Bruce's Journal

Rammy

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Busy day today
  • Got up at 7, fed the cats (yes the ones that woke us up)
  • Made French Toast, fed DW and DD2 (DD1 is in Indiana) and me
  • Started adding more water to DW's pool. I've vacuumed to waste twice to get all the needles and fine dust/dirt out of it. Several hours of time.
  • Yesterday I discovered a zerk was missing on the garden tractor mower deck when I was prepping it for use. Found one this morning, installed it, greased that spindle, put the deck on and mowed
  • Spent a good half hour plus scraping the wet grass (though it hasn't rained since Friday) out of the deck. I still can't believe they waste the time to put a "washout port" on the deck. It is as effective as if I were to spit on it.
  • Turned water off in the pool, backwashed. Ready for water test and chemicals, only ready for penguins to swim in it though, 55°.
  • Came in for a short rest and forum time (and a Dr. Pepper)
  • Split a bit over a run of cordwood, DD2 helped. Said it was because DW asked her to but she would have anyway if I asked nice with a "please". Having a second person took about 1/2 off the job since there was always someone splitting or getting the wedge in position for the next piece.
  • Made lasagna for dinner.
Your a good wife, Bruce. :lol::bunny:flypig
 

Bruce

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Sunday I decided to rip out the crappy old fence, here it is dumped in front of the barn
IMG_20190515_180929179.jpg

While doing that I came across a rock that has caused problem mowing in the past so I decided to dig it out out. While doing so I blew a hydraulic hose. I was not even putting much pressure on the bucket at the time, must have been the best straw that broke the camel's back.

Stopped by the dealer on the way back from errands because I wanted to ask the approximate price of getting a third function on the back of the tractor for the side shift flail mower. $2K! Ok, getting 2 hoses to steal the curl/dump control from the loader.

Instead of collecting the tractor, they sent one of the guys to take the blown hose off the tractor (he lives just a few miles north of me). So I took the shield off the control valves and when he came we figured out which hose was leaking when we raised and lowered the boom. He decided to pull both for that cylinder, good thing he did because when the covers were taken off both had holes in them. He'll bring the replacements (made locally) along with the 7' hoses for the flail tomorrow.

Now the part I don't understand is how the hoses that are connected to the boom cylinder seem to connect to the control for the bucket. Pictures coming, please hold. They are on the phone
 
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Bruce

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Looking at the back of the controls. The one on the left extends/retracts the dipper and curls/dumps the bucket. The one on the right moves the boom in and out and side to side. The little ones in the center are for the outriggers
IMG_20190515_175610744_HDR.jpg

The boom cylinder rotated out of the boom so the hoses could be disconnected. IMG_20190515_175625546.jpg

Perhaps MR. @greybeard can explain this to me!
 

Bruce

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NEVERMIND!
My misunderstanding. The cylinder that is rotated out (the one that had the blown hoses) is the one that extends and retracts the dipper. And yes that is the control on the left in the picture. If you think about the physics of where that cylinder is attached, that would be obvious. The reason those hoses were leaking when we extended and retracted the boom is because we had to extend the dipper before the boom could be lowered more than about a foot. The repair guy came back with the hoses this morning. Bear of a time to get fabric covered hoses shoved through an even bigger fabric cover that encases all 6 fabric covered hoses that go out the boom. Probably didn't help that there was hydraulic fluid on the big cover and it rained a lot last night as well.

I put the cover over the controls and figured I should check the hydraulic fluid level so I drove the tractor up to the parking area (the only SORT OF level area on the property) and needed to bring the boom up, dipper and bucket in to do so. Only pulling the lever toward the tractor pushed the dipper out and pushing it out brought the dipper in. Wrong guess (unmarked) on the repair guy's part as to which hose went on top. Since we both thought it was the boom in/out that was causing the leak and when the hoses were replaced the right side lever worked as expected and there was no leak, figured the hoses were connected properly. Thus I got to take the cover off again, swap the hoses and replace the cover.

Educational at least!
 

greybeard

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Stopped by the dealer on the way back from errands because I wanted to ask the approximate price of getting a third function on the back of the tractor for the side shift flail mower. $2K! Ok, getting 2 hoses to steal the curl/dump control from the loader.
"Power Beyond" port....
 

Bruce

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"Power Beyond" port....
I found some videos that explained how the Power Beyond works, seems like the simplest solution would be to have a valve I could plug into the existing quick connects on the back of the tractor for the backhoe. Obviously wouldn't be using the hoe and a mower at the same time ;) The tractor runs fluid full time so the valve would have to have a (probably bad wording) passthrough connection. If I take the BH off I have to connect the "return" hose into one of the supply hoses.
 

Bruce

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Lack of LGD has now cost me one of my best layers. I put up a fence that would keep the dog in, dog was supposed to keep predators out. Well no dog and now no Yuki. Trail of white feathers inside the fenced area from behind the barn to the west fence line. Feathers on both sides so apparently not only can a fox get in through the field fence, it can also drag a full grown large fowl through. Feathers also found at the edge of the woods. I suppose I should be happy that it hasn't happened before but now that it has, I'm sure the fox will come back. This was a DAYTIME event.

I guess tomorrow I'll be going to TSC and buying multiple 100' rolls of no climb horse fence. No way I can get longer rolls in the car and I don't yet have a cargo tray for the new car. Will have to go with the 120 pound 100' rolls and get help to put them in the car. I can lift them out with tractor using one of the pallet forks.
 
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