floor, and decided he didn't have time to complete it, wants $500.  Its in a storage compound, found the add for sale dated back in August, you know he's taking $300, the price of one axle new.  For now, with the addition of lights, registration, and tie downs, this would transport our 2 buggies.  Over the winter I will rip the OSB chip board off, and make a nice metal deck to hold 4 buggies, and potentially a car, to give my metal work and trailer some resale value.  And a link to my new buddies buggy parts website, before I forget, if you have a 250cc dune buggy, best selection and price is here at http://store.maximumparts.com/

Unloaded the pictures from my phone today.  This is the pile of garbage from the lean to.  Its not moving as quick as last years free pile, but really just the dishwasher is left now, and some small stuff I don't mind taking to the dump.  I cleaned out the lean to so the new buggy and Ditch Witch would fit, I amazed my self, room for another two buggies now too.

 Michell was having fun taking pictures of me shooting my bow, this isn't the best one, just a random from the bunch.  We exploded Michelle's compound bow.  I kept on dialing the draw weight down for her, until there wasn't enough screw threads tapped in to hold the leaf spring to the handle, and one screw let go, sending little, hopefully replaceable, parts everywhere.  Apparently if you want a bow with less than a 35lb draw you should buy a youth bow.

Hammerhead Out Of Business

I would think that just put the value of our dune buggies down a fair bit.  It was a shocker to me.  With 3 dune buggies, I was thinking of starting the "M&M Outdoor Adventures" in the spring, and getting a couple more, but Hammerhead is no more.  Still thinking of doing the outdoor adventures, cause it would be so much fun, but you would think finding parts now, would be very difficult.  Today I found THE guy that had the same problem, since May, and did something about it.  He lives in Edmonton, and it sounds like he dominates the world with his Hammerhead parts website.  Not only that, he sells any parts I could need, half the price that the dealers were selling them for.  Just the kind of  guy I want to be hanging out with, successful, and motivated.

So working on a business plan for dune buggy rentals, I don't really know how to test the market prior to setting up shop.  We really need to have at least 4 dune buggies, and transportation for them all to the sand dunes, before we can make any money.  I checked out the local rates, they were surprising.

Kenda Bear Claw tires for swamps and mud,,,,, the Lightest of the fleet 4x4	$160:00 per day $1000.00 per Week ________________________________
350cc Honda Kenda Bear Claw tires for swamps and mud,,,, Agile and medium power 4x4	$180:00 per day $1100.00 per Week ________________________________
500cc Honda Our heavy Weight,,, Power and performance!ITP Mud Lite TiresWinch 2x4 to 4x4 switch	$180:00 per day $1100:00 per week ________________________________
	But then, on top of that, helmets $10, ramps $25 trailer $25 gas can $5 we wash $25 you wash $10 all per day Well now my borders are all messed up from cutting and pasting html from a website, no idea how to fix that, so thats just my thoughts of the day.  A little weekend plus self employment for next summer.  Another website to make, and business to market.  I just have to decide for sure and commit, then buy a couple of used units, until buddy brings in new ones, which may be never.   He is checking prices for me.  If he can get them for half price of what the dealers were selling them for, woo hoo.  But most of the buggies are the same, he said rite now, anyone can order a seacan of 30 buggies, from china, and brand them whatever they want.  Malcolm Buggies for example.  But there is a quality difference, Hammerheads are pretty nice.

The new blue Hammerhead dune buggy runs, fired rite up.  The Problems found so far include, 2 leaky tires, broken shifter cable, no key, and a hole in the radiator.   I have a couple of tubes for the leaky tires.  I'll see if I can solder the leaky rad, but its Aluminum, it might have to get something creative.  I have not been able to get Hammerhead on the phone to see how much a shifter cable costs, and that doesn't look like much fun to change either.  Think it will be in Forward gear till I drive by Acheson, and stop in to the Hammerhead dealer.

Signed the financing today for the new house.  The bank figures we don't qualify for any less than a 35 year mortgage.  Totally ridiculous.  We wanted a 20 year, but they would not give it to us, period.  We did get the ability to double up payments plus put 15% a year extra on the mortgage.  Just with the payments doubled, and doing them biweekly, we have an 11 year mortgage.  I believe the biweekly takes a good 4-5 years off, and doubling payments takes 20 years off.  You must be paying for a house 3-4 times with a 35 year mortgage, sick.

