Using my SEE for real work

[The FLU farm]

Flufarm Also if the dog is borrowed I am willing to send her back but she cant ride in a car as she is clearly broken in some way, the path and pond made her world twice as big as it was!

Sorry to hear that about your dog. Ours is a bundle of energy (okay, borderline hyper) even though he was described as very calm by the rescue. He expands his world by hundreds off feet per minute if not carefully monitored.

About the SEE, if I can figure them out enough to keep them running, you can.

 

[peakbagger]

I have a box of parts and plan to tear into the throttle linkage this evening now that the weather is getting reasonable.

 

[peakbagger]

Well its looks like I got the throttle fixed. I never had a chance to see the correct operation of the hand throttle to see how badly this one was messed up. There was combination of issues, the bell crank (#23) that connects the throttle pedal to the linkage inside the engine tunnel had bent arms. The nylon bushings it runs in were in good shape. there is a sleeve welded to the engine tunnel that the bell crank and the bushings slide into, this should be horizontal to make everything line up inside the engine tunnel. I had a difficult time getting the bell crank out as the remote control lever is in the way (#15 ). Luckilly the sleeve was bent down towards the floorboard quite a bit which tipped it up enough to get it out without having to lift the cab. I think if the nylon bushing on the inside of the tunnel is slid out it may give enough space to remove it if the sleeve was straight. I had to remove the remote control lever which has a PITA snap ring. I modified a pair of cheap of snap ring pliers and got it out without launching it. I had ordered a new bell crank so I slid it in an then took a crow bar to the sleeve and bent it up horizontal and the roller on the bell crank lined up with the pad on the remote control lever. Last thing to do was hook up the threaded rod end that hooks up to the manual control lever. I had ordered a new one and it was equipped with the holes for the retainer clip. Both the new one and the old one has an internal C clip that holds the ball in but the retainer clip is set up so it has to be removed to remove the assembly. I spent several minutes trying to get the clip in but crappy lighting and a lack of glasses made it so it didn't go in.

The other issue that may have made things worse is the cover plate on the tunnel that provides access to the starter was pretty well bent up and the mating area on the engine tunnel was even worse. There were only a few screws holding it in when I started. I went at it with some bending tools and hammer and got things better lined up. I guess that the factory undercoating may have glued the two surfaces together and the prior owner or the military had to pry it off. I got thing lined up better and got most of the bolts in.

I didn't start it but the throttle stop now seems to be in the right place and it looks like I can fully adjust the throttle with the manual control lever.

Unfortunately the sleeve bending can always be an issue. I am considering cleaning up the area and sticking some epoxy putty under it so it wont bend down again.

 

[peakbagger]

Update, boy what a difference. Previous my hand throttle required all sorts of travel and really didn't control the throttle that well. It also impacted the remote throttle switch at the backhoe. It wouldn't go full throttle or have any impact un the hand throttle was cranked right back as far as it would go. No need to dent the floorboards with the accelerator pedal anymore.

I would definitely recommend taking a look at the throttle pedal where it sticks out of the engine tunnel and ensuring that the pedal comes out horizontally instead of bent down. The other way to diagnose it is crawl under the front of the front wheel and look up at the linkage with a good flashlight. The throttle pedal bell crank has a nylon roller on one of the arms. This roller should be centered on curved metal plate (remote control lever #15) that actually is linked to the injection pump linkages. If the throttle pedal is bent, this roller will be running off to the side of this plate towards the engine. I think when its out of kilter like this it imposes side loads on the bell crank arms and they bend making things even worse. Alternatively a prior owner didn't realize the root cause of a bent pedal sleeve and bent the arms to compensate.

If the bell crank arms aren't bent, the fix required a long crowbar under the pedal sleeve to get it horizontal again. I have put the epoxy putty in the gap yet. One FYI is the actual accelerator pedal is casting. Mine had bend in it which I believe may be stock to get the center of the pedal away from the engine tunnel. When the pedal sleeve is horizontal, the vertical part of the peddle is tilted towards the left side of the truck slightly.

