What are you doing today? [Part II]

[BrianF]

Borrowed a friends baby Kubota so we can test out a tiller and box blade. If we like those implements, we will snag some skid steer compatible ones.

We have to butcher the footing in the arena to do some leveling. Tiller worked great but the tractor is just to light to get the most out of the box blade. This thing is tiny!

Then the Swisher bush mower rolled in with a smoked belt. Thankfully it didn't break so I took a measurement but found the tensioner pulley seized something fierce.

 

[azswiss]

"Seized" appears to be the least of its problems.

 

[Mooseman]

On a camping trip on the shores of the St-Lawrence river. Nice park and not busy. It's our first trip since our dog died and the Mrs is having a hard time. Also feels weird to me not having her with us in the RV.

 

[Zaab]

On a camping trip on the shores of the St-Lawrence river. Nice park and not busy. It's our first trip since our dog died and the Mrs is having a hard time. Also feels weird to me not having her with us in the RV.

Awww. Hope you two can both relax and enjoy the trip!

 

[Mooseman]

It's been good so far. We just moved to a campground on the south side of Montreal. Heat and humidity just got turned up all of a sudden. AC is keeping up but the park's power isn't up to snuff, dropping below 108v so I had to hook up my Hughes Autoformer which boosts voltage at a higher amp draw. Saves the equipment when needed.

 

[BrianF]

Fixed up the mower, tossed in a new bearing and riveted the pulley back together. Of course, me being a bit simple in the head, I went to test it and no dice, the belt had slipped off the engine pulley..... and it sliced the belt a bit. Meh, i got it together and now works fine. I'll run the belt until it snaps.

Finally the garden is producing a bit. I gave the beets away, I hate them but figured I'd see how they grew.

 

[Zaab]

Fixed up the mower, tossed in a new bearing and riveted the pulley back together. Of course, me being a bit simple in the head, I went to test it and no dice, the belt had slipped off the engine pulley..... and it sliced the belt a bit. Meh, i got it together and now works fine. I'll run the belt until it snaps.

Finally the garden is producing a bit. I gave the beets away, I hate them but figured I'd see how they grew.

Love the big beets and carrot!

 

[BrianF]

Thanks! Yeah I love garden carrots! Nothing comes close. Im sure the beets are good too...... as a kid I was forced to eat a lot of borscht due to the Ukranian side of things. I hated it then and hate it now.

 

[flyboy2610]

Once the rain moves out, I'll be doing some storm damage mitigation. I woke up about 7:15 this morning, looked out the kitchen window, and saw this:


I'm guessing it came from here:


To put it in perspective, I'm standing under the eave of my next door neighbor's house.


It could have been worse. We could have easily lost power.


There is no broken glass, thankfully. At first I though it had just scratched up the fender, which is no big deal since I have a replacement fender in the basement. The one on there now has some rust cancer going in the lower right corner, so it's going to get replaced anyway. Nope. it's not just the fender!


This would be the point of initial impact. The roofline behind the door is bent somewhat as well. The paint is cracked, so at a minimum that needs to be addressed soon. I'm not sure what to do. If I file an insurance claim, they'll probably total the TB due to its age (24 years). The door opens and closes without issue. I can get another door from U-Pull-It, but the roof is structural steel, and I don't have the tools, know how, or experience to pull that dent out. I may take it to a body shop and see what they'd charge just to pull the dent and get it fairly straight. Most of them around here only want to do insurance work, though.
While I was taking these pics, me neighbor came home and told me there are trees and limbs down all over everywhere.
I took a few pics from my front yard. This towards the west:


Towards the east:


Looks like another branch is about to come down (lower left):


Gonna be a fun day! So much for a relaxing weekend.

 

[TollKeeper]

I would not fix any of it. If the roof bowed in a bit, its now matching the bow on the door edge. You could end up with a leaky spot. As you said, it is 25 years old, let the insurance total it, buy it back, and run it!

 

[xavierny25]

Just popped a few holes in a perfectly good hood.
Of course the kit we got didn't come with a template so I had to run to staples and make my own. My thoughts it turned out amazing! And yes guys this is a show car so it's always garage kept and never see's rain. Of course now he has to be alot more careful when washing.

Sorry for the neck breaking photos but I think the new update to the site has something to do with that.

 

[Mooseman]

Now we need to see the whole car

 

[xavierny25]

@Mooseman You asked older photos before the hood scoops.

 

[Blckshdw]

Not nearly as fun as modding a vehicle... It's been on my radar to do something about the heat in my garage for most of the year, as my door faces the west. Last week, for kicks I took the temp of the inside surface of the door when I got home from work and it read 117* F.

So finally got on the insulation bandwagon this weekend. Bought 3 rolls of the bubble wrap style to start with. Likely to add the foam boards afterwards.



