On Parker

We got a trailer, 2 golf carts, a big water heater, luggage and food for 4 people for a week, and 4 people, all loaded in the truck, in Victoria and the drive shaft starts whacking on the way to the ferry. Because the truck is so long, it has 2 drive shafts, and a balance bearing in the middle. Well the balance bearing pulled out of its keeper, giving the drive shaft 2" to flop around and make lots of whacking noise.

I towed the trailer and golf carts to the barge site, picked up another trailer with a big 5000 ish gallon water tank on it, and decided I should fix the truck at the barge site. It involves several hours labor, and a new $60 bearing to do it rite. I just assume I can't get the bearing, and instead ran an extension cord from someone's shop, and borrowed Kim's new welder, and steel, to make a bearing keeper. I welded it all in at the barge site, and called it good. Good for another 2000km anyway.

We got the gas powered gold cart running again yesterday, it had a clogged main jet, only ran with the choke on. Here is the video of that.

Piece o Junk Dodge

We left with an hour to spare, to make the last ferry to Victoria. But the 14 hour drive was thrown off when we hit the Coquihalla. Mistakenly I kept our same speed in the beginning, only to overheat. I found one of the radiator fans had failed, and the radiator cap broke, after looking more closely. After stopping on the side of the highway to refill the radiator with swampy ditch water, a couple of times, it became obvious that we would be lucky to make it to Canadian Tire in Chilliwack by 9. We did just make it to Canadian tire, for a new rad cap, and a 5 gallon jug of water. Then just under the wire, we got to a wicked sushi place that closed at 9:30. previously having a 1 hour range, with the 6 liters of water evaporating out the cap, we made it the hour plus to the ferry. I just checked and the rad is still full, so I didnt blow the head gasket out. Unbelievable, they say the old Dodge 360s are indestructible, maybe there is some truth to that. I drove it a long way up hill w the temp gauge pinned, and no coolant in it, until we spotted a 6 liter plus puddle to fill it up.

We were the 7th car in line at the ferries at 11pm. By 3am the place was packed. I was all excited for the $39 sale, but my four foot car dolly made it cost $90 to get on the ferry. Cant wait to see what it costs actually towing a car.

Update

I got my truck running again. A very important wire, that was scabbed in for the propane conversion, melted. There is a #8 power wire that feeds the fuel pump relay, and another wire that feeds something else, probably the ECU. When the conversion was done, those two wires were cut, and connected to some cheezy #18 wire, which eventually, a few days ago, got hot enough to melt and burn up. Just glad it happened here, a few days before I have to leave.

Unfortunately I did not get insurance, before I got it fixed, so I have to wait until the insurance company opens Monday morning, Hopefully they are open Monday.

I got the two motorbikes loaded up, and ready to go. So its all up to the insurance broker.

Update

I started my ol Dodge up in the back yard no problem, where it sat since Jan. It sat in the front yard for a couple of days, I wanted to move it to load the bikes, the thing won't start. I have the manual, and I can't find the darn ECU. I need to find the ECU to test things at that plug. Not to worry, the neighbor has a similar dodge w a cracked block, so I expect she will lend me the broken piece I need, when I figure out what it is.

I almost finished chipping all those branches, and I hacked the end of my thumb w the machete. Its pretty gross. I got it bandaged up at the hospital, and they wanted me to come back to get it re-wrapped. Its really just skin and a bit of nail that I sheered off, it will grow back with my finger tip stem cells. Here is the video of the unwrapping, this video is really popular.


The 30 day internet marketing challenge started July this year. They feel last year was too much work for 30 days, glad I am not the only one that felt that way. So its no longer the 30 day challenge its now 4 months, all still free. Its at www.challenge.co

I just saw a mouse run across the living room, and its not even cold outside. Freekin awesome. What should I do, maybe get a truck load of crushed gravel and line the whole house perimeter.

