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Everythings broke Ya just can't win

Started by Sawyerfortyish, April 23, 2008, 07:17:36 AM

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Sawyerfortyish

Yep I'm at a stand still. My brand new moulder that we just put in has several burned out relays. The technician that is here to train us on how to setup and run it has been on the phone and had everything apart. It looks like it happened when they test run it at the factory. He told us that the parts the company has to replace cost about 6 grand. I'm glad he had to be here to start it up. Thats not the worst. My mulch grinder had a bad water pump and of course one bolt broke off we had to take the whole engine apart front timming case had to come off the engine block it's been 2 days we finnally got the bolt out after breaking off two easy outs( who ever named them that aint nothing easy about it). Now were told we have to take off the oil pan to replace the front gaskets.
On top of this my firewood processor also broke. The shaft that runs the pump twisted so I sent it out to be rebuilt. I also have to replace the flex plate on the back of the moter that drives the pump. What a week whats next?

Sprucegum

That's three in a row - your luck is bound to change.
Maybe it'll snow today  ;)

gizmodust

Sure sounds like you've found yourself on the wrong side of the pile for sure :(.  Even at that, I'd be careful about that last question ::) Though I like Sprucegums answer :). Good luck is coming............somewhere.
Always liked wood with alot of character

StorminN

Easy Outs are never that... do yourself a favor and get some left-handed drill bits...

Hang in there, and good luck... we've all had weeks like that...

-N.
Happiness... is a sharp saw.

fstedy

Like StorminN said left hand drill bits work better than anything for getting broken bolts out. As you step the hole size bigger and get close to the threads the heat and hole size relieve the tension on the bolt and the drill will back it right out about 95% of the time. Hang in there summers comming. If you can't get them locally call MSC by 8pm and you'll have them the next day.
Timberking B-20   Retired and enjoying every minute of it.
Former occupations Electrical Lineman, Airline Pilot, Owner operator of Machine Shop, Slot Machine Technician and Sawmill Operator.
I know its a long story!!!

sawdust


sprucegum, you done digging out yet?

sawdust
comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable.

Sawyerfortyish

We used a left hand drill the problem is the head broke off the bolt and the bolt was 3 1/2" long. It went through the timming gear housing that we had to take off the engine. This is the third day the technician has worked on the moulder and still doesn't know whats wrong. At this rate at least I'll have nice equipment for the auction. ::) :D As I go broke

Woodchuck53

Morning guys not sure if it was flush or broke below the cover but had a 1942 tractor bolt break off trying to change a water pump gasket. Welded a nut to the exposed part and just from the heat transfer was able to back it out. I hate never come outs (easy outs). Have done this a few times over the years and have worked most of the time. Chuck
Case 1030 w/ Ford FEL, NH 3930 w/Ford FEL, Ford 801 backhoe/loader, TMC 4000# forklift, Stihl 090G-60" bar, 039AV, and 038, Corley 52" circle saw, 15" AMT planer Corley edger, F-350 1 ton, Ford 8000, 20' deck for loader and hauling, F-800 40' bucket truck, C60 Chevy 6 yd. dump truck.

Ironwood

I call this "singing the farmer's song" EVERYTHINGS BROKE. On the farm I grew up working on it seemed like EVERYTHING was always in the machine shed getting fixed, especially the combine. What a life, seemed he wrenched more than he farmed.

                   Ironwood
There is no scarcity of opportunity to make a living at what you love to do, there is only scarcity of resolve to make it happen.- Wayne Dyer

John S

What is your business in Stillwater?  I live in Kittatinny Lake and so far have only milled with a Granberg Alaskan mill.  I drive through Stillwater a few times a month for my part time job with Space Farms.  Good luck with your equipment.
John
2018 LT40HDG38 Wide

jpgreen

Heat is the key.  I always cut to the chase now and grab the torch. 
-95 Wood-Mizer LT40HD 27 Hp Kawasaki water cooled engine-

woodmills1

sorry to hear of the problems sawyer 40 get it fixed and back on line



Space farms WOW I know what that is............................................
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

low_48

Quote from: Ironwood on April 25, 2008, 08:42:48 AM
I call this "singing the farmer's song" EVERYTHINGS BROKE. On the farm I grew up working on it seemed like EVERYTHING was always in the machine shed getting fixed, especially the combine. What a life, seemed he wrenched more than he farmed.

