Jeff & I didn't get to do all that we wanted to do while he was here. He was going to look at my welding set up to see what was wrong with it (presuming I'm not the thing wrong with it) but timing wasn't friendly to us. But at least I have all the parts and hopefully can get them installed tomorrow.
But since he's still in town there's a chance if that doesn't fix it he can look at what I'm doing wrong and help me out.
Just so you guys would know Jeff is a Coatings consultant. He showed me some cool videos and he's got a machine the's building that will put special slippery stuff on the gearbox parts which should be a great improvement. If you've got questions about specialty coatings (not Swains type) you might ask him.
Well today was productive even tho it wasn't car stuff type of productive.
I ventured back into the pond with the tractor and I didn't get stuck this time.** I spend hours out in the 100+ temps & got a little burned but I got the majority of the digging out of the way. I'm stuck almost finished. Literally if I move 6" further forward I'll bog down. If I go 6" to the right I'll bog down also. I'm hoping the heat will dry those areas just enough that I can finish this by Tuesday.
I began by removing the bush that pushed me into the soft stuff the last time and things went so much more smoothly.
Attachment:
rid of bush.jpg
It doesn't look like I accomplished much, but that was a lot of dirt. It averaged about 2 1/2' deeper than when I began. But even so towards the wall it's still sand that has silted in so I could go deeper. To the right you can see the color change and that's the soft clay muck.
Attachment:
almost done pond.jpg
We have a few days when temps are supposed to be in the lower 90s so I'm going to try to do a lot of the outside work I need to get done and save the real work (you know the kind that pays the bills) till later in the week or even next weekend if I can get away with it.
That means the welder is pretty near tops on that list. The frustrating part is that I used to be a very good welder. It paid a lot of my college tuition. But the day I quit was the last day I welded until a couple of years ago and I still don't have the hang of it back. It's frustrating because I know exactly what it's supposed to do and I can't make it do it. I have 2 different 110v welders and neither can be set to do what I know it should be doing with the flux core wire. I had to buy a new regulator so I could run gas again. Maybe that plus the .23 wire will be the ticket. I need to cut apart the chassis and make some changes, but I'm not going to do that until I'm confident my welding skills are back. It's like riding a bike?????
**OK, I found the limits of the firm stuff one time, but what exactly is your definition of stuck? Sure the right front wheel sunk all the way to the axle and a little beyond, but since the bucket was on firm ground I just raised the front end and put a few boards & rocks under and then lowered it down and then drove back out. So I don't count that as stuck, it was more like a rest stop or maybe I just stalled the action. In any case my wife was looking out the windows and she never realized it had sunk.