Free Van

I got offered another free van on the weekend. This one was a much bigger ford full size extended van. It was a 1983, with "new body panels professionally welded in years ago. Its on propane, which is really annoying to me, I hate propane. I was going to go and pick it up with the car dolly, if it was a gooder, maybe sell it, otherwise haul it to scrap. I called my favorite scrap yard, they would have given me only $120 for it, after the $50 bitchy propane charge. $25 to insure my truck a week early, $50 in fuel to drive it to the city, if it all worked out I could have made like $45 for probably about 5 hours of my time. I didn't bother.

Here is a quick video of the car dolly

Honda Shadow

One last attempt to upload this stupid video, its not even that good. Glad I don't rely on uploading videos for my only lincome, sheesh.

That is now ultralow resolution for email and stuff. Wow is it ever faster to process. I found a gas tank at the wrecker for the shadow, but they wanted $200 for it. They have a really rusty tank they will let go for $100, but I am just going to hack it up and "try" to make something that can hold 24 liters, vs 12 factory liters, and still look nice. For $100 I will wait till winter, and hack into my good tank, committed, but knowing should things go terribly wrong, $200 buys me a mint used tank. Sounds like its no problem to get parts for the bike though.

The Ranger isn't going to be that bad, still $1000 over budget, but the sleeves were available for the 40 thou oversize bore, for less than $100.

I've been chipping up all the trees that I topped. One of the trees I didn't top actually blew down a week ago too, so I did that just in time. Our little trail from the back door leading to the cars, the shop and the offices, should really get a concrete side walk, but that costs money, and I have all these wood chips, so its getting a 4" thick wood chip walk way. Starting at the back door where the worst of the mud starts. Its really just twice a year, but in the spring and fall it gets all muddy. I don't really have enough chips to get very far from the back door, but it should still be enough to eliminate the mud in the house. Maybe I can get a picture today.

Update

I am really pissed off with the Blockshop. I gave them my Ranger motor, and said, what do I need to order for pistons and bearings? The space between cylinders looks too small to use oversize pistons, do I need sleeves (a much more expensive job) or can I use oversize pistons. They said Yeh you can use 40 thou over pistons. I said "really, wow, I have room for 40 thou (1mm over) pistons, are you sure?". So I thought I saved myself $300 on the parts I ordered from Australia, and more than $600 in machining costs. They call me today and say, your engine sleeves are too thin, we have to resleeve it. I am really mad just writing about it. 1/4 of my less expensive $1200 kit, was just shipping to get it here, and I don't expect we can get 40 thou over sleeves, so I will need a whole new $1500 kit possibly. But what really erks me, is I waited 6 weeks, and paid the Blockshop $300 to measure, and tell me, to order the wrong parts. I wanted to order the sleeve kit, cause we knew it would work, and I could order it rite away, but they conviced me to "save some money" which is now going to cost me twice as much. Do I cut my losses and write the truck off or what? I will go and talk to the Blockshop in person tomorrow.

I have been trying to come up with a convenient way to carry my phone, so it doesn't get smashed. In preparation for my new Iphone 4. I have been carrying it around my neck on a lanyard lately, which has been working brilliantly until yesterday.

Yesterday I bent over to pick up a bucked of water, and my phone swung out from my belly button where it usually sits, and plopped in the water as I picked it up. I was in disbelief at first. I grabbed it and saw that it was now off, tried turning it on, nope not happening. So I pulled the battery, and thew it in the oven for an hour, to warm. I put the battery back in and tried to turn it on, then it made sizzling sounds like bacon going in the frying pan. So I left it the rest of the day. I actually went to buy a new one at the end of the day, took the old cracked water log piece w me. Made one last attempt, at the store to put the battery on and power it up. It worked.

Work is flat out. I had an old guy come and give me a card, looking for work. His card was "Such And Such Services Journeyman Electrician", he said "if you ever need a hand give me a call" I gave him my card and said "If you need a permit, give me a call." That was kind of cool since he was about 60, and as we talked he is just looking to "stay in town" somewhat like me.

I can't wait to get a smart phone, one that can keep track of my Google calendar. I double booked myself for Friday. This guy wants to paint his house on the weekend, and wants the electrical finished asap, so I pulled a late one last night to finish that in 7 hours. He had gotten confused and thought he was talking to the same guy, but acctually had a second electrician coming after me last night. If I hadn't shown up at 4 yesterday, the job would have been done by Friday and I would have missed out on that job.

