[AT] Portland Roll Call..................

Indiana Robinson robinson46176 at gmail.com
Tue Aug 25 10:58:55 PDT 2009


I'm starting to feel like there is a conspiracy going on to keep me
from making Portland this year. I spent most of Sunday installing a
pressure tank and re-plumbing some stuff at the storm damaged rental
house. It wasn't storm damage, just stuff failing with bad timing.
Every time I turn around this month it is something else.  :-(
It is almost as much fun as the letter we just got from the insurance
company telling us that due to so much storm and flood damage across
Central Indiana the last few years that some policies will go up as
much as 35%... Yay! Rah! Just what we need.   :-)
-
So far (knock on plastic) I am still on track to make Portland but I
will not have time to do any pressure washing etc. and will just load
and haul as is, grease, dirt, warts and cobwebs.   :-)
I made some description signs for each item I'm bringing and on each
one I make a reference to A.T.I.S. and the home page URL.
One job did  go well today. My TO-20 Fergie had bent radius rods when
I bought it which is common on one that spent a lot of time mowing
around a rough woods and perhaps it was not equipped with an
over-running clutch early on. Both were bent but the right one was
bent so bad that the tie rod was rubbing tightly against it. It looked
like the third cousin of a pretzel. I pulled the right one first and
after some study I put it in my hydraulic pipe bender with the right
width die and started bending a little at a time along its length. I
didn't achieve perfection but I feel pretty good about them both
compared with how they started.
I have been trying to do a little patching on its broken manifold and
it is not going well... I have welded quite a bit of cast iron over
the years but old burnt out exhaust manifold cast almost never goes
well for me. I knew I was in trouble when I started grinding to prep
it and I never hit good solid shiny cast. I may have to take it to
Portland still broken and look for a good used one there or just let
it sit there as is and order one when I get home.
I also need to put a manifold on my 1946 Allis C. It isn't truly
"broken", it just finally went through from burn out. You can't hardly
get more than 60 years of wear out of anything these days...  :-)
I'm really enjoying getting back to shop work.
-
We "hope" to arrive with the tractors and stuff Wednesday afternoon
and bring the old travel trailer up about noonish Thursday.


-- 
Have you hugged your horses today?

Francis Robinson
aka "farmer"
Central Indiana USA
robinson46176 at gmail.com



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