Fixed My Digger Today....

Didn’t feel too well yesterday so the entire day was pretty wasted. Scratchy, fuzzy throat and just feeling Blah. At least I waited until SWMBO’s day in the office to feel bad!

Felt a lot better today. The headache I’ve been waking up with wasn’t as bad this morning. I think I’m going to try sleeping on my foam pad on the floor tonight and see how I feel in the morning. I’d sure hate to think that, after 30 years, I’m getting too damned old to sleep on my waterbed. SWMBO bought a new bed and we’re waiting for it to get here in the mail. (UPS?) Sure hope it solves the problem!

Finally got off my butt and drove out to Belfair and bought a hydraulic hose for my Digger. That $100 I made the other day: $85 for the hose. At least I’m still $15 to the good! Got back home and it took me all of 10 minutes to get it put on and working good. And it does. So I PM’d the Digger and made sure everything else I can get to is tight. All the fluids are up to par and I greased all the fittings I could find. Probably not bad for not having a manual!

Bought Myself A Digger!

And got it out to the property. Only cost $130 to get Bethel Towing to haul it out there. Then I spent most of the day finding out what it will do and how well it travels over our hill. Works Great! And it was a NICE day out there!

 

Sold My Dozer…

Yep, got it all fixed up and have had it sitting our front; was planning to take it back out to the property. Can’t think of too many jobs to do with it though. Nothing I can’t do with a mini-excavator. So, I put an ad up on craig’s List and a couple of days later a guy (Mike) calls me from Hillsborough, Oregon: He wants to come up and see it. So he drives up and spends about half an hour saying “What a brute!” and “I love it!”. But he had to talk his wife into it first….<G> He called back yesterday willing to meet my price and has already sent a bank check in the mail. Cool! It’s a great little dozer and I’ve done a LOT of work with it; but I really don’t have much more use for it.

So now I’m out looking for a mini-excavator….

Spent this afternoon and evening canning my annual supply of home made chili. SWMBO and I really like my chili so once a year or so I can 30-40 pint jars of it for those times we don't feel like cooking and want something quick and easy. So we pop the top on a pint of chili, micronuke it for 2 minutes and we have dinner. Unfortunately SWMBO mixes hers with Spaghetti!

Alpha & Omega Rentals: Not A Happy Experience…

So, I stopped by Alpha & Omega Rentals outside Belfair, Wa last week and arranged for an excavator to be delivered out to the property at 0800 Monday morning. Monday morning comes around and I get up at 0600 and out of the house by 0700. Get out to the property about 0745 and wait until 0900 for it to show up. I drove a couple of miles down the road (towards town) until I could get a signal on the cell phone and called them. "Oh, the manager didn't update the board so I didn't know if it was today or next Monday." Says the person that answered. Said he'd be right out. He shows up at 1015 or so. By the time it's unloaded I'm starting 2 1/2 hours late. The guy that dropped the excavator off did offer to pick it up Tuesday morning so I could have the rest of the day to work. Cool.

Filled in the trench we made for the power/water lines and dug from the end of that trench to the road. Didn't cross the road 'cause I still need to drive up and down it. Re-dug the drainage ditch in the dome hole and moved some things around. Stuffed a tree-stump into that hole that keeps appearing in the road. Worked until about 1700.

Got up at 0600 again this morning, out of the house by 0715 and out at the property by 0800. Decided to do some work while waiting for the guy to come and pick up the excavator. An hour goes by so I drive down the road for a cell-signal, call them and the girl that answered says "OK.". Back to the property. Another hour goes by. And another hour goes by. Finally at 1200 I park the excavator in the driveway opening, lock the gate and take off for their office.

Told the guy behind the desk that I got tired of waiting and that the excavator was sitting in my driveway with a full tank of gas and the key still in it. He immediately got surly (that really is the only way to describe his demeanor) and spouted half a dozen excuses on why it hasn't been picked up yet. I said that I thought 3 hours was plenty long enough to wait and he came back with more whining and passing the buck. I signed my receipt ($290!!) and left.

Like I said. Not A Happy Experience. I will try my best NOT to rent from them again.

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Here's the excavator I rented. Worked okay but it took some getting used to having the claw switch under my right foot.

I Am Learning WAY Too Much About Dozer Mechanics!

Got up yesterday and took my 'crowd cylinder' (from atop the boom on the backhoe) to Pape (pronounced Pa Pay) over in Fife. Asked them if it would be okay for me to watch them replace the seals. Man, am I ever glad I took it over to them to fix!!! I'd have never gotten it done at home. Alone. We had to use a 5-ton crane and a lot of muscle to get the ram out of the cylinder! I got right in there with the young guy that was changing the seals and got just as dirty and tired. Guess I was some help cause they didn't charge me for the job. Cool! We figured out I have a JD 350-D dozer. The 'D's stands for "Dey Don't Make No More Parts For Dis One!".

Left Fife at 1400 and zoomed to our property to meet the hydroseeding guy. Almost missed him. Showed him what we need hydroseeded but he thinks the job might be a bit too much for him; so he gave me a card with another company's information on it. Was raining pretty good out there and we were soaked by the time we walked from the bottom of the hill to the top and back. Nice guy though.

Got up today and went and picked up my radiator. $700! Phew! I spent ALL DAY putting my dozer back together. Went fairly easy but MESSY! Even the front of the dozer went back on without much trouble. Lifting that 100lb cylinder back to the top of the boom was a bitch though! But after that it hooked back in quickly. Bled the air out by flooding one side (completely retracting the ram), hooking up the bottom side and unhooking the top side and filling it from the bottom until hydrolic fluid started coming out of the top. Then rehooked up the top side. Works great and NO leaks!