One chicken died, slaughtered wile we were at work. Cosmo was at the vet, Gus is the only suspect, but CSI Andrew failed to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that he did it. I am going to set up permanent video cameras in the back yard, and on the street. You should see the stuff that drives by our house sometimes. Like this crane that was driving by wile I was taking a quick vid o my new bike. Wow major trouble uploading my HD vid to Blogger, and Youtube, so here is a low res version.

My Tractor Is Too Small

I should have bought the 8000lb ditch witch! My lawn tractor just isn't doing it for me these days, without bypassing its safety features and precariously climbing on the front end to do the tractor pull.

I have work at least for a couple of weeks, flat out busy. But its light out till 9pm or later, so I managed to top all the Maples in the front yard tonight, with my new 20' ladder I had to buy for this job. The Maples don't need to be more than 25' high. They don't seem to root very deep, and they tend to be a bit off balance too. They fall down everywhere, not in my yard yet, but its only a matter of time. These ones have been positioned to take out my power line, and cars in the driveway. I was just dragging some of the branches to the back yard, hopefully I can borrow the neighbors mulcher this weekend n grind them up.

Ditch Witch

I find a lot of people want to run underground wires, and need trenching. I have been thinking that would be a great piece of equipment to own. My plan was to tow the "trailer" backhoe, back from Harbor freight in the states, next time I drive to Mexico. They sell there for only $2000. A "Ditch witch" would be much quicker out here, and I saw a walk behind one the other day. I had never realized you could get walk behind units. So I started looking, and their are a few for sale, but they are all $3000 and up. Then I found this 40hp Ditch witch with a hoe, plow, and presumably 4x4, for $4000. I am sold on that. I can't find one anywhere online for less than $10k, without a hoe. I thought I have my 6000lb 6x12' trailer, I am going to buy this thing. It will be a money printing licence out here, and I can positively sell it at a profit when I am done with it. They answered all my questions wrong unfortunately. The thing is 7' wide, 20' long, and 8000lb. My trailer isn't going to work out. At 8000lb, I don't even think my dodge or Ranger could tow it. The only hope is the 57, which is far from ready to go pick up a ditchwitch. I will regret not buying this for years to come I am sure.

Bikes

The chain of events that spawned a new motorcycle.
First I went to Honda to buy a brake cable for Michelle's 185cc, which stops brilliantly now. The new brake cable made all the difference, I never would have guessed, cause the old one still works, but it sticks.
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I have never fallen for the "new" bikes, but its interesting to see them. A salesman approached me and asked what I was looking for. Because of BC's insurance rates, and fuel mileage, I said I want a 750 cruiser. His eyes lit up and he said I have just the bike for you. Yeh rite I thought, I am not even really looking. Then he brings out this gorgeous 2008 Honda Shadow, and says they only want $7k for it, and its brand new. I was a little stunned. I went home and searched for used Shadows, and 2008's with lots of km on em people were asking 7k, to 10k even, whats wrong w these people. I wanted to buy this just cause it is such a good deal and a beautiful bike.
Then I came across an 85 Shadow, for $1500. This was less than 1/3 of any of the shadows listed for sale. The add said "call me" and then he didn't leave his #. No picture of the bike either.
So I went to look at the 85 armed w cash I got it for $1340. I can ride it all season, and if so inclined "chop it" this winter. But Michelle really likes it, and it fits her well, so she might graduate to it if she gets frustrated with the 185 on the highway.

This is the video of the old "garden worthy" bicycles at a local garage sale. Mom wants one, which one?

Chickens Love Me

I like this video. The cell phone video not so much. I will admit that is just to see what kinda views I get with the Iphone4 title. I applied for the youtube partnership again today. I really should have at least 3x the views I have, but worst I can be is rejected. I do have 2 videos partnered already.