Unfortunately these small repairs have a two weekend duration. Break it one weekend. Order parts and they arrive the next weekend and finally getting to install them over the next week. Reminds me of british car ownership


While I was at it I even had time to chase down what I thought was bead leak on one of the tires. I soaped all the beads and the stems with no bubbles but once I started soaking the treads I found a leak and plugged it. I will keep an ey on it as I really don't want to dismount a bead just to put a patch inside.

 

[The FLU farm]

Reminds me of british car ownership
While I was at it I even had time to chase down what I thought was bead leak on one of the tires. I soaped all the beads and the stems with no bubbles but once I started soaking the treads I found a leak and plugged it. I will keep an ey on it as I really don't want to dismount a bead just to put a patch inside.

Hey, my British cars haven't given me any trouble at all in the past year or so. Of course, that could partially be because so much time has been spent on the FLUs that I haven't been driving those cars.

If you used Safety Seal to plug that tire there's no need to put a patch in it. Technically it should be patched to be called a repair, but in real life the fix works just fine.
Again, that's if you used the real stuff, not something from Pep Boys or the like.

And a tip if you did use Safety Seal; Since those plugs vulcanize from heat generated by driving, they never do get warm enough on a SEE driven sanely.
Too late now, perhaps, but leave a bit more than recommended of the plug's ends sticking out, then set them on fire. Don't let it burn until the tire catches, but do let it burn for a while.
Now you should have a fix that will outlast the tire.
Oh, and get some Slim plugs, too. Most punctures are not large enough to warrant reaming out the hole to fit the standard size plugs.

 

[peakbagger]

I was aware of the limitation of standard tire plugs, but thanks for the confirmation. The fix someone told me long ago was to soak the plug with the glue used to seal standard patches. I am definitely keeping an eye on tire pressure. I hadn't heard of the lighting the plugs but it makes sense. The tires on my SEE are all pretty far gone. I am just looking for an excuse to buy a new set for my 1300L and switch the tires on that to my SEE. The 1300 had Conti military tread tires and are in far better shape.

 

[The FLU farm]

The tires on my SEE are all pretty far gone. I am just looking for an excuse to buy a new set...

For now you could literally make them stay together with tire chains. It's almost that season, again.
It's on my list to (hopefully) get the rest of the nice Pewags bought from Choprboy cut down to fit my non-Michelins before it all freezes.

 

[The FLU farm]

Not the kind of work I like to do with the SEE, but I'm grateful for having it, even for tasks like this.
The ripper, which I had only tried briefly once, was a real time saver when getting down to the larger river rock as seen to the right.

 

[Another Ahab]

Not the kind of work I like to do with the SEE, but I'm grateful for having it, even for tasks like this.
The ripper, which I had only tried briefly once, was a real time saver when getting down to the larger river rock as seen to the right. View attachment 702678

That river strata in the soil is real interesting.

Any idea how far back the history of that river goes (millions of years)?

 

[The FLU farm]

Any idea how far back the history of that river goes (millions of years)?

That's a good question, Ahab. I'd guess that it happened at about the same time as the stuff in Oregon/Washington was created, or the Grand Canyon for that matter.
Or it could've been a smaller ice dam that gave way at some other point.
Either way it must've been many moons ago as this part has never been irrigated (heck, the ditches are only a bit over 100 years old, anyway).

 

[Another Ahab]

That's a good question, Ahab. I'd guess that it happened at about the same time as the stuff in Oregon/Washington was created, or the Grand Canyon for that matter.
Or it could've been a smaller ice dam that gave way at some other point.
Either way it must've been many moons ago as this part has never been irrigated (heck, the ditches are only a bit over 100 years old, anyway).

Geography is cool stuff to know. Sometimes it even pays to know it.

True story:

- A farmer in New Jersey year after year just can't get any crop of any kind to grow real well.

- One day a friend of his is over for a visit, the friend happened to be a professor of geology at a nearby university.

- Over small talk, the friend asks how the farming is going. The farmer tells him, "not so good".

