blog513

Saturday, May 4, 2013

I went to check out an auction this morning, but didn't stay. There wasn't a lot to keep me there, and the weather was miserable. I came home and spent the day cleaning Model T bolts for painting. After a day of wire brushing bolts in a 45º barn, I was glad to go to town and have some hot & sour soup at the East Buffet. After dinner I went to see The Big Wedding, an entertaining movie. When I arrived at the theater there was a line out the door, with people waiting to see the new Iron Man movie. I had no desire to see it. I already sat through one of those, and it put me to sleep.

Sunday, 5 de Mayo, 2013

I never expected to be wearing winter overalls and a coat on the fifth of May, but that's how the day began. I worked in the shop preparing bolts for painting, running all of them through a die to chase the threads. In the afternoon I drove over to Oxford for an auction where I paid 50¢ for a Model T rear hub with a 26-27 brake drum on it, and gave a guy 50¢ for the broken Edison cylinder that was in a box of stuff he bought, because its container was in such nice condition. My big plunge of the day was $4 for a pail containing samples of several varieties of antique barbed wire. I still have to look through the rest of the stuff in the pail to find out what other treasures are there.

Monday, May 6, 2013

The morning and most of the afternoon were devoted to more cleaning and painting of nuts and bolts. I took time out in the afternoon for a visit to the dentist to take care of a recurring infection that's flared up enough to bother me recently. This has happened before. A round of Amoxycillin should knock it down for a few months. Meanwhile I have an appointment with a specialist in Wichita. Maybe he can come up with a cure.

Tuesday, May 7, 2013

Another long day. Before six I was on the road to Tulsa for another round of work on my roadster engine and transmission in Mike Bender's shop. We installed the pistons, the timing gear cover, and the oil pan to finish up the engine work, and installed the hogshead ( cover) to finish up the transmission, and I brought the finished work home. I arrived home at eight. The next stage on the project will be painting and installation in the car, which will probably take a week or two. I can't work on it full time because I have so many other things to do.

Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Rain started the day. Not heavy, but enough to soak the ground again. It's nice to have normal moisture again after the bad drought of the past couple of years. By noon the sun was out and a nice south wind was drying things out. My main chore of the day was building some stout wooden shelves to get a lot of parts off the floor of my shop. I did take an hour off to remove the wheels from my Woods mower and go to town to order new bearings for them. They'll be getting a workout soon, as there's a lot of mowing to do.

Thursday, May 9, 2013

The day began with another wet morning. The wee hours brought a soaking rain that made big puddles in the driveway. The rule that everything takes longer than you think it will remains in full force. I spent almost all day working on the Woods mower's casters. I had to take one of them to town and get a new tire on it, then I made new axles from 5/8" bolts, drilled passages in them and installed grease fittings, and started reassembly. At that point I discovered that one caster was rubbing against the mower deck because of a bent shaft, so I had to take the time to heat that red and straighten it. By the time I had both casters installed and greased, it was four in the afternoon. I spent that last hour making more shelves in the shop. I may get more done on that tomorrow, but there's a lot of mowing to do first, and a couple of trees to plant.

Friday, May 10, 2013

Nice weather allowed a day outdoors. I spent a couple of hours boxing all the sawed up scrap lumber on the front porch and put the boxes in the garage for next winter's heat. I swept the porch, then went to work in the yard. I pulled weeds around the front and sides of the house, and trimmed some low-hanging branches. I got a lot done, and about four I brought out the Dixon and spent the last hour mowing. There's a lot more mowing to do, and still a couple of trees to plant. I should get some of that work done tomorrow.

Saturday, May 11, 2013

In a busy day of yard work, I pulled a lot of weeds, cut off a lot of little trees and poisoned the stumps, did some mowing, and planted three new trees. Tomorrow I'll mow some more.

Sunday, May 12, 2013

Except for my morning three miles, I never went off the place today. I pulled weeds, mowed, and transplanted. The mowing included a wreck, when I ran over a fire hydrant with the Woods mower and broke off a shaft. So tomorrow I have to shop for parts. The transplanting involved redbuds. I dug up small ones that were in poor locations and planted them down along the lane where eventually they'll make a nice early April display. Along with all the other things I have to do, I need to fix my truck so I can use it to haul yard scraps and firewood. There's a lot of trimming that needs to be done.

