Seeing Red?

The neighbors love me.  


I finally got to paint something red!  Two hours, five or six coats and a blister on my trigger finger...now I can start to put it back together...actually I hope I remember how!  I still need to paint the fenders and hood, don't know when I'll get to them.  


Let me say one thing; the pine trees are getting trimmed up pretty far...this thing better not get scratched!
 

I guess that's why they call me the workin' man...

So there is no restoration progress to report...got an issue I'm trying to work out with my Cub which is taking up all my time that I don't spend loading and delivering kitchen cabinets...we all knew I'd have to get back to work eventually.  The weather has been less than cooperative lately as well.  


last weekend I went to the Oley Fair with a friend who asked me what my favorite farm tractor was (as I was oggling over several antiques on display).  I told him that I don't really have a single favorite, but I might be able to come up with a top five or ten (subject to change of course!). 


Anyway, I think I'll share my top five, in no particular order...

Case 530, built from 1960-1969, around 40HP, 3600 pounds, no frills.  My uncle has one of these with a wide front that I "learned to drive on."  

Massey Ferguson 1150, built in the early 1970's, 140HP 500ish cubic inch Perkins diesel V8, 13000 pounds or more.  I'm partial to this style of Ferguson, 1100's, 180's, 175's, etc., were popular models in the area I grew up in, and I like V8s...

 John Deere 820 Diesel, built from 1956-58, 70HP two cylinder diesel with gasoline pony engine, 7850 pounds.  I'm usually not a Deere fan, but I like the yellow accent paint, clamshell fenders and 470 cubic inch two cylinder diesel...so big and cranky they used a small gas engine to start it! 

If I have to pick a brand, it's going to be International Harvester.  This is a Farmall Super MD-TA.  Built from 1952-54, it's around 6000 pounds, about 42HP.  This tractor starts on gasoline and runs on diesel.  The reasoning is the same as for the big Deere.  Diesel engines, with their high compression were difficult for a 6 volt starter to turn over in cold weather; even so, old diesels could be finicky to start cold.  Gasoline engines run with much lower compression and with spark ignition, so cold is not an issue.  The MD actually has a decompression valve, spark plugs and a carburetor as well as a diesel fuel system to get it started.  Also, TA stands for Torque Amplifier, which is used to make a fast down shift when the going gets tough.  

 If you can't tell by now that I like Farmalls and V8s, you have not been paying attention.  Here is an International 1568 with 548 cubic inch V8 diesel, around 130HP, weighs in at about 13000 pounds.  The ubiquitous late 70's International styling with V8 power...wow...

I might have gone a little off the deep end for you folks that are not so easily amused, but I don't have much else to talk about and I still wanted to write something.  By the way, these are not my pictures, I got them from various websites produced by a Google search.   

I'm headed for Winchester, VA for the Tri State Antique truck show this weekend...stay tuned for some pictures!

Gardening

Last year I decided I was going to plant a garden.  My neighbor tilled up a patch next to my shed, and I planted the standards; peppers, tomatoes and beans.  It ended up looking like this...

I think the beans were not planted yet, I put them in later in the summer.  The tomatoes went nuts and got a lot taller.  I thought I had another picture, but this is the best I can do for last year...

My neighbor Dan helped me a lot, learning how to take care of plants, when/how to plant things and lending me his tiller.  Unfortunately, we both live in a development, and though we have decently sized yards, we weren't quite satisfied with the limited space we had for gardening.  So this year, he and I got acquainted with a farmer who had recently bought a property at auction, thus our "other garden."  

We've been growing sweet corn, beans, red beets and cucumbers. 

Just planted three rows of cauliflower and broccoli, and there is now a row of late beans to the left of the cukes.  
 

It's amazing to me that I can cover seeds with dirt, wait a while, and get food.  It takes a little sweat sometimes, but it's easy to see that you get what you put in.  It's also wise to understand where your food comes from.  A lot of folks get upset at paying a certain amount per pound, or per gallon.  I'd like to know if those people are devoted enough to what they're doing with their time to appreciate the things they buy, or do you just collect a paycheck?

Well anyway, I picked about 700 cucumbers last week, and I HATE THEM.  But I love pickles..so here's what I did.  

  I had never canned a thing in my life up until this afternoon, so I enlisted my neighbor Terri's experience. 

 First, you get some jars, and put in pretty much anything you want.  I looked up a recipe for hot garlic pickles and adapted it to what I had laying around.  My recipe also included instructions for the brine (pickle juice), which consisted of vinegar, water and pickling salt.  I'm going for a SOUR and SPICY flavor. 

Once you have all your spices, veggies, cukes or whatever in jars with brine and lids on, you put them on this rack, drop them in the canner and boil them for 15 minutes. 

 

 After they've boiled long enough, you take them out and let them cool.  I neglected to mention earlier that YOU MUST leave about and inch of "headspace" when filling the jars with brine, or they won't seal at this point.  As the jar cools, the contents get slightly smaller, creating a vaccum and sealing the jar.  