- One thing leads to another, a walk in the fields, a little looking around, the professor friend goes back home and takes the time to look at a few maps.

- It turns out the guy's farm was the location of a glacial till (end-point of a glacier) from the last Ice Age in North America. The farmer was sitting on a gold mine. He just didn't know it.

- The professor advised him of his circumstance. The guy was in the right place, at the right time. He was sharp enough to turn his place around as a gravel pit (NO rock crushing required), and made a fortune supplying sub-grade for the construction of the New Jersey Turnpike.

The End.

 

[peakbagger]

The standing joke in NH is that rocks are a renewable resource. Clear out a field one year and the next spring it will be full or rocks as the frost lifts the rocks up. Frost can go down 4' feet. Eventually in 30 or 40 years or so it gets better. The "soils" on my wood lot are effectively rocks like in the picture up to about 18" above below ground level with fine silt in between with maybe 18 " of top soil peppered with rocks on the top layer.

On the other hand most of the Poland Spring "spring" water from Maine comes out of wells in huge glacial deposits left over from the last glacier 13,000 years ago. NH has some large glacial sand deposits but they don't have the cachet of Maine so they get dug and sent via rail to Boston.

 

[The FLU farm]

He was sharp enough to turn his place around as a gravel pit (NO rock crushing required), and made a fortune supplying sub-grade for the construction of the New Jersey Turnpike.

Would you believe that about two miles south, and down about 50 feet (at river level), there's a gravel pit?
Thousands of truck loads of gravel and rock has left from there since '09, when I moved here, and I think that place has been in operation for quite a while.

 

[The FLU farm]

The standing joke in NH is that rocks are a renewable resource. Clear out a field one year and the next spring it will be full or rocks as the frost lifts the rocks up. Frost can go down 4' feet.

Well, that explains why my rocks are about four feet down - they're hiding from the frost.

 

[Another Ahab]

The standing joke in NH is that rocks are a renewable resource. Clear out a field one year and the next spring it will be full or rocks as the frost lifts the rocks up. Frost can go down 4' feet. Eventually in 30 or 40 years or so it gets better. The "soils" on my wood lot are effectively rocks like in the picture up to about 18" above below ground level with fine silt in between with maybe 18 " of top soil peppered with rocks on the top layer.

I grew up in Maryland back when it was close to the only state where lacrosse was played. The high school where I went was too cheap to give us all a good field to play on (for some reason the baseball team got all the resources like perfect ball fields, batting cages, all that).

We started each lacrosse practice by lining up as a team shoulder-to-shoulder at one end of the field and walking it with our helmets in hand, picking up all the loose rocks we found as we crossed the field. Somehow each practice, there were new rocks (especially after rainy days) even though we combed the field the day before.

It was pure h*** playing in the goal:

- the attack players would make a habit of shooting at the ground in front of the net and hope for wild bounces off the rocks. It was squirrelly being the goalie (I tried it for a year and then bailed to mid-field).

 

[The FLU farm]

Dug up more rocks today, away from the river. Had to create a new ditch and made new homes for three trees I'll try transplanting.
The latter will surely fail, but at least I got to dig more holes.

 

[Another Ahab]

Dug up more rocks today, away from the river. Had to create a new ditch and made new homes for three trees I'll try transplanting.
The latter will surely fail, but at least I got to dig more holes.

It's a good time of year for transplanting stock. What kind of trees are you planting, what have you got?

 

[The FLU farm]

Oh, it's only an attempt to save three small Junipers that would've been creamed anyway when I make a ditch repair.
It'll probably take 10-12 trailer loads of dirt to fill in this mini version of the Grand Canyon, then I can dig a new ditch and install a culvert with a "waterfall". That's what I need the rocks for, to slow the water after the drop.

It's amazing the amount of damage that cows and fast moving water can create. I gotta remember to take a before photo.

 

[The FLU farm]

Okay, two out of three done. And these little buggers better live a long, happy life. It took almost all day to get two of them moved.

 

[Another Ahab]

You got to water them, regular for a while.

They get stressed hard when dug up, and moved.