[AT] Rant and stuff

[Greg Hass]

Night before last I was in my office and heard something like a truck in 
the driveway, a while later I heard it again and went out to check. It 
was the air compressor in the shop running; during the summer months I 
don't shut it off. Anyway, last year I installed a water separator in 
the air line for the compressor and it has a hard plastic sight tube so 
you know when to drain the water. Well, that tube split and air just 
gushed out. The separator is rated for 250 lbs. and I run at 175 so 
pressure was not excessive. Yesterday I stopped where I bought it; it is 
like an auto parts store but they sell heavy duty truck parts. The guy 
at the desk knew nothing but he did the right thing and called the 
distributor who said the part was not available separately but you had 
to buy the assembly for $55. I didn't really believe him because I 
though I remembered a parts list in the instructions. Also the 
distributor said the parts would be special order. When I got home, I 
told the wife and she took the numbers off the assembly and in less than 
5 minutes she had a parts list printed out for me. We called about 4 
yesterday afternoon and gave them the part number. Not only was it 
available, but they had it in the warehouse and it was here at 8 this 
morning for $11. I said something about their distributor but got a 
dirty look  so said no more as I can see that the fact I could have been 
out $50 means nothing to these workers. I am getting so sick of people 
not doing their jobs. I don't expect miracles but I expect people to do 
their job; no more no less. I recently sold all 3 of the IH 715 combines 
I had. A guy wanted them to run in the combine demolition derby. I 
basically got junk price but they are gone. One was a parts machine, one 
was my soybean machine and the third was for wheat and corn. When last 
used a year ago the soybean machine had a straw walker go out and the 
bearing ripped a hole in the side of the machine; When doing corn, that 
machine had some heavy metal over the cylinder come loose. I never was 
able to get it out and would have to remove the feeder house and 
cylinder to get at it. My intention was to fix them as I have most of 
the parts either new or used but decided they were in such bad shape I 
would fix one thing and two would break .  Just to give you an idea, on 
the corn combine, the engine manifold is cracked and in cold weather had 
to run it half choked to make up for air leaks; both elevator chains as 
well as all the sprockets are bad; all of the straw walkers are shot; 
the tailings auger is bad; the air cleaning fan is all bent, and the 
transmission jumps out of gear twice each time across the field. The 
diesel 715 has sat out for over a year and started fine (they had extra 
batteries with them). The corn 715 was in the shed all  the time and I 
wanted to run it to save possible mishaps in the shed. I had charged the 
battery (I have it running in the fall to take off the corn head. It 
turned over good but did not start. The fuel pump did not sound right so 
I had them bang on it with a hammer. After a while the pump took off and 
it started right up. That lousy fuel again, as it was a year and a half 
old and had made the fuel pump stick. Last night they came  after dark 
to get the  parts machine. I had removed one drive tire as well as other 
parts. I thought they would tow it but they wanted to try and start it. 
6 or 7 years ago I drove it home 17 mile from where I bought it and 
parked it behind the shed where it has stayed. They put a different 
drive tire on and drained the gas (the whole yard smelled for hours even 
thought they put it in a pail. They put in new gas and a battery and it 
did nothing but cranked if you used a screwdriver on the starter. They 
tried tying all the wires under the cab together; all the fuse stuff 
underneath was rusted off. I gave them a bunch of new wire and they went 
direct from the battery to the fuel pump and backfed the ignition . It 
took about three good shots of starting  fluid and away it went. I never 
thought it would run again. They headed for home with it about midnight. 
It froze again last night as has been the case lately. It is to go into 
the 30's again tonight and the corn is starting to come up. In the past 
2 weeks we have had several record or near record lows. One gets real 
tired of this in a hurry.        P.S. for the combines a year ago I 
bought a Used IH 1440 axial flow combine which I used last year and will 
be my machine for now.