As another Lame Cherry exclusive in matter anti matter.
Being poor has it's benefits, in you just do not have to buy junk, but you have to work for it as Junk Yard Guy had me crawling around in a load of junk he was loading for an electric fence hook up, which was broke, but he lured me in, and then had me throwing out copper wire out of the steel trailer.
So my cousin wanted some fuel barrels and JYG had them, 100 dollars a piece, which we bought a hundred dollar trailer to haul them home stacked to the sky at 15 mph on a hot dusty day, when the road grader decided to blade the roads and be in the way.
So with crowbars and sweat we got them unloaded, and that was it for day one.
Day two, they had mystery liquids in them which I think was penetrating oil, so we opened valves, took off valve and saved 30 gallons of his odoriferous stuff.
Propped them up with more labor and drained out the goo.
The tractor actually started over there, so we moved the barrel stands to their locations and got the barrels inside. That was day two.
Day three involved big ass pipe wrenches, three feet long in taking the elbows, joints, valves and pipes loose to take to JYG for parts, as one barrel is 3/4 inch and one is 1 inch threads.
Day four was JYG day in me climbing steel mountain, being cooked in the heat, and when JYG got around to helping us, he handed me the pipe wrench and into a new steel mountain I climbed and got two valves off of two barrels.
I found a nozzle which was corroded shut, and then JYG found a brass one. This is important as new ones are 100 dollars a piece, Hoses are like 40 bucks, so the new shit costs allot, even more than I though and the Chinaman junk is just shit in the junk pile making on the shelf.
OK so with the parts we had, the parts we got, JYG thought we had what we needed.
Day 5, yes is not getting two gas barrels easy.
So Day 5, we were putting in 10 gallons of hot water into the tanks and rocking them, as JYG said to just use water. I added Arm & Hammer laundry detergent of a half cup too. First tank the water after rocking it like a baby, looked like you could drink it.
Second barrel looked like New York City water, so not so tempting on a hot day.
To fill in time, I tried starting another tractor........battery is shot, the charger went ding, charged to 12 amps, then went off, and I was not burning out our charger so tried one here, and it made crackling noises both times I plugged it in. That learned it was back to the water, as I can not get electrocuted from water.
So we filled the clean barrel to check for leaks as nothing is worse than having leaks if the fill a gas barrel. Water filled, water was clear, and the valve was lovely in opening up wide open.
Meantime went to work on frozen nozzle. We never had one apart before, was aluminum, got the old gas pipe fitting loose but the 1 inch was still froze in. Took the nozzle apart, did not have the spring inside got into orbit, used WD 40 to lube things up, smacked the valve with a hammer and punch and it started moving, and a half dozen persuasions later, voila, it was working lovely as all gas things do which freeze up and then behave once loose.
So back together and that damn 1 inch fitting was still froze in. Nothing like a steel fitting in cast aluminum. I was ready to take it back to JYG and tell him to sell it to someone else as it was working, and instead went to start filling the less clean tank, washed it some, sloshed it some more and then started the grand big fill, which it is doing as I type this.
So back to the frozen fitting, we had come to the point of, "That is either going to come loose or I'm going to break this damned thing". So with two huge pipe wrenches on the floor as I was moving the vice and table it was attached to as that was not working, onto the floor it went and with TL balancing I put more force to it, and it moved a quarter turn. I thought GREAT. then put it into the vice and it was still froze.
We did this three more times with moving it a complete turn and it still was froze, before it started turning out. Sure chewed the shit out of those fittings, but it is loose and it was nice God had things work out.
Killed a raccoon and took it out of the live trap, as I do lots of things when I"m at "work".
So that is Day five in now draining the tank, after having checked it for leaks, which it did not have.
Day Six will be using teflon tape and putting all the fittings together in one last assemble as I get to do a high wire act in I put two chains on two different rafters, a block and tackle, chain around the gas barrel, and a board to keep the chain separated as having a chain slip and banging on either of us, is not in our job description, but the plan is to hoist it up and then gently place it on top of the stands.
There will be a board on the not drain end to make sure all the water drains out as I doubt lighting a match and seeing what burns would be a good idea in the explosion.
That done, it will be final assembly on the valves and the hoses as they would be in the way in lifting the barrels, and on the seventh day we will rest from this project.
My cousin often tells me to keep track of my hours. If I did, I would bankrupt her, as people do not realize all the shit that goes into saving money.
Well I'm off to go roll up water hose and locking the shed up. It amazes me in all I have to be to do just one project.
Nuff Said
agtG