Managed to get pieces measured, cut and installed without any difficulty, but even when starting at 10am when the sun was still behind the house, and having a high velocity fan going, I was still sweating pretty good.



After going through the first roll, it was almost noon, so I decided to take a comparison reading, just because. Didn't think there would be this much of a difference when there was still shade on the door, but it's a promising start.



Got to the last roll, for the few remaining sections, and was going to leave one panel open for another test later in the evening, but it's been cloudy most of the afternoon, so no joy there. As of this post, most everything around the garage door is reading 88 or 89 degrees.



Not pictured, changed the oil in the generator, since I plan to do the EXT before next weekend. Since I hadn't eaten pretty much all day, made a burger and fries for a late lunch. Shouldn't need to eat until tomorrow after all that. Now just relaxing and counting down to another work week...

 

[Mooseman]

You may have noticed that I wasn't as active on the forum for the past week or so. Been busy!

I was asked by my nephew to roast a 150lbs pig for his wedding that was being done at the family's 50 acre wooded lot. All summer they've been prepping for this and built their own tables, benches and wedding venue. I had zero experience roasting a pig. I told my nephew that I was giving no guarantees and that he should have a backup plan in case it goes south. I watched a bunch of YT videos and chatted with ChatGPT to try and gain some knowledge on the process. For that size of a pig, it would be a 12-16 hour cook so would have to start the evening prior.

He rented the pit, which was a homemade thing that was poorly designed. The spit was down too close to the fire, it had 3 holding prongs, which was different than all the videos that had two prongs to be able to properly insert into the butts and shoulders, it was an enclosed type and didn't include any back braces.

I enlisted the assistance of a friend to help me with this thing, who also didn't have any experience. So around 7pm, started prepping the pig. Olive oil, salt, pepper and some Chinese Char Siu BBQ sauce seasoned the inside. Filled the cavity with onions, green onions, garlic, more oil, salt and pepper. Closed it up with SS wire and got the fire going. Put the rod through but because of the three prongs, I couldn't put it through the mouth so we just put it through the hole in the neck and tried to insert the prongs into some meat. Oiled the skin with some more salt and pepper. Get the fire going with three bags for briquettes. The pig went onto the fire around 9pm.

It was flopping around way too much and the back would be falling apart if we left it that way. We took it back off and we put a piece of all thread rod on the back and used chicken wire to hold it all together. Back on the fire, it turned much better, for a while...




The fire was way too hot as the skin was already burning. Took out a lot of the coals to bring the temp down. Once we got that under control, we settled in for the night, checking the fire and the pig once in a while, as well as spraying it down with a mix of apple cider vinegar and water.

At some point in the middle of the night, the pig lost its legs. They just fell off and were dangling from the wire. And the head was flopping around something fierce and would have fallen off. It was burnt black. My two Meater probes were telling me that the front shoulders were much more done that the butts and the fire was too hot at the front. The rear was way behind. We made the executive decision to stop the spit and just put a pile of coals near the butt. We were just going to use the spit as an oven because the prongs were just destroying the meat and flopping too much. We were able to control the temps and get the butt done. And we were bringing it to over 200f to be able to pull it all.

At the end, it was ugly. Lots of burnt skin, the head was an unholy black. The wedding ceremony started at 3pm and we took the pig out at the same time as we didn't want anybody seeing this thing. Started stripping it, the head basically just fell off and we unceremoniously dumped it in the bucket. The skin was as hard as hard candy for the most part. However, the meat inside was excellent! The shoulders were a bit dry but the butts and ribs were beautiful. It all pulled nicely. The veggies also came out great and turned into an excellent topping for the sandwiches. Unfortunately I didn't get any after pics but I certainly did not want any of the whole pig as it was ugly.

Oh, and I didn't sleep at all! My buddy had a 1.5 hour snooze sometime in the early morning hours but I didn't all. I had been awake since about 7am Fri. By 5pm Sat, I was totally wasted. Went to the trailer where I slept for about 14 hours.

After that, me and Mrs Moose went to a campground on the St-Lawrence for a few days of R&R. It was alright except that the park was mostly empty and the weather was mostly grey and cool with a fire ban so we couldn't have a campfire. Just got back yesterday.

Tomorrow morning, heading to the cottage for the long weekend, back on Monday and work on Tue.

 

[Zaab]

You may have noticed that I wasn't as active on the forum for the past week or so. Been busy!

I was asked by my nephew to roast a 150lbs pig for his wedding that was being done at the family's 50 acre wooded lot. All summer they've been prepping for this and built their own tables, benches and wedding venue. I had zero experience roasting a pig. I told my nephew that I was giving no guarantees and that he should have a backup plan in case it goes south. I watched a bunch of YT videos and chatted with ChatGPT to try and gain some knowledge on the process. For that size of a pig, it would be a 12-16 hour cook so would have to start the evening prior.

