Senile Texas Aggie - comic relief for the rest of you

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

My wife and I met a week before her 14th birthday, a few months before my 19th birthday. She, her next older sister, and their two cousins were walking down the street in front of my house while I was washing my car. I gave them all a wolf whistle. Not surprisingly, she was underwhelmed. I met her and her next older sister a couple of weeks later. We started talking and I started visiting her house. I got to be good friends with their next older brother, so me and my cousin started running around with her brother and his cousin (an older brother of the 2 cousins they were walking with). Whenever I visited their house I would tease her about something or other. But we went from a tolerated friendship to a genuine friendship to a mutual love. We were married just a couple of weeks before the 4th anniversary of our first having met.

 

[RollingAcres]

That's a sweet story.

I gave them all a wolf whistle

 

[Latestarter]

Gosh STA... I think most of us have reinstalled a chain backwards at least once. Part and parcel of the lifestyle we've chosen. Although I have to observe, I'd think you'd have noticed the discrepancy when starting the sharpening vice finishing. Needless, you DID notice and I assume corrected the situation promptly. Then I trust you resharpened said blade in the proper direction/orientation Sorry to hear about the back issue... Many here can identify with that as well. Hope it's just a muscle strain and it relaxes soon for you.

ETA: you cradle robber you! Glad you found your one and only early on.

 

[Bruce]

Hmmm, calculating, calculating, calculating. Result! You've been married a long time!
I bet if you can remember her birthday you don't likely forget your anniversary since they are only a few weeks apart.

How long until the grapple is fixed? Nice work on the Gator and the lighting, I'm sure you will like the LEDs better than the MV lights, and the electricity savings as well. OK, not so much nice work on the pole saw chain but ASSUMING you were sharpening the teeth matching the existing angle of each, no harm, no foul. Be glad you figured it out before you tried to use the saw with the bottom of the teeth not engaging the sprocket. Congratulations on your award though!

 

[Ridgetop]

Congratulations on becoming a Super BYHer what with the fixing the lights and the Gator. Then you posted your tale of the chain . . . .

So familiar . . . .

 

[greybeard]

Be glad you figured it out before you tried to use the saw with the bottom of the teeth not engaging the sprocket. Congratulations on your award though!

On Stihl (and most other) saws, the drive sprocket teeth and the bar nose sprocket teeth will engage the chain just fine whether the chain is installed correctly or backwards.

Look at where the sprocket teeth actually engage the chain--way up in there near the root of the bar followers.

(you don't run a Stihl chain like those old 1950s McCuloughs or Poulan, with 1/4"+ of chain slop hanging down off the bottom of the bar.)
Like fences and filters, .................... if it ain't tight, it ain't right.

And, if you've never had one do it, lots of chainsaws (and other 2 cycl engines) will start and run backwards under certain circumstances...like a half hearted pull of the start rope.

 

[Bruce]

And, if you've never had one do it, lots of chainsaws (and other 2 cycl engines) will start and run backwards under certain circumstances...like a half hearted pull of the start rope.

 

[Senile_Texas_Aggie]

Hello, everyone,

Sorry that I have been slow to post any news, so now I will try to catch up on everything.

Monday the tractor dealer called around noon and said the cylinder for the grapple was ready. I drove over to Alma (about 2 hours round trip) to get the cylinder. Once I got back home, I hoisted the grapple out of my truck using the FEL and a chain and managed to bend the railing on my cargo cover, now making it hard to close (doh!). Once I got the grapple out, I installed the cylinder on the grapple and then tested it out. It worked fine. Yay!

On Tuesday, with the grapple no longer in the bed of the truck, we now had room for the tile that was waiting at Lowe's to be picked up, which we had ordered a couple of weeks ago. So we drove back to Fort Smith (across the Arkansas River from Alma) and picked up the tile. While there, my wife saw a propane gas stove on sale, so we decided to buy it to replace the electric stove we currently have. But there was not enough room in the bed of the truck for both the tile and the stove. So after returning home, I removed the grapple from the tractor (improperly -- more on this later) and installed the forks, offloading the tile onto the porch. I then drove back to Lowe's and picked up the stove, offloading it also with the forks and setting the stove on the porch, too.