I am not going to take the job in Newfoundland. Mostly cause 2 shifts, and the summer is gone. I would go there and land, and thats it, I am stuck for 4 weeks. I have seen it so many times before, they say over time after 44 hours a week, so they will land you there the middle of the week, and fly you back mid week, so there are only 3 weeks with any over time hours. Something will happen in those 3 weeks to put a dent in that little bit of extra pay. Camp food is hit and miss, if you get in a camp w crappy food, and you are stuck their for 4 weeks yuckers. They will tell me there is internet, then once I get out there, no internet. And the employer doesn't care if you have to eat deep fried food every day, and don't have internet. There is no respect for employees, thats why I am working for myself.

A few random thoughts and opinions

I have a mental video block now. I can apply again for the Youtube partnership (only once every 2 months) so I want my next video to be legendary, before I apply. That way if they bring up my account, my best video appears first. That has caused me to seize up a bit.

I have been hearing back from the Kijiji guy, daily, about trading my Hammerhead dune buggy for his Virogo 1000cc motorbike. That deal will happen this Saturday. It seems like a fair deal. I see 85 Virogos for $3500 all the time, and this one has all the extras that put it into that range. That is really all I expect to get for the dune buggy.

I just watched a 2 hour video on the new Iphone. I think they have addressed my #1 issue with smashing phones, with the 4th version of Iphone. Apple makes out like the glass screen is scratch resistant like glass, but bends and takes impact like lexan. They have so much faith in the glass they made both front and backsides from glass. They have also put an exceptional video camera, and video editing software on the phone, with better battery life. I was attracted to the Android phones, cause they have an SD slot, so I can take the SD card from my video camera, and put it in my google phone, which is then tapped into my google accounts. But now I think I will have to get the "more durable" Iphone, because its smaller, plus it is the best video camera/battery life/and all I would own. But not out in Canada till July. I will see if I can pre order one.

I have been asked many times, what the purpose of Twitter is. I will say, I don't really use it yet, but I will. It is all marketing.
Personally, besides marketing, I'll say its great to reach out to my favorite radio personality, when you couldn't get through on phone lines. Someone is skimming over their twitter, and if you have something good to say, it gets noticed, and mentioned. Where as the busy signal doesn't discriminate, doesn't matter how valuable your comment.
However the real value of Twitter is to make a niche targeted list quickly. Because of the ability to search out comments related to your specialty, like lets say forex. I can even automate Twitter to follow anybody that twits the word forex, and invite them to follow me back. You end up with a focused group of people interested in forex products.
But I am all over the place with my interests, I can't keep the same topic going for more than a few days, so nothing in my life is focused yet.

I applied for a job in BC, at a mill, with "Red Seal Recruiters". Never heard back on that job, but the last 2 days they have been calling me every day about some different job, so far a permanent job in Fraser Lake, and today a temporary job in Newfoundland. Newfoundland is a union strike situation, 4 weeks on, 12 hour days, 7 days a week, 1 week off. Lots of overtime, though its only time and a half, and it is calculated after a 44 hour work week. It would still be a good $10k a month, to get me back on track. Do I want to sell myself and lose another summer like that though? On the negative side the Newfoundland unions are notorious for taking things too far. I believed they have derailed trains of non union workers, killing people. I have also heard about them burning new buildings down, that were built non union, where they felt they should have been union. I would enjoy a trip to Newfoundland though, even if it was just in camp.

Here is another crappy sort of video of my broken phone.

Victoria

The question has been asked, are we still coming to Victoria this summer?

I have been doing quote after quote here for electrical work, but I have been getting no work.

The diesel minivan is still an anticipated addition to my fleet. My neighbor has gone traveling for the summer, but left me his car dolly for the Victoria trip, to bring home Cass's diesel VW for my project. For the cost of fuel and all I had figured I would drive the diesel ranger to Victoria. Its the 7th today, and my builder just got around to measuring my crank bearing size. The good news, if your motor consumes a lot of oil, and you put a "fresh" liter in it every month, you really don't ever need an oil change. Case proven, cranks perfect, standard bearings required. Some 60,000km and no oil change, wile I owned it.

The bad news is I probably won't have it together for my trip to Victoria, as I sense the work coming down the line here, I have even pulled a permit for one job, but I can't start until their building permit comes through. So I will probably be driving the big ol dodge to Victoria again, good thing I didn't sell it.