He rented the pit, which was a homemade thing that was poorly designed. The spit was down too close to the fire, it had 3 holding prongs, which was different than all the videos that had two prongs to be able to properly insert into the butts and shoulders, it was an enclosed type and didn't include any back braces.

I enlisted the assistance of a friend to help me with this thing, who also didn't have any experience. So around 7pm, started prepping the pig. Olive oil, salt, pepper and some Chinese Char Siu BBQ sauce seasoned the inside. Filled the cavity with onions, green onions, garlic, more oil, salt and pepper. Closed it up with SS wire and got the fire going. Put the rod through but because of the three prongs, I couldn't put it through the mouth so we just put it through the hole in the neck and tried to insert the prongs into some meat. Oiled the skin with some more salt and pepper. Get the fire going with three bags for briquettes. The pig went onto the fire around 9pm.

It was flopping around way too much and the back would be falling apart if we left it that way. We took it back off and we put a piece of all thread rod on the back and used chicken wire to hold it all together. Back on the fire, it turned much better, for a while...

View attachment 117747
View attachment 117746

The fire was way too hot as the skin was already burning. Took out a lot of the coals to bring the temp down. Once we got that under control, we settled in for the night, checking the fire and the pig once in a while, as well as spraying it down with a mix of apple cider vinegar and water.

At some point in the middle of the night, the pig lost its legs. They just fell off and were dangling from the wire. And the head was flopping around something fierce and would have fallen off. It was burnt black. My two Meater probes were telling me that the front shoulders were much more done that the butts and the fire was too hot at the front. The rear was way behind. We made the executive decision to stop the spit and just put a pile of coals near the butt. We were just going to use the spit as an oven because the prongs were just destroying the meat and flopping too much. We were able to control the temps and get the butt done. And we were bringing it to over 200f to be able to pull it all.

At the end, it was ugly. Lots of burnt skin, the head was an unholy black. The wedding ceremony started at 3pm and we took the pig out at the same time as we didn't want anybody seeing this thing. Started stripping it, the head basically just fell off and we unceremoniously dumped it in the bucket. The skin was as hard as hard candy for the most part. However, the meat inside was excellent! The shoulders were a bit dry but the butts and ribs were beautiful. It all pulled nicely. The veggies also came out great and turned into an excellent topping for the sandwiches. Unfortunately I didn't get any after pics but I certainly did not want any of the whole pig as it was ugly.

Oh, and I didn't sleep at all! My buddy had a 1.5 hour snooze sometime in the early morning hours but I didn't all. I had been awake since about 7am Fri. By 5pm Sat, I was totally wasted. Went to the trailer where I slept for about 14 hours.

After that, me and Mrs Moose went to a campground on the St-Lawrence for a few days of R&R. It was alright except that the park was mostly empty and the weather was mostly grey and cool with a fire ban so we couldn't have a campfire. Just got back yesterday.

Tomorrow morning, heading to the cottage for the long weekend, back on Monday and work on Tue.

That's an adventure! A whole pig roast!!!

 

[BrianF]

Good on ya Moose, thats a hell of an endeavor!!

I did some fall maintenance on my 3500. Transfer case fluid was around 113,000km but since there is no clutches, it wasn't bad. The ATF was a darker red but no debris on the plugs.

Rear diff done just because. 84,000km and essentially no wear metal. The group 4 based 80w140 is absolute top notch. Just about emptied my 11 year old pail....

Tires rotated again. The Coopers are well down there with about 64,000km. Backs were 4-5/32 and fronts 7/32. She towed many, many thousands of km this year. We plan on minimal winter driving so tires might wait until spring.

Front diff was good so just left it. The hit the engine and cabin air filters. Everything else such as engine, trans oils, brakes etc was done in the spring. For fun I might try to set the valves.....

 

[BrianF]

Because I love a challenge and most times do not know when to quit...... seeing as the truck was sitting in the shop, I decided to check valve lash. As simple as it may seem, it was a PIA.

A little bit of disassembly was needed to access the harmonic balancer, marking TDC and rotating it to TDC 1. I had bought a barring tool for this but in reality, you need to watch it rotate.

Cummins uses these little lash caps between the rocker tips and bridges. Takes two hands to free them from the oil locking them together and getting the feeler gauge in. Cylinder 5 and 6 are a pain due to bring under the cowl and having to lay on the engine bay. But she is done. Used pre emissions lash of .010 and .020. Most intakes floated around .010 but a couple were less than .008. All exhaust were loose but likely around their required .026. Everything brought in, checked and rechecked. She sounds noticeably quieter at idle, which is nice. What's nicer is its done and I wont check again for many more years.