My trencher worked great.  It made me $200 an hour for its first job.  Then after I finished in 30 min, had the machine loaded and everything, buddy had to drive to the bank to get my $100, took him more than 20 min, which almost put me back to $100 an hour with waiting for him.  Second job wasn't so smooth.  Got the thing really stuck in what used to be an old straw bed, had to dig a fair bit by hand.  Broke a couple trencher teeth, and got a flat tire.  I still haven't gotten paid for that job, but its much bigger, and not finished.

Chester our hamster figured out how to open his cage wile Michelle was in Toronto.  I thought for sure I had left it open after giving him a piece of cheese.  It wasn't terribly difficult to find and catch him, in the evening when he woke up.  Hamsters aren't quick like the mice.  Then when he got out again, he went strait for the same wrapping paper tube he set up camp in the first night, so we are on to him now.  Twist ties and electrical tape hold his cage shut.

BBB

Moving to the city.  Financing approved.  We are not far from Ron, who gave me all his concrete forms, and other junk, when he left Andrew.  I went to see him to give him one of the sawhorses that I made from all the plywood forms he gave me.  We had some good conversation.  He got on to the Better Business Bureau.  Ron says his phone doesn't stop ringing with calls from the BBB website, he keeps his status as unavailable most of the time, until he needs a job.  But not only does he get a constant influx of work, but the BBB offers businesses the average price for given services in Edmonton, these days.  How valuable is that?  They make estimating easy.  I believe it only costs $300 annually to be a member, and you only have to meet their criteria in business for 12 months.  The criteria you have to meet is just basic "making the customer happy" that I have expected to do anyway.   That is exciting, kinda next level, Master Electrician, BBB approved.  But the site also allows for me to do anything I want, and get a reasonable quote from the BBB, and pass the quote on to the client, for any renovation, flooring installation, or whatever.

Michelle got her Motorcycle licence today.  She did really well, she could have got twice the negative points and still passed.  They sure changed the test a lot since I did it.  The instructor just follows you around speaking instructions through a head set.  No parking lot work, no emergency stop, no cones, no slow riding.

I have 2 ditch witch jobs tomorrow, we'll see if it can make me $200 an hour.  It has been great for the up sell.   "Do you want to run power to your shed out there, I'm bringing the Ditch Witch out tomorrow, I can do it up like nothing"  50 meter trench $400.  We'll see how well it does.

I don't know whats wrong with me.  I can make lots of excuses for my actions here.   For one Michelle thought it was a good idea.  As some know we paid $5k for our Hammerhead.  Now we paid like $5700 for 2, so cost averaged down to like $2800 each.  We really want a buggy in Mexico, but can't bare to leave $5k down there for the use it will get.  There is a good chance this buggy has a seized motor or something.  I have always wanted to put a big motorbike motor into a buggy.  So the future of this buggy is unknown, if it runs, I might just flip it for $2200 or something.

Some Fun Pictures

Here is a picture of the slightly broken John Deer, from which I could get a sweet green John Deer diesel motor, and just about all the hydraulics I need to make a backhoe.  The woman is hesitant to let it go, because it has new back tires $2200 worth, but they don't fit her newer tractor.  I'm not  taking a tire off, they are filled with calcium cloride, and Heavy.  Farmers get flattened from these tires falling on em.

This is our free trike.  It turns over, has great compression, but no spark.  Probably needs carb work now too.  Again ironically two new rear tires, but a leaky front tire.  It does hold air for 24 hours, plenty of time for a rip around.  Some tire goo will extend that

Here is a nasty picture of our new back yard, and back deck.  The back deck will get redone with some kinda encloser and the hot tub, the rest of the back yard might be a parking space, depending on how much trouble we have parking within extension cord range of the house, on the street.

This is the Ditchwitch in the trailer, along with the free drier.  Nothing too exciting there.  I had to fix a flat tire on it already, and I haven't even trenched a hole yet.  Plus I figured out the mystery lever, the owner couldn't tell me what it did, but it switches from 1 wheel drive to two wheel drive, for corners I guess, no differential in this unit.

