Just some work pics

[Hank R]

Crane Operator I am missing my daily fix of work pictures.... summer vacation must be over soon...

 

[crane operator]

Sorry Hank R.

Been a busy week here. My youngest daughter just started her freshman year of high school, and my oldest is now a freshman at missouri university in columbia. The oldest just also turned 18 last week, and on her birthday she got a great present- new front brake shoes for the f-150. I did the first one, and she did the other side. What a way to spend her birthday.

We took her to school tuesday, was kind of hard to drive off and leave her there, but its all part of getting older I guess...

My boy, is a junior in high school this year, and he's sporting a new set of wheels. I bought his sisters truck, fuel, and maintence and insurance, if the grades in school are good. His aren't, and its been a ongoing battle, but the result is that he had to buy his own vehicle, and everything. He's been mowing yards since he was 10, and isn't short of money. He's kind of upset that I'm making him pay for it all, but the rules were set down early, so that's his deal.

He found a 1997 camaro, ($2,200) and is in love with his new car. I'm kind of proud of him taking it all on by himself too. It didn't have the best week, second day of school my wife got the call, broke down with him and his sister in it, so dad to the rescue.

I got there and just a little antifreeze visible in the bottom of the radiator. I'm thinking head gasket, my boy is seeing his dwindling savings account.

I think we may have dodged a bullet.

Plastic line between aluminum water intake and intake manifold/water jacket. Cracked and pumped all the antifreeze out, I hope it didn't get hot enough to crack a head, or take out head gasket. I don't see any antifreeze in the oil, so we may be okay.

New replacement line is aluminum instead of plastic.

 

[crane operator]

Here's a picture of the aluminum pads mounted on my National. You can see how if you have your cribbing set up and the pad is crooked, you can side load/ force the ears off of the old style pads.

The last picture is the newer style, and you can see how the top is made a little different, it supports the ears better.

 

[crane operator]

Been playing around with the mack/national at the shop too, making sure it will pick chart. Also been whittling on the list. Ratchet strap on the hook, headliner and top roof vent. Wipers fixed, lights/turn signals, fuel tank straps (you can see in the picture how bad the drivers side was cobbled together), input seal on the hyd. pump. Upper wiper arm, wiper blade, wiring. Fan in the upper. Rotation indicator on winch. New governor on air compressor, may need to do the head gasket on the air compressor also. Leaks on the hyd. tank., chains on the rigging cabinet door. Just all kinds of little things.

Still need to sort out some better access ladders. Think I'm switching to 315/80 r22.5 steers for turning radius, I put some 24.5 low pro's on it from off my western star(which we switched to 315), just to see how it would turn with narrower tires (a lot better). Sort out the governor on the injector pump. New pins in the front jack. Probably painting the upper now, and lower cab this winter. New fenders/deck, probably later.

Ran the mack across the scale, 16,500 on the front axle (with jib removed). Gross was 48,500.

 

[Tradesman]

Quote
Still need to sort out some better access ladders. Think I'm switching to 315/80 r22.5 steers for turning radius, I put some 24.5 low pro's on it from off my western star(which we switched to 315), just to see how it would turn with narrower tires (a lot better). Sort out the governor on the injector pump. New pins in the front jack. Probably painting the upper now, and lower cab this winter. New fenders/deck, probably later.


I did this to my deck last year it is really nice no ripping your shoulders out climbing up a vertical ladder.

 

[crane operator]

That looks nice tradesman, I may put something in like that when I build the new fenders.

Put the new elbow in the boys camaro this morning. Started fine, but after it burped the air from the block, it started to stumble, then pumping air/exhaust into the radiator. I'm hoping its just a head gasket, but it may have got hot enough to take out a head. I guess I won't know until I tear it apart.

I know this- if it was me buying, I would have bought something with a easier engine compartment to work on, but its only the 3.8 motor, not the 5.7, so that gets you some more room, I bet the 5.7 is a tight fit. I was hoping he'd buy a old jeep cherokee or ford pickup like I got for his sister, but they don't look as good for the girls, and I figured it was his $, so I just gave advice.

 

[Hank R]

Depends on how many miles on the car but I think the bank of Mom and Dad should spring for a rebuild motor and pay back in shop clean up and work it off. After he works on the car he will have more respect for wheels.

 

[crane operator]

Thanks hank. I'm actually glad he bought the car himself, he's had the car for most of the summer, driving himself to his job at steak n shake. He treats it real well, better than if I would have bought a car for him. He knows the value of $.