I actually ran out of cukes, so I grabbed some chilis and jalepenos to finish filling my jars. 

Try canning.  It's a trip.  Nice weather is in the forecast all week, so watch for some Wheel Horse progress.  

At it again

I've been too busy, but made some progress on my tractor last week.  The weather finally got a little cooler, cool enough to make it bearable for me to finish sanding the body filler, and prime everything again.  Now it's on to wet sanding, then red paint.  Unfortunately, there are no pictures; not only would they look exactly the same as the last set since it's only primer, but I managed to break yet another camera.  I'll remedy that when it gets interesting again.  

I'm not feeling very chatty, so I'll show you some pictures with captions.  

 Corn and beans my neighbor and I grew.  Pic was taken a few weeks ago.  

 Car full of beans.  
 

 Corn, late beans and cucumbers (foreground).  They're much bigger now.  

 Ironic?

 39 years apart.  

My latest acquisition...a White rider.  In this picture I'm putting the transmission back in.  The brakes were stuck, but I couldn't tell that while it wasn't torn apart in 7000 pieces.  The rear wheels wouldn't turn while I was unloading it, so I figured I fowled something up while pushing it into the truck.  I fiddled with it for a while and it ended with half the thing apart on my garage floor in perfect working condition... 

"We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions." 

- Ronald Reagan

Another week rolls by and still no Wheel Horse progress, but there are several other things you ought to hear about...

Remember those free mowers?  One was pretty rusty, and I had another with a questionable motor, so I tore them both apart, pieced them together and came up with one good one.  

I've also been at the Lebanon Area Fair a few nights this week, saw some truck and tractor pulls...a favorite pastime of mine.  

I spent some time today with a few good friends, working on trucks, looking at pictures and fiddling with...

...another garden tractor?!?!?!?  
 

As Sarah put it, my tractor collection will soon be as big as her shoe collection.  To that I reply..."gotta keep up."  

This one won't get "the works" like the Horse is getting...I just need something to ride while the other one is in pieces.  Hopefully this will keep me busy enough until I can move onto something bigger...

So I'm sorry there's not much progress to report, and I am saving my chats on machinery ideology for a rainier day when there really is nothing to report, so hang with me...it can only get a little less interesting.  

It's surprising how busy you can be with no job.

I have made zero progress on my tractor since the other week.  There's been things here and there keeping me from it that add up to two weeks of no work getting done.  I spent three days at Boy Scout camp with my old troop.  I like to stay active as much as I can with the Scouts.  I learned a lot there, and want to make sure others have that chance.  Also, my brother's Eagle Scout ceremony was on Sunday, my cousins from Arizona have been spending the week here, I'm watching/dogsitting two houses, spent a day farming with a friend, had two job interviews, picked up four free mowers to clean up/fix then sell, took some friends to Philadelphia to catch a plane, and I'm not done yet.  Who knows when I'll get back on it.  

I understand why retired people say they have no time.  

I think by next week things should settle down somewhat, though the fair will be taking place, and I already have some daytime plans.  Hopefully I will get around to doing something.  

There are a few subjects in this one for me to talk about in more detail, so maybe you'll get one of them later.   

 

Getting up to speed

I guess now is a good time to bring you up to date on one of my projects. Actually, this one is shaping up to come out pretty nice when it's finished.  

That's my 1968 Wheel Horse Raider 9 the day I bought it back in May.  

Might have overdid it a little on the trailer, eh?  I seriously need to get a pickup again.  I could have practically driven it home from where it was, and I ended up with this?  That's another blog though.  

Looks right at home in my "office."

The fun begins.  

Stripped and painted a few small parts to see what it would look like, and got completely out of hand from there...

I think that was the day I got sprayed in the eyes with stale gas...try getting across the yard to the garden hose with gas in your eyes...

Something wrong here?

Everything got sandblasted.  

$50 air compressor + blue tarp wind blocker + parts hanging in trees = redneck paint booth.

Everything is in primer, and that's about as far as I've gotten.  I put body filler on some spots, am not done sanding yet.  What a huge mess that makes...

The next step(s) is/are to finish sanding the filler, put on another coat of primer, wet sand and paint it red.  Then we put together the frame/transmission assembly and put the wheels back on so I can bolt on the motor and work on it while I'm waiting for the red paint to cure so I can wet sand and buff it then clear coat...wow, getting ahead of myself.  I'm going to be way busier the next two weeks than I'd like to be, so I'm kind of up against a wall for now. 

I had hoped to do some mowing with it this year but the deck needs work too, so I think I'll save that for a winter project.  It will however, plow some snow this winter.  

If I don't make any progress this week, and I most likely will not, I'll talk about why I went all in on this project and not some of the others I had in mind, and why I will never restore a Corvette.