This is a Canadian creation that I thought was cute, built from trailer-able back hoe plans.  If I decide to tackle the backhoe construction, and I don't get a medium size tractor to mount it to, I would build something like this.   But I do have to finish my Ranger before I can start a backhoe.

I really couldn't have cared less about this new house in Edmonton to start with. But several things have happened to make me very excited about it. Michelle has turned into the happiest dreamy wife ever. (loosing 50lb contributed too). But I also talked to the contractor about the 163 st house, now completed and on the market. Very small compared to our new house and I remember the price tag was small. But then when I asked him how much its on the market for he said $289k, and I recall in the crappy fixer upper condition the tiny house was $220k. Thats almost $100k MORE than we are paying, for a bigger house, in a better area.  This is a pic of the new house, got the picture posting figured out finally.

This last Sunday I found a use for all the plywood concrete forms that Ron had given me when he left town. I found a design for plywood saw horses, and I made 24 of them, 12 sets. I will keep a couple of sets, and give a few away to contractors that have passed work on to me. They are great in the van cause they come apart and take up no room.

It Was A Good Run

It was a good run being mortgage and rent free. We now have an accepted offer on a nice old "fixer upper" in East Edmonton. They were asking $150k, we ended up offering $130k, because there was an additional offer submitted at the same time. Our more competitive 130k offer was the preferred of the 2, and she came back with $135k.

Then plan, is to rent 2 rooms to students, that don't have cars. The house is a 3 bedroom 2 bathroom, so with some drywall work, and paint, we can move in upstairs with 2 students. However the plan is to build 2 bedrooms in the basement, and they would have their own bathroom down their. Presently there is no main floor bathroom, only one in the basement and upstairs. Bedrooms are very inexpensive to build with th exception of cutting windows into the basement foundation. Two students would allow us to continue essentially mortgage free, and afford these basement renovations, wile paying extra on our mortgage every month. It will also be nice to have someone in the house when we go away traveling and whatnot.

If we make a parking spot in the back yard, there will be literally no yard, just a small deck, and about 25 square meters of grass and flowers in the front. So there is no room for my industrial projects, which is probably good. I can keep my clutter to Andrew. This move will be a great way to reorginize and get rid of alot of stuff too.

We looked at a bigger house in Andrew a few weeks ago. What a pile of crappy Ukrainian renovations. I had to swallow vomit, when they told me it was $270k, I would have considered it a fixer upper.

Randomness

Some old dude named Less, stopped by the house. He grew up here in this house from 1951 to 1963. He was absolutely thrilled that we kept the kitchen exactly the same colors as it was back in 1951. It was very interesting to me that the shoddy lean to and house extension were both there in 1951. There was no running water, the bathroom was actually his bedroom. No need for a bathroom when the outhouse was a nice walk to the back of the property, he said he would be constipated for 5 months of the year, not wanting to go out there. Michelle doesn't know how good she has it.
The basement had a window, where they shoveled coal and fire wood into the basement, from outside. Then they would climb down the vertical ladder through the 18" x 24" kitchen trap door, every day to get coal and fire wood

Atco gas has been to the house, and marked out my gas lines, I'm ready to test the trencher. I think I will run some power to the chicken coop.
I'm In the process of designing vinyl stickers for the trailer. Then my big sign board trailer will go in the front yard when not in use. Thinking I need to trench in power for a motion light in the lawn that lights up my big trailer signage. I should wait till they mark out the water lines for that one. I know where the valve is, and where it comes in the house, I'll be 15' from that strait line connecting the 2. Water lines should be 8' down too.

Michelle is always searching the MLS for a new home. She came across an older home in Edmonton with great potential. She has looked at it, and can "see the potential", which is odd.
I am going to go look at it today.
I have 2 modes of thought, when I am making it, money isn't an issue, and when I have lots of free time, renovation work isn't an issue. Rite now I am cringing a bit at the potential renovations needed.
Whats shocking here is not the price, $150k, with an allegedly verbally accepted $120k offer, but that Michelle is impressed with the place, and it is less than half the price of her typical standard. So I will have to consider this one. There is no garage, or even driveway, which made it easy to agree to keep the Andrew place, for my shop, weekend yard fires, and shooting stuff. Maybe we would rent the house in Andrew out, keeping the shop n offices, see how it goes. Also looking at a bare property in Mexico that is 1/3 the value of this place. We would own 3 homes if that was the case. Trying to keep up with Kim and Katey, lol.

