[AT] Glow plugs

[Dean VP]

Thanks Mark,  

I don't know if the corncob soaked in Kerosene has come up yet. I may have missed it. It seemed to me
as a young kid around my Dad that that was the tool of choice for so many things I don't know if there
is anything that really replaced it. Maybe the small hand held propane tanks come close.  I had seen
that tool so often used for such a variety of things it kind of stuck in my mind so I remembered this
kind of tool and used it in a very dangerous manner.  Now that I look back on it I don't know what I
was thinking other than I guess I was desperate with a new  bride in a 42' wide 8' long trailer that
we lived in when we were first married, It was blistering cold, probably trying to reach 40 below
which wasn't all that uncommon then and I had a frozen water line coming from the park service
connection going into my trailer. We needed water and apparently the heating tape I had wrapped around
the copper pipe had failed. So I soaked something in Kerosene, we used Kerosene to heat the trailer
out of a 55 gallon barrel, and laid it on to the pipe and used some baling wire to hold it on the
pipe.  Then I lit it intending to thaw out the pipe.  Well the next thing I knew I had started a fire
in the insulation in the belly of the trailer where the pipe entered the trailer. Now it was panic
time. No water to put out the fire.  Yelled at my wife to find any liquid we had in the trailer and
said we had a fire brewing. She knew where I was working and where the water pipe entered the trailer
and lifted a cover off from inside the trailer and dumped a quart of milk on the fire. Luckily that
put the small fire out.  Needless to say the pipe remained frozen  until I went to a hardware store
and bought a small hand held propane torch and it didn't take long and I got it to start running
again.  Took the heating tape inside the next day and found out why it wasn't doing its job and found
a loose connection. Soldered that up and put the tape back on the copper pipe and never had a frozen
water pipe again.  It was so cold that if you left the water run just a bit to keep it from freezing
the sewer pipe would freeze up. Due to the long run from under the trailer to the sewer connection in
the park. We ended up in Spencer, IA the next winter where we had 26 days in a row where it never got
above 0 degrees F and typical night time temperatures were in the 40 degrees F region almost every
night.  There we had frozen water lines, frozen sewer lines.  And I even had the line from the 55
gallon barrel of Kerosene to the trailer furnace freeze up one night.  Apparently there had been
enough cycles in temperature that some condensation had collected in the 55 Gallon Barrel  which
eventually settled in the low point between the barrel and the furnace. Took that line off and soaked
it in hot water rags until I got in unfrozen. . One morning I walked out of the trailer to go to work
and the lock froze open, with the plunger all the way in.  Moisture on the heated inside had gathered
around the plunger of the door latch and had frozen the minute I opened the door. Had to heat that so
I could lock the door. That was just flat a terrible winter. Wouldn't surprise me if that weather
record still stands. For some odd reason our address for the next winter was San Diego California.
Never went back to Iowa to live. Iowa had proved its point. It is one hell of a bad place to live in
the winter with a trailer. A year or so later  we sold the trailer and purchased our first stick built
home and felt like we had really accomplished something. We were rich, I was making over $10,000 a
year in 1964. Life was so simple then. 

Dean VP
Snohomish, WA

If we can employ guards with guns to protect money, we can and should employ guards with guns to
protect people. Bernard Goldberg.

-----Original Message-----
From: at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com [mailto:at-bounces at lists.antique-tractor.com] On Behalf Of
Mark Sargent
Sent: Saturday, December 26, 2015 2:29 PM
To: at at lists.antique-tractor.com
Subject: Re: [AT] Glow plugs

Cecil, Charlie, Dean, Greg--   

 

Though I'm on the digest mode-   I nominate this thread to be one of the
best threads ATIS on this year.    

It had it all- mechanical  fixes (you won't find in the text books) ---
anecdotes and -----war stories( defined as real world learning by scary
experience). 

 I got little teary eyed about the ' gas rag' trick (we did this and other
un-Recommended stuff on Army vehicles in the 70's . It was amazing what  we
would try - when you

have no more options-the runaway Detroit Diesels also reminded me of some
scary stuff.)     The driving stuff was well written-  I can' hear' you guys
tell these stories-

  all good entertainment.     Doesn't quite replace the old guys story's
they would tell at the  gas stations when I grew up-but there are no
hangouts for old men any more--- even in the small towns.

And I qualify as old too!

 

Thank you for sharing- and your contributions to the list! 

Mark

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