Cool McCool's Garage

Yes, I’m still working on the plow I bought last winter for the Dually.  You’d think a 30-year-old plow, bought from a metal recycling company, would be in tip-top shape, but it has needed, well, everything. 

I ordered a new pump base, as the original turned out to have frozen and cracked, from water getting in the hydraulic fluid.  Probably it got in the missing vent on top of the pump reservoir, which was missing when I got it.  Who knew it wasn’t supposed to have a 5/16 bolt just dropped in the hole?

Anyway, the pump base was easy to change, and I had O-rings left over from the rebuild kit (I ALWAYS seem to have parts left over…) from the first “rebuild”, so it’s all set.  The right-left toggle switch, which had quit working, turned out to just have had the right-swing wire off the contact, easy fix. 

Today’s project was to go to my favorite place to shop, ALRO steel, and get an 8′ long, 8″ wide drop of  14 ga. (?) sheet stock to replace the rusted out top of the blade.  That went pretty well, although I should have gotten some more chunks to patch the other rusted areas.  Seems that crap accumulates between the skin and the angle iron frame sections, and the thin sheet metal rusts out.  So, Saturday morning I’ll get some more, cut out the rusty spots, and weld in some more patches.  It’ll look like one of Kim’s quilts!  One could argue it would have been better to simply replace the entire blade skin, but this will be fine for what I’m going to do with it.

I also got the trucks ORIGINAL vintage 1976 mud and snow tires on the rear, which still have deep tread, although they’re weather checked.  The chains I bought are not the correct size for the Michelon 225x75R16’s on the truck, so they’re stashed away in the shop.  The concrete filled tire is in the box, there’s half a ton of tube sand to load in, so when snow flies, I’ll be ready!

In other news, we’ve replaced the beautiful little cast iron and marble tile, direct vent gas stove in the family room with a pellet stove.  It’s a Harmon Iron “Accentra” model, the same as we have in the living room of the house.  With these, we’re no longer slaves to our local LP gas supplier, “Ferrell Gas”, which saw fit to charge us almost $4.00 per gallon for propane last winter because they said we didn’t use enough gas to qualify for the going rate of $2.59 like all our neighbors.  Pellets are $175/ton, we have a ton tucked away in the garage, and hope to be able to heat the house all winter with 2 1/2 tons, give or take.  The new stove will pay for itself in two years, or less.  Still have to paint the wall behind the stove, as I had to move the exhaust vent and patch the hole, but that will get done this weekend.

Next project, the Diamond T gets wrapped up, the Tini-Home gets new polished aluminum siding to replace the wrinkly fiberglass “Filon”, and the T’Bird will finally get some lov’in!  Stay tuned for all the action!