The Excavator Evolution

I am making a quick tractor slide show, but I can't find my good mic, to do the audio. I have to give the commentary.

I looked at that 20hp skid steer. Really basic machine, belt drive, and lots of room around the motor. Any motor under 30hp would have fit in there, pulleys, motor mounts throttle linkage, done. But I need to finish my truck before I start stuff like that. A skid steer will be my reward. My newly re enforced van trailer hitch is great, super stable, but the poor van prolly won't be happy towing around a 3000lb bobcat. I think one of my CV joints is going in the ol van, but I don't ever take a corner to know which one. Its always the one on the inside of the corner that makes the noise. I just go strait and the van shudders sometimes towing the trailer. I need a parking lot to do some figure eights, and I need to Wait for the truck to haul big equipment.

I looked at little tractors, they really hold their value, same as the skid steers. But everybody tells me that the tractor backhoe attachments are slow, they are clumsy, the controls are all wrong, and there is often too much play in the attachment to the tractor. Tho talking to the professionals, you should never need to "turn the seat around" to move the unit a little. With stabilizers down, the hoe has the power to lift the back end off the ground and walk the tractor forward or backwards, and even side to side.
I am going to leave these tractors to acreages, and farm use.

Some people have said negative stuff bout the tow able hoes. And they are just a little weak, at 5-8hp. I found some half price plans for one, which I ordered, and might build (upping the hp). The brand new $5-8000 units are NOT DOT approved, ready to tow on the street. So I would like to make a unit that is street ready, with suspension, lights, and dot tires, get it vin numbers and a plate. But that isn't going to give me the ability to bid on these 100+ homes in Lac Labiche, knowing I can do the trenching myself, and have 3 services done in 2 days.

So I looked at renting the simple walk behind trencher. First of all, they were all out, couldn't rent one if I wanted to. Second of all, understand, most of these homes, have the minimum $200 trench. Otherwise its $2.5 per foot over 80'. That is the cost to hire a reasonable guy to do it w his machine. Well they want $250 a day to rent just the machine, I still have to pick it up, return it, and do the work. That is well over a $50 loss for every service I dig. That sold me on a used unit.

I had been bartering with a guy on a 2002 ditch witch for days. He had everything for sale, so I knew it wasn't a broken and replaced unit. I gave him a reasonable low ball offer, stating the true fact, "thats whats in the budget, I'll have to get an older one if you won't take it" and he was happy too. Just south of Edmonton I thought he was, but he was an hour south. Well then we find a free washer drier set on the way to Edmonton, online, Just East of Edmonton. So we got home w a full trailer at 2am, 500km later.

The new Ditch Witch only weighs bout 1000 lb, so the van is happy to tow it with a little shudder now and then. This purchase was purely utilitarian, for work. I won't get much of any joy out of walking behind a trencher. But it will make me some money, and I can sell it for about what I paid for it years later.

When I got my masters, my wage, confidence, and work opportunities, all essentially doubled. I am hoping I can double most of that again with the trencher, or at least the confidence to get stuff done and opportunities. If I can do 3 services a day, with trenching, my wage is close to doubled.

Lac La Biche

In Lac La Biche for the weekend for our third year anniversary. We trailered the bikes up and ride around to check out the cottage country. Michelle is a champ on her little bike. We went to a real estate agent to get the low down on the area, and seems like we talked to the rite guy. He is contracting with an investor to move hundreds of homes into a new development. He said they were investing in the neighborhood of 650 million dollars. Again not impressed with the one and only local Master Electrician. He wants a quote for service hookups, permits and all. Another case where my own backhoe would make me more money, and get the job done rite away, and on schedule. A different job in Mundare is getting frustrating, dragging on, because they still haven't got a backhoe to come, they won't take responsibility for the wire not getting run over and whatnot, but they want power now. So they get no power, and I don't get paid until they get the backhoe and I finish my job.