Monday, May 13, 2013

Two showers today. The first was after my morning three mile run. After that and breakfast, I spent an hour or so taking apart a front spring for my roadster. It was slow going because of bolts being rusted solid. Once I had the spring apart I spent the rest of the day sandblasting. I got five of the seven leaves mostly done, with a couple of spots left to clean up on two of them. On an afternoon with a high above 80º, it got to be rather sweaty work. Tomorrow I want to get started in the cool of the morning. I need to finish the spring, then do the front axle, a tie rod, a pitman arm, and some other parts. This kind of work is slow going, so I'll finish as much as I can, then do more later.

Tuesday, May 14, 2013

An earlier start was the way to go. I thought I'd be at work by seven, but I had to fix my sandblasting hood with a new window and new tape. I got the equipment set up and started blasting at 7:30. I finished all seven spring leaves and the clips by about 10:30, and that was enough for today. I quit when sweat in my hood made it hard to see what I was doing. Other chores of the day included priming most of the spring leaves. One of them needed a lot of grinding before it's ready for paint. This spring, being for a 1915 car, has tapered leaves with round ends. It came with the top two leaves missing, so I'm using the top two from a later spring. The first will be hidden inside the frame, but the ends of the second will show a little, so I'm grinding them round and tapered. It takes a lot of grinding, and will take more than one session because I need to do it before the barn gets too hot inside. There's plenty else to do. This afternoon that including cleaning the ashes out of the fireplace and the kitchen stove for the last time until next fall. I even put some kindling in the stove to start that first fire of the fall.

Wednesday, May 15, 2013

Not much work today. I finished grinding that second leaf to taper the ends, then sanded all the primed leaves and gave them another coat of primer. I watered some of the little trees I've planted recently, and received a call letting me know that my new mower spindle had arrived at the Woods dealer. So the rest of my day was driving all the way to Cheney to get the spindle, and then to the computer store in Wichita to get some help with reducing images without reducing quality.

Thursday, May 16, 2013

Today came in two parts. Part One was installing the new mower spindle, sharpening blades, and installing a new blade. I finished all that about 2:30. Part Two was mowing. I did that until five, and made a pretty good dent in what needs to be done. Tomorrow I hope I can finish the mowing and get back to my roadster.

Friday, May 17, 2013

No rain, but lots of fog made for a soggy morning. While waiting for the fog to burn off and for the grass to dry a bit, I got back to making shelves. I finished some of them, and used them to get some clutter off the floor of my shop. I also posted pictures of some of the clutter on the Model T forum and found out that I have some V-8 parts I can sell. By noon the sky had cleared and grass had dried out and I went to mowing. That was going fine until the Dixon mower broke a sprocket. That put a stop to some of the mowing, but I still had the tractor with the Woods mower, so I used that to mow the lane down to the wood lot and the road through the woods. I finished the day sanding and painting spring leaves. I got the top sides all done. After they have a couple of days to dry, I'll paint the bottom sides.

Saturday, May 18, 2013

I spent the whole day working on my engine stand. When it's holding just an engine, the pivot is at the center of gravity and the engine rotates easily. When there's a transmission attached, rotation is hard because of one end being bottom heavy. So I want to make an adapter that's adjustable for working on the engine with and without transmission.

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Again, I spent the day working on the engine stand. I made good progress, and should finish it up tomorrow. When that's done I'll get the rebuilt engine out of the Suburban, put it on the stand, mask it, and paint it. I want to get that painting done so it can be drying while I work on other things.

Monday, May 20, 2013

This morning I finished up that engine stand adapter. Now it's adjustable to put the pivot between cylinders #2 and #3 for an engine or block without transmission, and at #4 for an engine with transmission. The stand is much improved, but there are a couple more changes I want to make to improve it even more. The brace against the upright keeps the engine from rotating completely upside down, as I want it to do, so I need to change that. I have a dental date in the morning, but I hope I can finish the stand in the afternoon. I hope to get more parts painted, too. Today I finished painting spring leaves, so after a few days' drying time I may get the spring asssembled and installed this week.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

Today I was off to Wichita for a dental exam. It seems I have a chronic infection that flares up every few months, so a specialist took a look this morning. He's going to open up a previous root canal and check it out, which means I'll be dropping a pile of dough. While I was in Wichita I picked up some parts for my defunct Dixon mower, and bought a rose of sharon for the yard. When I got home I went to work on that engine stand again. But the pipe scraps I intended to use are just too heavy. Tomorrow I'll see if I can find some lighter weight scrap to do the job.

