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Shall we get a " Poll" started? Chicken or Egg? Bed or Colossus?

Personally I would opt for a manufactured aluminum or steel flatbed. Just bolt it on and go after it gets back from having the rear axle done. This way you can start using it, as opposed to having it still outa commission for weeks/months/years etc. This is just an example, plenty of less expensive steel ones for sale.

We'll be there if it's the same place as last year. We slept in the truck in the parking lot and all you guys were crashed out already and it was only midnight. Party just gettin started when we get there. Dan kept hitting his head on the dash 'cause I parked down hill.

Well this hood has been primer coated about 5 times, each after finding another ding to tap out and fix. Actually got another coat today. But it looks pretty good right now. I'll go over it tomorrow with 800 grit and scope it over once more. And I've made up my mind on the fuel pump. Now I have to figure out where to put the thing. Not alot of room on a 701 to hide an electric pump...

This will be the trail cam pic at @ebinmaine's place shortly after Colossus makes its first run...

You make sure @WHX?? comes in. I'll send him gas money if I have to!

I used to work with a quirky Process Engineer that was a Statistics Nut. He could tell you where every SuperBowl was played, who the Teams were, & the final score.... by memory. I just referred to him as "The StoreHouse of Worthless Knowledge". He was also narcoleptic - could, and did, fall asleep at the drop of a hat. Meetings, Lunch, it did not matter. In those moments, I referred to him as "Professor Haim Gonnanodoff"!! We left him at the Lunch table after eating many times...

I'm almost at the age where I need to transition to two gallon buckets, the fives just get too heavy and the ten gallon totes, foregit about it.

Poor uncle Jim gets no respect.

Then don't I'll send you a orginal. Signed The Purist.

A rubdown with Penetrol. It was thirsty and will get another...

Yup good kid for sure and becoming a man before my eyes!

Not a pet but, she is cute.

Uncle Jim tells Dan where to go and sleeps in the passenger seat the whole way. He’s wound up like an 8 day clock after a hard day of riding in his passenger princess seat!

Here is a bed I built some years ago. The sides would come off by loosening 2 bolts. In had a pin at the top with 2 clamps at the bottom and was as solid as a stock box. Solid enough I used the stock hardware to make a functioning tailgate. I cut the end of a box off that had the catches and straps to hold the tailgate. I used strap hinges so I could remove the tailgate and put a solid rod into to lock in the ramps. I put metal over the tires to keep the height lower and were removable so I could put in a flat piece if needed. But I do not think I ever needed to. This was built the size of a bed liner so it was smaller.

The biggest improvement I made as far as steering goes on a FEL was going to six ply tires and running them at 40 PSI. the thrust washers made no noticeable difference with a bucket full of soil or rocks.

I gotta start writing down what I do with crap.

Are any of you guys going to be able to go see this as it comes through the East for the 1st time?? I've seen it a couple times when it came through Geneva and West Chicago, Ill a couple years ago. It is worth it if you get the chance !! This is worth seeing ...there is only 1. Go on You Tube and check out it going through the Feather River in the Rockies. Out standing for sure!! A schedule...

Got her out, she's tiny, got her out and put her in the wood line. She keeps following me, started the tractor up she tried to climb on for a ride. I put her back in wood line and ran. Have not seen her since. That was different,

The Challanger made an overnight stop in Sedalia, Mo. We were living there at the time. We started east of town and watched it roll by, beat it back to town and watched it pull into the siding in town. The Big Boy went through Sedalia maybe 20 years ago. Was working. I saw the smoke, but not the locomotive. Those big articulated locomotives are impressive machines. There is one in the Henry Ford Museum in Detroit on static display. Always enjoy seeing it when I visit there - also the Ford GT 40 that Dan Gurney drove at Le Mans. We had a Finish exchange student for a year. The Henry Ford Museum was one of the places we visited. When we came upon that car, he asked what it was. I told him it was a Ferrari killer. An effective taunt, as he was a Ferrari fan and didn't hold Fords in high regard.

Sometimes an unlikely solution presents itself…we pulled JackRabbit out of long storage, checked oil, plugs, filters, and put in fresh fuel…it started and ran really well. We mounted a 48” SD deck and have cut the lawn a couple of times with no issues🙃😅😎 other than the engine isn’t charging. I remembered that after I got it running. There is no AC power to the regulator so I’m guessing either the stator is failing or the wires coming off it are. So, I find myself saying to Caleb, hang on to this one too OR… as of right now @Edward Teach (our youngest) wants to buy it from Caleb and restore it…I say “Why not?” Very nice cutting machine and I love the faster ground speed…

One more strawberry/rhubarb pie. The strawberries are just starting to ripen.