The Suggestion was made to just rent a digger. That would be a great solution in Edmonton, but in Andrew, Mundare, Lac La Biche, Fork Lake, and other rural areas, your traveling 4 hours plus return to the nearest rental place. There is only 12 usable hours in the day really, using 1/3 of that time for rental equipment is no good. Plus my backhoe will have extra lights added to extend the day.

So its looking like I am going to buy this unit if its still available when I get back. This unit will make instant cash this spring roto tilling gardens. People can't get the local guy to do their small patches, cause he is too busy. I am thinking I will build a hoe attachment at this point. There is one thing I didn't like about building a hoe, that was all the pins and bushings that need to be made on a lathe. But I have found plans where they also sell the pins and bushing "kit" for $200 ish, ready to go. Then I have it all worked out in my head, I have an $800 hydraulic pump on the 57 dump truck i can pull. I get this john deer tractor for free, it has some blown out gears, but I get the engine(for a future pickup), all the hydraulic rams, and even the front end loader steel might make good hoe arms. Hopefully the little 14 diesel hp tractor pto can handle the dump truck pump, and then I have my backhoe materials practically paid for, just need hosed, and valves. Thats the plan anyway, plans rarely get followed. I will start with the tractor, move on to hoe plans, figure out gpm, and psi of pump vs cylinder diameters, and see how it goes.

Tractors and Skid Steers

I upgraded my blogger, now I don't know how to post pictures. I will figure it out.
I have lots of good pictures, but no videos worth editing for youtube, or I don't have the time.

Somehow I got really busy this week. I have needed a backhoe on several occasions, and am on a mission to get one now. I want to build one, but I know the cost of materials will be rite up there with the cost of buying a used hoe attachment, not taking into consideration my time. I have the perfect trailer for a garden tractor style backhoe. I found a used abused skid steer for cheep, that will probably fit in my trailer. You can check it out here This really excites me for many reasons. One, the guy believes the engine needs to be rebuilt, and it might. But it starts and runs fine. As soon as you engage the hydraulics, it dies. Don't you think maybe there is something seized in the hydraulics? But if it does need a rebuild, its just a dead simple 2 cylinder air cooled 25 hp garden tractor type motor. I have researched these 1980 Mustang skid steers. I can only find them for sale in the states, where equipment is way cheaper, and they are asking no less than $5000. So this is one piece of equipment I would surely double my money on, even after years of service work.

But that is only the vehicle for my backhoe. I still need to find a Hoe. The plan is to make an existing used hoe, attach to the skid steer, that was not intended to. I know my buddy Dave inherited a backhoe with his dads tractor, which he will never use, and might sell to me when he needs money. And their are countless other people with hoe attachments, that can be easily modified to fit a skid steer, I hope.

The job I was at today, the woman has 50 acres, but doesn't leave the house, cause she saw a bear once. We needed sand for a buried, cable and she has a sand pit on her farm. She said I could take some, for future, so I hauled my big trailer out their today with 20, 5 gallon buckets, and 2 wheelbarrows. I met her son today, and we got along fabulously. I had to ask him about his old Honda Trike, cause his mom was basically having the excavator dig a big hole, and push everything in it. Sure enough, with a little verbal complaint of how he just bought new back tires for it, before it stopped running, its garbage. So I moved all the sand to the front of the trailer, and we pushed the old honda in the back. Did I mention the sand was wet? Well I didn't even get down the drive way before my newly fabricated trailer hitch bent down to almost touch the ground. So I pulled over, moved all the buckets of sand back behind and around the trike, behind the trailer axle. Jacked the trailer up with its tung jack, bending the hitch back, and back on my marry way. I am buying extra steel to re enforce that all a lot tomorrow.

Then at another job... I shouldn't even mention it, nobody tell Michelle. But there was an old John Deer 540 I think it was. Your standard old farm tractor, probably 80's, obviously neglected. And I had to ask them about it. "Yeh we want to get rid of it, can you get it out of here?" I said to them, "only if I can get it started, and drive it home" they aren't far from my house. Tractors are cool, but it is also a diesel. Even if I decided not to resell the John Deer for $9000 (probably due to some seriously expensive parts it might need) I could put the motor in a full size pickup, like my ol dodge. There is a fellow that does that, and markets the trucks on youtube. Let me see if I can find his video. And don't think for a second that I would let him touch my truck, just saying, "if he can do it, I can do it" I love this guy.