So my wife's best friends parents live down the street from us. My wifes father passed away when she was 18 or so. So her best friends father sort of became a surogate father to her. I really think Dave is the world's oldest teenager. He has a '34 Ford coupe that he used to drag race. Now he just uses it as a street rod. Tools around in it all the time. He had a speed boat that had a 6 cylinder inboard outboard. The last iteration of that boat........he had put the biggest jet drive into he could fit.......and put a 500 cu in engine in it to drive it.
Dave's friend died and his backhoe was being stored at Dave's house.........well, it became his backhoe. He'd take it out, dig out the pond, blow a hose, break this, that, or the other thing and I'd end up down at his house fixing it. He kept tearing up a hose fitting to the bucket curl open side. About once a week I'd get a call from him saying he broke it again..........go down, cut the old one off, press a new one on. The 3rd time he called in 3 weeks the whole sleeve had been sliced open. The first 2 times, the fitting was bent like it had been hit. Looking at the boom, just after where the bucket curl cylinder was........the square tubing was all cracked and broken from him doing bad things with it all the way extended. Pulled the tube out, air arced the crack out, then welded it up. We were putting it together last week.........the grandson was out helping out (Kids and heavy equipment......gotta be out where the action is!!
So we were putting the stick into the backhoe using the crane. I had put the remote down on the back bumper to go over and pry, wriggle, prod the extend hoe back into the dipper section. The crane started doing crazy things all by itself!!! Got really spooked when the extend hoe started moving.........