Sheesh that didn't really answer the question. I suppose July is in about 3 weeks here. Looking at the calender, and I have put us down for leaving AB on July 5. Then my AB work, and Victoria entertainment will determine if we stay one week or four. Done.

Winter

Thinking of next winter, no I am not collecting fire wood. Well yes I am, I can't say no. I need to get the dump truck finished, so I can start a big pile in the back yard. Everybody keeps offering me their fallen trees. For the locals in town I drive the tractor w trailer n chainsaw over. The 3x5 trailer doesn't haul much, so its lots of trips, good fun. Here is a video of taking the van and trailer into a pasture w cows.


What I was thinking about was leaving AB for the winter. That is the plan. The ideal comfort scenario, is to spend all winter in Mexico. But there is also potential of Victoria n Toronto. Although I am making enough to pay the bills, I am not making enough to save to support us in Mexico for 4-6 months. I just decided I need to make some money, printed up some brochures, haven't even passed any out and BLAM, I became choice electrical contractor for another 2 contractors. Let me tell you about them.

Chris I acquired giving a rough estimate over the phone to Larry, who was doing a joint venture with Chris. I gave Larry his usual stellar price of $50 an hour, estimated, and Chis was so impressed, he has me coming to give a quote on a big 4 plex he his building. I need to start charging more for driving into the city. I love the drive, but the time it takes is going to limit my income potential.

The second contractor, posted an add on Kijiji "Master Electrician needed" He was going on about saving his clients money, but he needs a Master to pull permits, and inspect his work before the inspectors come, and blah, blah, blah. I was thinking I have to charge at least $80 an hour to make this gig work, he is sounding like he wants to cheap out, the last guy left. I finally asked "what did the last guy make" "$85 an hour, or estimated jobs" perfect, I'll do it, got an appointment at 5 today to see the first job. This guy mantains 400 rental units, puts up modular homes, and much more. So we'll see how busy he keeps me, but I did agree on $80 an hour, and $0.60 km for work outside Edmonton.

I printed out 2 different simple fliers, with some cheap estimated prices for work. One geared toward old houses, for renovations, re lamping for a home sale, or service upgrades. And one brochure geared toward the new developments with unfinished basements, essentially offering to put a plug in for a second fridge, or freezer, finish the basement wiring, or add a light fixture. This way I can target area's of town, and get at least 3 small jobs in the same area to fill a day. Not sure where to put the fliers yet, but thinking the screen door, if nobody answers the door. I will probably need a new cell phone plan this summer if I continue this craziness.

I got into it w my GPS now I will be getting jobs all over again. Think this is GPS #5, it froze on a screen months ago. This was a Magellan, and after much hassle w their "automatic trouble shooter Maggie" on their web site, I finally got a phone number. Called them this morning, and they are sending me a new unit.

Monster Chickens

We have created monsters. These chickens are bigger than most, and they are supposed to lay more eggs, 2 every 3 days. Now when we don't feed them human food on our back yard visit they peck at your tows, when we wear flip flops, which is every day. I bend over to get something off the ground and the little bastards grab at the skin between my fingers. And as I mentioned before, they love jewelry, and eyeballs, don't let them on your shoulder without safetey glasses.

I put one dune buggy up for sale, and got one person interested. Here is a video I made for him, its a 2 parter, part 2 isn't up yet. It is an interesting effect basically fast forward 150%. I think I talk really slow, this makes me sound more excited, and gets the bit done in less time. Blogger seems to be messed up w just showing half the videos, I will try and fix that when I get around to it, till then, you can just double click on the vids to see them in youtube. I am not going to upload them AGAIN to blogger separately. I will try a smaller size embed.

The Improved Rototiller

As promised the improved rototiller in action. This is my garden, the weather went to hell this weekend and Chris wasn't into doing his place. I have now removed the unit and cut the grass with the lawn tractor.