                   Ironwood
I know exactly what you mean. I swear my Dad asked for "crescent" wrenches and vise grips for about 20 years straight for Christmas. He must have left 20 or more of them in the field while laying on his back under machinery in the corn stalks. The only thing worse was having to crawl in the back of the combine on the straw walkers to do a repair. I do appreciate that experience now though. From the washing machine, to the car, to the toaster. I'm not afraid to tear it down and repair it. City folks just seem to get on the phone for their repairs or set it out for the garbage man.

Sawyerfortyish

John S  the sawmill and farm prettymuch takes up all my time.Were a mile out of stillwater on fairview lake road. You might pass by us if you go from stillwater to culvers lake.         
    Finally got the new moulder going. We had to put the genset back where we started. The weinig tech made us lower the voltage to 460 we had 496 volts but in doing so the hertz dropped from 60 to 55 and the electronics in the machine just wouldn't work on the low hertz in the electric so we ended up putting it back where we started. I guess we are going to have to find a bigger genset this one is maxed out to run everything.

Cedarman

The reason they invented coffee shops so guys like us could go and share our troubles.  Now we got the forum. 8) 8)
I am in the pink when sawing cedar.

Sawyerfortyish

Well I thought since everything is broke at the mill I would truck in some logs and firewood. Wouldn't you know I heard squeaking sounds from the rear of the log truck I thought it must be a bad u joint. Well before I could make the 12 mile trip home I started hearing pinging sounds. I made it to a hill 3/4 of a mile from the mill and that was all she wrote :'(. Blown rears >:(.I don't know if it is one or both of the tandoms.  I gave up and come home.  What a week >:(

Lud

Hang in there.  Your luck has to be getting better. 
Frustration is everywhere.   I'm being strained this morning trying to get a router and laptop working.  Vicegrips and crescent wrenches aren't helping. 

But if frustration is a swamp, I must be getting thru as this note proves........














Simplicity mill, Ford 1957 Golden Jubilee 841 Powermaster, 40x60 bankbarn, left-handed

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

I was already feelin' for ya', 40ish, but I hadn't planned to join ya'!

Left at 7:15 for the sawing site.
Had my piano work planned; had logs ready for Shawn to saw.
Left him warming up the Peterson ready to saw.

I go do the two piano jobs.
As I return the eight miles back to the sawmill, there is Shawn - sitting and forlorn.
Not good.
:-\
"The saw starting skipping and white smoke poured out, so I shut it down."
mumble, mumble  (something about adding oil to the engine)
"Yeah,  I had to add some oil."


[me, thinking: "Why add oil?  The engine hasn't used a drop since I had it.]
So, I pull the dip stick to find that he must have added almost a quart of unneeded
oil to a 2-quart crankcase.  The reading was half way up the stick - way, WAY above full mark!
>:(
I didn't have the time nor inclination to investigate, since I had an appointment to get to.
Please, Lord, just let it just be too much oil and not broken oil rings or something! Please,
let it be okay, once the oil is reduced and the excess burns off!  I won't know until Friday morning.
:'(
PHil L.
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

Tom

I knew I was going to have a small paycheck.  I had piddled around visiting and taken trips that were unnecessary and been involved in high gas and diesel prices and then schedules at home kept me from getting back to count up after the job was over.   Finally things came together. 

I got into my car on Monday morning and went to the site, 40 miles away.  There was no body there so I began dismantling the saw by myself.  This is a painful and slow job for me.  Not having the strength to break nuts, nor the mobility to work a jack or pull on legs, it took me 2 ½ hours to finally get the mill hooked up.  Then I noticed that I had a flat tire on the mill.  I pulled it across the pasture and to the daughters house where they had a compressor.

The valve stem was broken.  I knew I couldn't get the wheel off by myself, expediently , so I decided to buy parts in town and come back.   