I will let him decide how far we want to go in fixing, and give him the options and see what he wants to do. He'll be 17 in January, I like him to make his own decisions, in just a few years he will be making them all on his own.

As far as the shop work, he's at that age where dad doesn't know anything- and is hard on him, so, no love of helping dad out around work. I think he actually does better working for other people. He used to be gung ho about shop work, a few years ago, but it isn't "cool" anymore.

He's struggling with the rules, and is mad at his mom and I both. I keep telling my wife its part of being 16, and he will grow out of it. He's a real good kid, its just a struggle at times.

 

[mitch504]

Yeah, when my son was that age, I thought I was going to end up burying him in the woods some dark night, so to keep from inflicting that on the world, but a year or two later,we were close again, and have been for ten years.

 

[Hank R]

Yes I have seen it all over 31 years of driving school, and twin boys 41 now been there. Best of luck with which ever way one goes with this. Sure hope he keeps thinking with his big head and not the small one.

 

[crane operator]

Thanks for the advice guys- I think my son will turn out okay, it just takes time. We did dodge a bullet with the camaro- it had a air pocket stuck in the block after I refilled the antifreeze, I jacked up the front end of the car, and got the air out of the motor, and its running fine.

Speaking of coolant, I called one of the guys looking for antifreeze jugs to fill the radiator on the camaro. "There's one in the back room, I saw the other guy putting fuel in it when he changed fuel filters on the 25 ton".

I should have fired them both- one for using the antifreeze container (he said he "rinsed" it with diesel) with fuel in it to fill the filters, the other one for seeing him do it and letting him. I hope any drops of water settled into the media in the fuel filter, and doesn't blow the tip off a injector.

Had to set in the road where they offloaded a stack of trusses, we threw them up on the hill by the house. Parked the skidloader below the trusses so they wouldn't slide back down the hill when they unbanded them.

 

[crane operator]

Truss job this morning. Kind of a steep curvy driveway, just set the garage trusses. Garage trusses were attic style, and they are putting in two dormers, so they have two big gaps.

 

[crane operator]

Did this little hvac unit this week too. Notice the big open empty parking lot, and it was flat, flat, flat. Of course it wasn't in my town- about a hour 1/4 drive away in the crane to Arkansas. Just main boom and no wood to put out. Set up, unit set, old one down, and tore crane down in 20 minutes.

 

[crane operator]

Set a small tower this week too. At a welding fab shop site, they have crews that travel doing repairs on cell and radio transmit towers. This is going to be their training tower. Just put in jib and main- 113' boom. I figured then if we needed dead stick, we could put it out also. They did have the sections sitting nice and close to the tower base, unfortunately, they were under a tree. We moved them out in the open before we stood them up.

 

[Junkyard]

I have a cell tower on my yard. Those fellers have waaay bigger balls than me to climb up them. I'm waiting for it to fall over. They keep adding crap to it.

 

[crane operator]

I worked with some guys up in Iowa that were tower climbers. They had been up the tv/ radio broadcast towers in Alleman Iowa. They are 2,000 ft tall. I think they are in the top 10 tallest structures in the us. They were built in the 60-70's.

 

[Junkyard]

Oh hell no. Then again, once you're 30-40 feet up it don't matter!

 

[ichudov]

Quite "unusual" ;-)

Got called by a company to provide "professional help". (!) Company has a bridge crane. We had to install a head on a molder. They told me to bring some tools, so we brought a few tools, wrenches etc.

We show up. Turns out that the problem is that the head has to be picked up extremely close to the hook due to clearance issues. And what they ran into was that their shortest four leg sling was too long. And we did not bring any chains with us.

I said give me 10 minutes to think about it. Thought about it. Found a way to hook up their sling differently, snaking the hook through lifting eyes and making a basket, sort of. Still too long by 2 inches. Thought a bit more, got some 4x4 pieces and padded something to stretch the chain a bit more.

Worked out great and I got paid pretty well.

 

[kshansen]

I worked with some guys up in Iowa that were tower climbers. They had been up the tv/ radio broadcast towers in Alleman Iowa. They are 2,000 ft tall. I think they are in the top 10 tallest structures in the us. They were built in the 60-70's.

Watched a video at a safety meeting a few years back of a guy changing the aircraft warning bulb on the top of one of those towers. I almost got sick just sitting in my chair from the height.

Junkyard the fall might be just a fatal from 30 to 40 feet but you would have a lot longer time to think about it on the way down!

 

[ichudov]

Those climbers are the healthiest people around, made of steel and wire. I saw one guy like that once.