On Wednesday, I decided to install the grapple and the box blade, as the driveway had several potholes and gullies washing in it, especially on the hill from the creek to the gate. So after removing the forks, I installed the grapple, but was unable to install the hydraulic lines. I could not get the male end hydraulic line from the grapple to go into the female end of the line on the tractor. I worked on the problem for 2 hours, using wrenches, clamps, hammers, crow bars -- nothing would work. So I looked at YouTube for some ideas -- still nothing. I finally called the service department at the dealer, who told me to try something to see if it was the problem. It was. The problem turned out to be pressure in the hydraulic line of the grapple that was preventing the poppet from sliding into the male connector and thus preventing the connectors from mating(*). To relieve the pressure, I had to loosen the hydraulic line at the T connector in the grapple to let the hydraulic fluid leak out and relieve the pressure. Once that happened, I was able to connect the two lines. To prevent the problem in the future, whenever I stop the tractor, I need to wait until the engine stops and then turn the key back on and then try to open and close the grapple jaws. That will relieve the pressure in the grapple lines.

Once I solved the grapple problem and installed the box blades, I then worked on the driveway and the parking area. Initially I set the scarifiers as deep as they would go and tilted the right end of the box blade lower, thus digging more towards the shoulder of the driveway instead of the middle. I made a pass along the driveway from the house to the gate, then from the gate back to the house. Then I leveled the box blade and went down the middle of the driveway from the house to the gate. Before getting to the gate, I happened to see a retainer clip on the driveway. I stopped, then looked behind to see if there was a missing clip from the boxblade. There was, missing from the top link connector pin. I immediately raised the boxblade on the 3-point and went back to the shop. Then I took this picture:

You may not can see it clearly, but the pin holding the boxblade to the toplink was almost out of the swivel ball of the toplink. But the swivel ball had rotated and jammed the swivel ball against the side opposite the pin, and was also pinching the pin. I could not remove the pin. I tried pliers, hammers, crow bars -- nothing worked. I decided to hook a heavy duty chain to the pin handle and the other end to the Gator's tow bar and give it a good yank. It still did not come out, but one thing it did do was jam the chain hook onto the Gator's tow bar:

Good grief! I had to remove the chain from the hook and beat on the hook for about 10 minutes before I could remove the hook from the Gator's bumper! Now back to the pin on the tractor. This time, the crowbar was able to move the toplink enough that I could remove the pin! The pin was bent too much to use again, so I decided to wait till tomorrow to continue.

On Thursday, after getting a new pin from the hardware store, I was able to get started earlier and I worked most of the day. Once I finished, I had mixed feelings about the results. The driveway turned out not to shabby -- the gullies and potholes are gone, but I dug up a good amount of dirt with the gravel. I am hoping that the rains will help wash the dirt back down into the driveway, leaving the gravel. The parking area, though, is a mess. I am unable to smooth out the ruts that the scarifiers made without also moving a lot of the gravel to one side or the other of the parking area, which is not a good thing to do. So I am at a loss at the moment. Any ideas from you folks? Is there a YouTube video, Boxblading 101, that's worth a crap?

Senile Texas Aggie

(*) Miss @Baymule, I look forward to your comments about hydraulic lines mating!

 

[Latestarter]

Damn STA... if it's not one thing it's another. You have to be at the laughter point by now... crying just won't help... Sorry for the truck damage, pin damage, hydraulic fluid loss, gator damage, and any other damage...

As for the parking area, can you put the FEL back on, tilt it down, just past level/horizontal (on the bucket), and then apply downward pressure on it to remove most weight from the front tires, then back the blade across the area to "scrape" it smooth?

 

[CntryBoy777]

Dang @Latestarter with his luck he'd rip the FEL right off the hinges..........don't worry STA, I seem to have the same problem as ya....I just don't have a tractor....