That night, I got a call from the customer who was angry that I hadn't counted his wood.  I told him what had happened and he said. "Yeah, we were wondering what you were up to, we were on the porch watching. "

I went back the next day and was met with another old customer in town.  He offered to come help.  I didn't really want the help.  He is the kind of guy that is super hyper and runs around giving orders and asking for tools and trying to do it all himself.  He means well, but it rattles me.

He jacked the mill up and took the wheel off.

He had been spending the whole time telling me that I couldn't fix it and we would have to go tot town and get it fixed.  "See there, He hollered, how you gonna break that bead?"

I ran the front left tire of my new expensive, King Ranch, Expedition up on it and saw the tire move.  I backed off of it and the Expedition picked up speed as it came off of the tire. "Crunch!"

I had, earlier taken some tools from the other side of the vehicle and left the right rear door open.  The crunch I had heard was caused by my backing the door through a 2" steel pipe that was driven in the ground.  The right rear door was now laying over the front door.   Well, It looked that bad, but it wasn't , quite.   I got out and managed, after a few times, to close the door, almost.  The computer kept telling me that I had a door ajar and wouldn't tell me any pertinent information, like how much Gas I had.

We put the repaired tire on the mill and aired it up.

Then I backed up to the mill to hook up.  My "help" was dancing behind the vehicle waving his arms this-a-way and that-a-way and pointing and rubbing his thumb and index finger together and  pointing to the ground and twirling his fingers and all manner of directions that I had seen before, along with some that I hadn't.  The vehicle wouldn't creep.  I would push the accelerator and nothing would happen till finally it would jump.  It happened one time and the vehicle backed into the hitch on the trailer.   The "help" I could see through the open hatch in back, was jumping up and down and trying to climb on top of the mill.  I tried to get my foot off of the accelerator and the knap on the fasteners of my shoes had grabbed hold of the knap of the carpet and my foot was tied to the floor.  Jerking it up, I got it hung between the accelerator and the brake and finally got onto the brake.  Each time I jerked my foot, the engine got gas, and the hitch of the mill banged into the bumper of my expensive, new, King Ranch, Expedition.  I got out to assay the damage and found that the (plastic) bumper had been broken.  I'm not stupid, I know of all kinds of expensive stuff underneath those bumpers.  There are sensors for backing up at the very least.

My help calmed enough to get me hooked up and I left for home. 

OK, I am insured.  State Farm has always been good about stuff like this,  I called and was sent to the Ford dealership to be repaired.  Why I can't have lived on the side of town were there was a dealership, I don't know.  It's a 70 mile round trip there.   

A week and a half, they say.

I rented a car and went home.

Hertz had three cars, two foreign sub-compacts and a Ford.  Don't put Ford Models in Google, you will not get cars.

My rental was a "mid-sized car" called a Fusion.  It got 25 MPG and had a 6 cylinder engine and lots of options that I never used.  For a midget, it might have made good transportation.  I couldn't' get into it.

There was no option though.  So Hertz, shoe-horned me into the thing and I went home.   Finding myself behind a slow moving truck on the last leg home, I floored it and passed.  The thing got squirrelly, raised its front wheels in the air and left a trail of white smoke off of the tires as I went buy.   Enough of that adrenalin, I though and went to the house.

Last night, five days later, my car was finished.  This morning I went to pick it up. The bumper and door looked great.  Everything seemed to work just fine.  Taking care of the deductibles (thank goodness for insurance. The repair was almost $3000), I got in my New Expensive, Expedition and went home.  It felt so good to be able to get into the vehicle without being a contortionist.  The ride was smooth and I was sitting straight and tall, not laying back behind the door post.

When I got home, I went to the repaired door and was admiring their work again.  I pulled on the door handle and the door didn't open.  "Ah, childlocks", I thought.  I tried everything and nothing would work.  A phone call to tell them I was coming back and I was again on that 70 mile round trip.  Stopping for gas this time because my prudence had said, "don't give the mechanics a full tank".  Now I was on fumes. 
The cheapest I could find was $3.55.  So, with my pockets $88 lighter, I headed for the dealership again.   Go sit in the customer Lounge, I was told.   Two hours later and a mind numbing three magazines later, learning of the love lives of a myriad of Hollywood actors. (How come they are all actors now?  Nobody is called an Actress.) I have returned home after the replacement of a door actuator.

