[AT] Dead short...

[Phil Auten]

Another simple 20 minute job completed in only about 3 or 4 hours... 
That is my life now.  :-)  :-)  :-)

That pretty much describes anything I do around here. Start a job and 
immediately find that I don't have the tool I need. Go to town and buy 
one and finish the job, Two days later, I find the old tool that I knew 
I had, but couldn't find. The story of my life.

Phil in TX

On 8/27/2020 1:46 PM, Indiana Robinson wrote:
> First it's good to hear folks piping up that they are OK. I do try to 
> keep up.
> Made the hard decision to skip Portland this year. I'm also skipping a 
> huge Amish consignment auction that we normally attend twice a year. 
> They canceled the spring one but are having the fall sale. I love 
> their sale and they do a great job with it but... Diana and I are both 
> high risk and a "LOT" of people normally attend. One year my bid 
> number was above 2,500. It's a mixed crowd, most are just good folks 
> that love sales. Sadly being a large crowd means more people that you 
> would avoid if you could.  :-)  Some are clueless, some are just 
> thoughtless and a very small number but way too many are just rude 
> jerks. Those would crowd in and bully people and intentionally cough 
> in folks faces or about anything else to make trouble. That is just 
> who they are. I just don't have time to sit in jail for clubbing 
> someone with a PTO shaft... As much as I love those sales they are the 
> only sales where I have had stuff stolen before I could move it. I 
> have a good idea who they are but can't prove anything. There are a 
> few guys that when you buy some things and sit them aside to load 
> those guys will start looking in boxes etc. that others have bought. 
> They also spend a lot of time looking around them and you rarely see 
> them bidding on anything. Oh, well.
> *
> About that dead short... My little VAC Case was getting hard to start. 
> It would fire and run OK but barely turn over. Sometimes it would kick 
> in and spin fine. "AFTER CHECKING THE GROUNDS"  :-)  and load testing 
> the battery I decided that it was the big push button starter switch 
> sticking out of the dash in that awkward spot behind the steering 
> column. Picked up a new one from Rural King for about $15.
> Pulled the battery and cleaned up the battery box. I painted the 
> switch (only new paint on the tractor) and the screws for it and 
> painted the floor of the battery box. I put the new switch in and did 
> minor repairs on the battery cables etc.
> Went to install the ground cable (+ ground, still 6 volts) and got a 
> big old spark... Yes I did jump a bit.  :-)  Went back over everything 
> I did which didn't take long, this thing is pretty basic. Had to be 
> the new switch... Pulled it and tested it, yep, one  post was a dead 
> short to the switch shell. I didn't want to take it back, some idiot 
> there would have probably said I voided the warranty by painting it.  
> :-) You can unfold the 4 little bent tabs and open those. In fact you 
> can open them and rotate the contact bolts a half turn to extend their 
> use. When I opened it I could see the problem. The thin bolt 
> head/contact on one bolt had rotated as it was tightened and its sharp 
> corner had punctured the thin fiber insulator that lined the body of 
> the switch. It had sharp corners because the heads of the bolts are 
> quite thin compared to the older ones (Surprise).
> I got it back in proper position and filed grooves in the outer end of 
> both bolts so I could tell if they stayed in alignment as I installed 
> the cables to it. I also added a bit of insulation to the punctured 
> area. Spins over like a new one.
> Another simple 20 minute job completed in only about 3 or 4 hours... 
> That is my life now.  :-)  :-)  :-)
>
> -- 
> -- 
>
> Francis Robinson
> aka "farmer"
> Central Indiana USA
> robinson46176 at gmail.com <mailto:robinson46176 at gmail.com>
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