Radiator went in fairly easily. Ran the dozer for about 15 minutes for it to get warm. Had one small leak where I didn't tighten down the hose completely but once I tightened it up i had NO leaks! Cool! Managed to tighten up one of the tracks but can't get grease to go into the other.

Will have to finish this later; SWMBO wants me to reboot the internet server....

Anyone Have A Radiator For A ‘69 JD350 Dozer?

Cause I really could use one. Closest I can find on is in Witchitaw or Michigan and they want $1300 PLUS shipping for it. Damn! Hope the radiator guy can recore it monday. Gotta be cheaper.

Damn, looks like we've had our summer! Yesterday was again the nicest day. Took Kathy to breakfast at the Family Pancake House in Port Orchard. Worked around the house until about 1800. Went out for a light dinner at Wendy's and some shopping at Walmart & Staples. Spent more than our usual at Safeway on the way home. Spent the rest of the evening watching tv.

Today was a rainy kind of day. Much cooler than yesterday. Just worked around the house and scanned a bunch of things. Mostly DVD covers. Watched (sorta) 9 episodes of the Andy Griffiths Show featuring Barney. War Of The Worlds (both). And that's about my day....

See what my dozer looks like right now? Had to use that engine lifter thingie to get that heavy assed front end off. Also went to Pape Machinery and spent $165 on gasgets for the ram thingie on the backhoe boom. Damn, I love technical language!

Man, I’ve Been Busy!

Last Sunday Bob (the Dirt Guy) and I spent almost all day getting his trailer unstuck out at a job he's doing, then getting out to the property and loading my dozer on the trailer; then getting it unloaded at my house! Got it done though! What a trip!

Monday I spent about 6 hours just washing the dozer with my power washer. I was plenty greasy and muddy by the time I finished for the day! Was so tired I took Kathy out for Teryaki Chicken instead of cooking for us.

Today I spent all day getting the damned radiator out of the dozer. I mean ALL day. Had to borrow a "cherry picker" (engine lifter thingie) from the garage next door; then I had to borrow a 1" socket. Turned out I needed 2 1" sockets so I wound up going to the auto parts place and buying a complete large socket set. Meaning the sockets are larger than you normally buy. Had to take the front end off the dozer to get the radiator out! By the time I was finished for the day every inch of exposed skin was black with soot and grease! Had to scrub my hands for half an hour before I could get them clean enough to wash them. (Stop and think about what I just said! Yeah.)Â I'll post a picture of the dozer as it is tomorrow.

Damn! What A Nice Day!

Didn't start out that way. Kind of cloudy. But by the time I got to the property the sun was shining and it almost felt warm. Nice!

Damned near killed myself at the property. I need to dig a trench down this one path that's really kind of steep for my dozer with that heavy-asses backhoe on it. So, I'm going down backwards and the dozer is really tipping backwards and I'm like riding the brake, when my left tread slips down into the septic test hole. Damn, Damn and Damn! Luckily I knew how to use the backhoe to lift the dozer out of that hole! Lucky I had the backhoe attached! By the time I got down to where I need to start the trench that dozer was just leaning too far backwards for me to feel safe working. So I crawled up that hill (powering past the septic hole!), unhooked the backhoe and went back down it smoothing and widening things out. Think I'll have to hire Bob the Dirt Guy to come out and dig that trench.

Called the Electric people and they're gonig to resubmit their numbers for how much electricity will cost. Accepted an offer for the Special Inspectors at two-thirds what the first company wanted. Left a message with the Septic guy to see if he's still interested. Moved some of my son's stuff from the storage shed to the wood shed (we've had his stuff for a year and we were only supposed to have it two weeks!) and moved some of my junk from the back room to the storage shed. Then moved Obnoxious Chair (that's it's name!) to the hole I made by moving that other stuff out. Now Kathy's got room to quilt! (There is a plan to my madness!)

My dd-951 site seems to be really taking off! Cool! I've got a dozen people that have signed into the guestbook and several that I'm exchanging e-mail with. I've heard from a couple of guys that were on the TJ while I was. Cool! Guess I'll have to get off my butt and add the rest of the pictures.

Been lazy this evening just sitting around watching tv. Downloading Smallville, Dresden & Dirty Jobs.

Put The New Hydraulic Hose On Today…

Took the new hydraulic hose out and spent about 20 minutes running it where the old one was. Then took 5 minutes to take it back out because I had put it in wrong end first. Then another 20 minutes putting it back. Screwing the one end of the hose in was a bear but it mostly went in easily. Then the next hour was spent putting the dozer back together. Phew. But I did get to push dirt today and pushed a lot. The dome hole is starting to look like a hole again! Cool!

Dozer Problems. Again!

I have a rather nasty leak in one of my hydraulic hoses (can’t tilt the blade left) that I should have fixed; but decided that I was going to hook up the backhoe and use it today. So I did that. Moved a LOT of dirt away from the sides in the dome hole and tried to widen the road leading to the dome hole. Then I moved it all around with the blade (remembering NOT to tilt the blade). Got quite a bit of work done. Started trying to take the hose off when I was tired of moving dirt for the day. I wish JD had made a dozer with something easy to repair/replace without taking half the damned dozer apart! Can’t get the ’step’ thingie off to have access to the hose and it got dark before I was finished. So I’ll have to do that tomorrow. Then I’ll have to run to Tacoma for a new hose. Then back to the property to put it on. Looks like my day is planned tomorrow.