Senile Texas Aggie - comic relief for the rest of you

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Today we spread rock in the driveway...

While Miss @Baymule posted the above on Miss @B&B Happy goats' journal, it did make me think to ask you folks for advice for graveling our driveway. We are getting ruts in the sloping parts of the driveway, while the flatter parts seem to be holding up fairly well. What kind of surfacing material do you folks recommend for slopes on driveways?

 

[B&B Happy goats]

Everybody has opinions, but when buying and flipping homes i found that "local" stone or recycled concrete worked well...but have also used shell, granite , and crushed stone.....check out what is available and cost effective then make your choice...

 

[Baymule]

We had a low stretch of our driveway done, built up with red clay, then topped with crushed concrete. I had him make a dip in it and cut a run off shallow ditch with the bulldozer blade to drain rain away from the driveway.

My grandpa taught me, on a slope, make a low swale with a cut at an angle for 20-30 feet to drain water away.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

All,

I will post in the next post what has been going on, but I want to ask a question I hope someone will know the answer to: is there a particular spline on the male PTO shaft that must be aligned with a particular spline on the female yoke on an implement (in this case, a mower)? This morning I tried hooking up the mower's PTO female end to the tractor's male end and was having a really hard time. I worked for 30 minutes or so. Finally I decided to rotate the mower's PTO shaft a bit to try a different set of splines on the mower to the splines on the tractor. This time the mower's female end went right on with no problem. I plan on marking the tractor's male end with the mower's female end so that I won't have so much trouble.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

All,

Now as to what we have been up to the past week or so.

Friday of last week we went to NE Texas (DeKalb) to have a going-away dinner for my wife's next older sister Treasa and her husband James. They were getting ready to head out west, eventually going to the SF area to visit some of James' relatives. They were not sure whether they were going in their RV or driving in their car. The next day (Saturday), my Beautiful Gal and I visited with my mom, my uncle (my mom's younger brother), and my older sister. We returned home later that day.

On Sunday I decided that I would gather up all of the brush piled up in the pasture and drag it behind our shop so that I could chip it with the wood chipper. I managed to get 2 grapple loads moved. When I tried to get the 3rd one, just as I drove into the brush pile, the forward/reverse gear shift became completely detached from the transmission! I had to walk the 1/4 mile from the pile to the shop, get the Gator and toolbox, then drive back down to the tractor. I took apart the tractor housing where the gear shift lever was. I could not find the bolt that had come completely lose from the shift lever. When I had about given up and decided to go back to the shop to try to find a bolt that would fit, I heard the bolt fall, hit the tractor, and land in the grass. I found it and reinstalled the gear shift lever and reinstalled the housing. All of that took about an hour. Then I got busy dragging the brush to behind the barn. It took almost all day to do that, as I had 4 large piles, each about a 1/4 mile from the place behind the shop. Because I can drag a lot more brush than I can lift with the grapple, I usually drag the brush backward. But that means I have to turn and look behind the tractor. Doing that for a 1/4 mile for each pile I can get means my neck started to hurt after awhile. It took me most of the rest of the day to drag the 4 big brush piles to behind the shop. By that time, I had a crick in my neck!

On Monday, my Beautiful Gal and I decided to take the day off. Her favorite tool, the battery powered pole saw, was out of commission. Treasa and James decided to drive their car out west, and so decided to park their RV at our house while they traveled. They had planned to leave early Tuesday morning, but when James looked under the front left, he noticed grease on the brake lines. Since they had gotten the car brand new only a few months ago, they decided to take it to the Toyota dealership in Fort Smith Tuesday morning. So we did that. The dealer said that the CV joint boot needed replacing and that they would need to order the part. Treasa and James finally left on their trip Friday morning.

On Friday after they left, I decided to get a new pole saw at Lowes, as I had purchased a 2 year replacement warranty when I bought it. So I drove to Lowe's in Van Buren (Fort Smith Lowe's didn't have any) and got the old one replaced and bought a second one to use should the first one break. On the way back, I stopped at Magazine Tire and Auto center and bought 6 new tires for the truck (I have a dually). These were the tires that came on the truck when I bought it new back in August 2017. They had ~34,000 miles on them, and one of the tires was down to 3/32 tread depth.

Today, with a new pole saw, we went and worked along the eastern edge of the east pasture. We quit around 11:30. Once we finished lunch, I decided that I would mow with the tractor along the driveway and around some trees next to the driveway. Once I finished that I planned to mow the overgrown south pastures. As I was about to finish the last tree next to the driveway, the shear bolt on the mower broke. I was unable to locate any more shear bolts in the shop. So I will need to get some tomorrow.

So that is what has been going on here at STA Farms.

Senile Texas Aggie

 

[greybeard]

In regards to the spline question. I am unaware of any tractor pto spline set up, regardless of PTO shaft size category or make of tractor or implement having an indexing spline. Doing so would greatly limit the aftermarket implements any given brand tractor could use.

However.. IF the mower (or any other pto driven implement) is used for extended periods of time without occasionally being interchanged with another implement and it's shaft, the internal splines will wear a bit to make their own 'comfort zone' of fit for the implement being used. With brush hogs/mowers, the splines and ujoints take a real beating. Generally, the pto shaft's external splines are hardened steel and don't suffer from this. Implement's internal splines tho are in a softer hub (part of the ujoint) which is often cast iron, and they wear easier.
Built up dirt and grease inside the internal splines can cause this too.

 

[Baymule]

I like reading about your tractor adventures. I must congratulate you on your ability to troubleshoot and fix problems in the field. You aren’t so senile. LOL

 

[CntryBoy777]

Ya know STA...if ya bungee or ratchet strap ya a bicycle onto the tractor....ya wouldn't have to walk back to the house....it would be great if it was downhill.....

 

[greybeard]

Tractors used to come with a toolbox on them and the ones I had that didn't, I made a box for them and bolted it to the fender..sometimes one on each fender. Hitch pins, shear bolts, basic tools, a few common bolts & nuts.

I haven't seen a new one come with a usable tool box in some time.

 

[CntryBoy777]

I always "pictured" ya as a 2 holster man @greybeard ....