Wednesday, May 22, 2013

This morning I was off to Winfield for a hunt through the scrap yard. I found a couple of good pipe scraps and paid $10.73 for them. I brought them home and spent the rest of the day using them to make changes to the engine stand. In fact, this evening instead of sogging down in front of the TV and falling asleep I went back out to the shop and finished the thing up enough to use it. There are a couple more things I want to do to it, but they can wait. As long as I can rotate the engine 360º, that's good enough for now. I can have the engine upside down to paint the bottom, then turn it over to paint the top. I want to get the engine painted so it can be drying while I work on other things.

Thursday, Masy 23, 2013

If anybody had told me that in the last week of May I'd be wearing a coat and still have blankets on my bed, I'd have doubted it seriously. But that's where we are. I spent the first part of the morning masking my engine and transmission for painting. I was planning to roll it outside to avoid overspray in the shop, but by noon the outside temperature was still in the fifties. The minumum temperature for painting is supposed to be 60º, so I went on to other things while I waited for the day to warm up. My job for the rest of the day was housekeeping, after a trip to town. I went to pick up some bolts I had ordered at the Fastenal store. I ordered them last week. When I went to get them Monday, they were the wrong ones. So the manager placed the order again. When I went to get them today, guess what. Yep, they sent the same wrong ones again. It's a good thing I'm not in a hurry to have them. When I got home I finished filing all my receipts for the last three months, then spent the rest of the afternoon sorting and tossing the mess on my desk. I never got to that painting, and the day never warmed up. I wore a coat all day.

Friday, May 24, 2013

The day began with a trip to the hospital for an appointment with the urologist. Recent tests showed a slightly elevated PSA level, so he was to check it out. The odds are strongly against cancer, but more tests are scheduled to check it out and be sure. My medical session took less than an hour, so I had time to get some work done today. The first of it was painting the bottom of my roadster's engine/transmission. The weather warmed up enough for me to roll the thing outside for the job. With that done, I could go on to other projects and leave the paint to dry. The main project of the day was house cleaning. The specific parts of it were some vacuuming in the living room and changing windows from winter to summer mode. I took down the storm windows from the front and back doors and installed the screens, then did the same to one of the living room windows. I only got one done because I took the time to actually clean the glass and wash out the screen with a hose. More tomorrow and Sunday.

Saturday, May 25, 2013

I do windows. Boy, do I do windows! I finished taking down storm windows and putting up screens. But I also took the time to wash the glass in all the living room, kitchen, and bathroom windows. What makes that a big job is the four louvered windows in the living room. Each one has thirteen louvers, which means I washed the inside and outside of 52 louvers. Add to those the inside and outside of ten other windows, and that's over half the day. The rest of the day was other house cleaning, and there's more to do tomorrow.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

House cleaning continued. Swept and mopped the bathroom and kitchen and cleared clutter. More tomorrow, but I can't spend all day on it. I need to mow.

Monday, May 27, 2013

Except for my morning three miles, I never went off the place today. I was having so much fun vacuuming the living room that I lost track of time and didn't get outside until after one. It took me over an hour to install the new sprocket and pulley on the riding mower. Finding dropped parts and hunting up the right tools can turn a few minutes into an hour. I spent the rest of the day mowing, but had to quit about four thirty to put chargers on the riding mower and the mowing tractor, as both batteries were low. But the most exciting part of the day was when the Dixon ran into a wad of barbed wire some genius has tossed in the ditch where I was mowing. That stops your progress right away. But tomorrow is another day, and I predict it will include both house cleaning and mowing.

Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Housework moved down the list today. I spent the morning masking and painting my engine so it can be drying and curing while I do other things. I finished that about one and spent the rest of the day mowing. I made a big dent in that, and may be able to finish it tomorrow.

Wednesday, May 29, 2013

I'm not delighted with that engine paint job. The paint is labeled satin finish, but it's really glossy. That's especially apparent when you compare it to the head, which I painted last year. I'll give it another day to dry, then I'll kill that gloss with a coat of flat black.

Thursday, May 30, 2013

I'd rather have a satin finish, but the flat black is better for an engine than glossy. I like glossy on smooth parts like body panels, but it's all wrong for an engine.

Friday, May 31, 2013

This morning I used the flat black paint on the bottom side of the engine, then I moved on to the day's main project, assembling the front spring. Instead of using grease or graphite paint between the leaves, I used UHMD tape. I didn't find any tape exactly the same width as the leaves, so I had to do some cutting and fitting. Next I need to make the rubber pad that goes on top of the spring.