The back door has been slammed and locked securely behind me, I have a fresh pot of coffee on, the computer is warmed and ready to go and I'm not going anywhere.  :)




Jeff

Tom I know this story was a whole lot easier for me to read then it was for you to write.   :)  If it was me writing and you reading, you would have had to moderate me. ;)
Just call me the midget doctor.
Forestry Forum Founder and Chief Cook and Bottle Washer.

Commercial circle sawmill sawyer in a past life for 25yrs.
Ezekiel 22:30

woodmills1

So sawyer 40 hows it goin in stillwater?

and Tom..................... :o great story.................not to great a day
James Mills,Lovely wife,collect old tools,vacuuming fool,36 bdft/hr,oak paper cutter,ebonic yooper rapper nauga seller, Blue Ox? its not fast, 2 cat family, LT70,edger, 375 bd ft/hr, we like Bob,free heat,no oil 12 years,big splitter, baked stuffed lobster, still cuttin the logs dere IAM

fencerowphil (Phil L.)

Well, there you go.

Whatever started with 40ish is a spreddin'!
:D
Bi-VacAtional:  Piano tuner and sawyer.  (Use one to take a vacation from the other.) Have two Stihl 090s, one Stihl 075, Echo CS8000, Echo 346,  two Homely-ite 27AVs, Peterson 10" Swingblade Winch Production Frame, 36" and 54"Alaskan mills, and a sore back.

semologger

Quote from: fencerowphil  (Phil L.) on May 01, 2008, 06:23:22 AM
Well, there you go.

Whatever started with 40ish is a spreddin'!
:D

I hope not logging is hard enough around here. 40ish it seems like my last couple of years have been gouing the same way. Makes Ya just want to throw in the towel and go work for someone else. But that aint going to happen seems like once you have worked for yourself ya want it to stay that way. No worries things will get better. 

Tom

Sawyerfortyish,
I hate to read of someone else's woe's, especially when they put them on the non-activity list like your's has .  Perhaps misery seeks company, or perhaps misery seeks misery.  Anyway, I  decided to lock myself in the house until some of these dark clouds blew by.

Home is usually a haven from "getting beaten up". 

I wasn't expecting my wife to enter into any of this.  After I settled in with my coffee, she came home and I could see her out back examining my new, expensive, King Ranch, Expedition, with the new paint job on the "new" door.

In the house she came, all a bluster.  "They put a junk yard door on that car", she hollered.  "You can see the pits through the paint where the rust had to be knocked off!!"   "And, there's algae showing on the inside where they put the panels on".   "How could you let them do that?"  "Weren't you paying attention?".
"I'm going to get them to put on another door".

"Oh Lord, help me".  I exclaimed under my breath as I began to tiptoe toward the haven of my computer room with my coffee cup in one hand and the thermos pot of coffee in the other.

"I'm going to Greg's this weekend (her brother in Orlando) and use his buffers and stuff and see if we can make it acceptable.  If I can't, &(()(*&*&^, they're going to put on a new door."

"I thought it looked pretty good", I muttered meekly. 

"You weren't paying attention!", she said loudly.  If I had been there we wouldn't have accepted it."  "You might as well get yourself attuned to taking it back.   I'm not going to have a half&*(job done on a vehicle as new as that.  What were you thinking?" 

Her voice trailed off behind me as I pushed the papers, phones, hammer, old donut, measuring tape, pencils, pens, and other accumulation of my living,  away from the monitor to make room for my fresh pot of coffee and half-full cup. "Perhaps I'll play some music on the computer and close the door", I thought as I dropped my overly oppulant butt into the chair.

I can't see my New, expensive, fixed, King Ranch, Expedition from this window.  It's on the other end of the house. I have the door closed and the blinds pulled shut.  Maybe I'll turn on the light later.  :-\


Gary_C

I know the feeling Tom, I just got thru getting my phone bill cut by $20 a month when I dropped my old internet dialup connection. When I told my wife she just said "well why was it on there in the first place."  ::) 

I told her that I had already explained that and she said to explain it again. Instead I got out of there and hid.  ;D ;D
Never take life seriously. Nobody gets out alive anyway.

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