This video of the tiller is just one of 3 vids I tried taking, but the only one that stored. It was easy to "reproduce" the tilling videos, but yesterday I set the tripod up, with the Camera on my hammock. You see I can't have a relaxing nap any more in the hammock cause chickens fly up and land on me. They like to get on my shoulder and peck at my gold ear rings. Well yesterday, wile I was filming one tried to peck my eye out, not nice. But the video didn't store. Thats it, I bid on a new camera this morning. We got the aftermath blood shot eye on video, I think, haven't double checked. These cameras are only about $65 on Ebay, they take great HD, and if I have another one maybe I will have the balls to take this one apart to see whats "shaking" inside. It could be the rattling parts causing problems.

We came home w fire wood yesterday. The morning started off w a dispute with this guys kid. "oh no you don't buy dads lawn tractor, you fix it for him, so he doesn't keep borrowing mine". I thought sure, $100 I can put a new piston in, he says it has a hole in the piston, no compression. Well I can't believe the stuff people put value on. This lawn tractor, first of all was the 5hp style, cheap small tires. Every tire was cracked, flat, and fallen off the rim. Its been in this field for at least a decade. I never thought I would say it, but it wasn't worth touching. There was not one good part on it, unless you wanted something weird that doesn't wear out, like a steering wheel. It certainly wasn't worth "paying" something for, nor even worth the ridiculous argument with the son, that dad is going to have to keep borrowing your lawn tractor or buy a new one.

Its far from perfect. I found this bump video effect that made me look really scary, brought out all my wrinkles and made me look like I was 90 years old and scary. Because I used a green screen here I needed good light, and so the bump effect didn't have the same effect, and I just went ahead and used it anyway. So This isn't my best work but it was neat using a green screen and making the back drop, mostly, disappear. Its funny I had a green shirt on under my sweater and so you can see through a bit of my collar too. Weired both blogger and youtube are the same company but yet my video only half shows up on blogger. You get the idea from it anyway, if you double click on it I will come up in youtube perfectly centered.

I am excited about my video skills, and I will be starting to do some video marketing with them this week. I am not sure if I should use my existing channel or make a new channel for the video marketing, I don't know if all my redneck subscribers will enjoy a sales pitch. I am going to paint an office wall green to do the green screen effect in my office, with proper lighting on the back screen, todays video w the bump effect and poor light, the green showed up a bit in the corners.

The old Grainery Bar bar thats been closed for a yearish, has opened again with new owner. Michelle worked a Sunday out there, but isn't interested in taking a regular shift at the bar. I left the house to hang out w Michelle who had no custies. I was working on a new song on the computer when a custie came in. He's like whatcha doin? Why are you making a song? what videos do you make on youtube? Those were all responses to my answers, and BLAM when I told him about my videos, he has a weed eater for me w a broken wipper, wants to see it on a bike. He has an Ultra lite w a seized motor and no wings, was crashed, that I could probably have to make something. girocopter? Then BLAM someone else comes in the bar, they have a bunch of dead fall I can come take for fire wood and a seized lawn tractor I can have, no he wants "something" for it. We will go for a country road trip today, with the trailer, and come back with either a lawn tractor, if its hydrostatic, has a PTO or snow blower attachment, or fire wood. Can you imagine how much junk I would have if I went to the bar on a regular basis, or even left the house for that matter.

5 Chickens 2 Dogs

Its hard to eat outside now, without feeding little bits to 5 chickens and 2 dogs. But the chickens don't give up, they fly onto your lap or onto your lunch or whatever flat surface they can make a landing on. One flew onto the lit BBQ the other day wile I was flipping the burgers, good thing I close it when I am not near it. I'm sure I will get video of the crazy chickens at some point.

I did some sweet dry earth break up w my backyard built tractor tiller. but for some reason my camera didn't record it. It has taken a good half dozen headers w the tripod blowing over outside and has a few quarks. Its just started recording but not recording at the same time, it might be the new SD card. Chris wants to rent it this weekend and till his whole half acer lot, so I will personally video tape that, then remove the tiller when he is done.and probably never attach it to the tractor again.

The Tiller was given to me by Sheila. I felt obliged to till her garden. Then she felt indebted to give me a bunch of fire wood since I did such a great job tilling her garden.

I talked to Paul, the neighbors kid, hard core trucker. Michelle and I were talking bout getting a semi truck trailer since we saw a youtuber back east bought a worn out 30' trailer for $100. Well it sounds like AB isn't the place to buy a semi trailer to use as a red neck storage shed, or whatever. Michelle and I have very different ideas about what we would do with it. In AB you can register a semi trailer, for personal use, for the one time registration fee of $100 I think it is. Then apparently you can put RV insurance on a semi truck, and as long as you have an air brake licence, you can drive that around all you want. That and they are popular to put in highway side fields to paint signs on, getting around sign bylaws, all makes them fetch over $1000 in AB, even as an "expired" piece of crap. So I will make a better "tarp" quonset this summer.

I tried to capitalize on winning the RC car, and post a video response on every video Kipkay puts out, cause he is really popular. He stopped allowing them, told me to post them only on his RC video. It all makes sense now. That is why my video responses would stay at the top through one million views of kips videos, because he doesn't normally allow video responses for some reason. I emailed him back and asked him why he didn't accept vid responses, and told him I was just trying to maximize my views by getting the 1% of his viewers to look at my video. He never answers my questions though. Here is one of my rc vid responses.

Diesel Ranger Has Hope

I think the Mitsubishi parts guy is starting to get annoyed with me. I did find the same motor int the Dodge Ram 50 of 83-84, I expect Dodge to be as much help as Ford. Mitsubishi made a "Mighty Max" truck in 87, apparently only available as right hand drive, not in north america. I can't believe after all the work, hours of calling dealers, parts suppliers, engine re builders, diesel ranger forums, blah, blah, blah.
I googled the engine model "4d55t" and "pistons", blam, suppliers in right hand drive continents, New Zealand and Australia, presumably happy to send me brand new pistons and liners, even a complete rebuild kit with all gaskets. Hopefully all gaskets, cause I can't get more than the oil pan gasket and head gasket in Canada. I was going to have a gasket making day. The sad part is it is looking like the block will need to be relined, which will cost $$$, but its not that sad when I can get it all together the rebuild and all will easily cost under $3000 and be brand new.

Thats my new found hope for the morning. Here is a video of the chickens.

Diesel Ranger Update

The Legendary Truck in the blog header, thats taken me 5 years to get to fixing a simple head gasket, isn't so simple any more.


The biggest problem is its a Mitsubishi motor in a Ford truck, that never sold very well. With a lot of prodding, I got Ford part numbers for the obsolete over sized pistons. Mitsubishi can't use Ford part numbers, and has no access to Mitsubishi part numbers, because they have never released a diesel in north america. I have been on the phone to everyone Mitsubishi, myself, and Ford can think of. It is down to now finding pistons w the pin bore, and diameter, and making them work. Making them work simply involves shaving the piston top down, or shaving the motor top down, depending on which if any are too high. Or maybe I will just part it out and sell the pieces.

As mentioned we went to Bellis this weekend for a farm auction, an open house, and we got 2 more chickens. The open house was a lame little house like we have, they want $300k for, and the auction was a total disappointment. I really only wanted a lawn tractor rototiller attachment from an auction. No such thing at this auction, nor was there anything else usefull at the auction. So we went out for lunch, and without even mentioning my wants for the day, someone there we knew, asked if I have a rototiller. I told her we have an electric one I made, but its slow. She said her garden takes 8 hours to do w her gas unit that hasn't run for years. I figure the electric would take 16 hours. So she says I can have her gas rototiller, if I can pick it up. It got a quick carburetor rebuild, and some seized control cables replaced and it was good to go. But it is only 15" wide, and my lawn tractor is 36" wide. So I welded the tines off the old electric tiller on the new gas tiller for a total width of 36 tilling inches. I had to try it with its own propulsion to see if the 6hp could dig 36". It did work, but it was out of hand and out of control. So I removed my snow blade from the lawn tractor and welded u tiller mounts. I took it over and got half of the huge garden tilled, where I picked the unit up, before the Governor self destructed. I will tune that up tomorrow and take some video of it in action.