@squonk and @SylvanLakeWH Imagine if I ever got BOTH done.

Lemme know you need help. Did I mention I hoard them... I got one or three of them but none with the offset cam lever. I bet the bodies interchange. I gotta get off my @$$ and do that pump tutorial one of these days.

1999 Mars orbiter. $125 million satellite. Orbital data handed over by one team without units specified. Control team assumed different units and loaded accordingly. Crash. Apollo mission near catastrophe due to oxygen tank stirrer spec’d for lower voltage than actually used. Arcing. Bang. In engineering school, any answer presented without units was an automatic fail. Learned that lesson super quickly.

June 8, 1966, the rival National Football League (NFL) and American Football League (AFL) announce that they will merge. The first “Super Bowl” between the two leagues took place at the end of the 1966 season, though it took until the 1970 season for the leagues to unite their operations and integrate their regular-season schedules.

I’ll be there, flying solo this year. Hoping to see my friends and Uncle Jim too!

Y'all... ain't... right... I mean, yeah about that marriage thing but...

@parsonsponyz has dibs on but if he doesn't want it's fair game. $180.00

Dan's a good driver but a terrible navigator. Little hard on the throttle but a good driver. I can only sleep in a moving vehicle if I am at the wheel...

I got this cream puff for $150 w/battery $125 without. Re-powered with Magnum 10, Smokes on startup, hydro is good and strong. Also got his 20 Ton shop press converted to Air Cylinder. $175

Working on my shopping list for this year and more than a few things I wouldn't mind clearing out of the shop. I'll be at the show on Friday, but live close enough to make other arrangements if need be. Shoot me a message if anyone is interested, glad to take pics if needed. Want list Spare mule drive decent trip edge springs for my snow plow new 48" plow edge right side anti-scalp wheel bracket for the front of an old 48" deck I'm rehabbing decent seat for a RJ58 5xi plow frame Sell or trade bait RM 3261 mower deck that was on my RJ. Its complete, but rusted solid. Make an offer or willing to trade for anything useful to me A box of double D spindles/parts for 48" decks (a few aluminum housings, set of good cast iron housings with the offset grease zerks, handful of DD pulleys 6756,6757) Willing to separate or sell as a lot NOS set of (3) 6758 48" DD blades, 100202 is the set part number $75 (I have decided to part with them in favor of new 8Ten spindles/pulleys and don't have the heart to drill out the DD to a 3/4 hole on new blades) 79366 44" 2-stage snow thrower for a 5xi series that came off a tractor with only 230hrs on it $500 (or less if you come pic it up in 17584) little rust and paint faded, but complete and works well. My property is set up better for plowing That's all I can think of right now.....

What you call a lifting master is normally called a fork lift here. Regardless of what you call it, that is a very handy tool for moving things around. You will probably wonder how you got along without one. The discussion on taps and dies brought to mind an adventure I had with one of my projects at work. The last position I had before retiring was the tooling engineer for the press department. As new products came into the plant, I was very involved in design and development of the new press dies to build the new product. The winning vendor for one job ended up being a Brazilian tool shop. Well, Brazil is a country that runs on the metric system. The plant I'm working in is in the middle of the US - deep in SAE territory. I specified that the bolts in these tools were to be SAE threads. SAE threads are also called English threads. I'm guessing that the tool shop had to buy some 'English' bolts and taps. What we actually got were Whitworth threads - a thread system that originated and was common in England in the 1st half ov the 20th century.

I'm there for sure. Every year when I get back from the Big Show, many unsold heavy items go on the scrappers pile. Last year I scrapped many axles and deck support hardware.

You guys gain an hour!

12 is late when we left up at 4am to get to the grounds 😆 .

As @953 nut said, he's almost at that age where he needs to transition to 2-gallon buckets. Almost at the age? Well I'm not quite as old as you Dick, and I'm there already. I'm just bringing my brake linings. They are fairly easy to handle.

ask K & B -- they are vendor here on RSq - i have purchased spindle parts from them

And Collosus takes a trip to the back burner - again! Truck frame looks excellent for its age....

FIFY

312-8 with the small tire changer. Good weekend of work but time to put them to bed and get ready for work tomorrow...

The whole idea is to keep moisture and contaminants OUT of the connection. Dielectric grease will do the job just fine and I see no problem with having it IN the connection, the metal will be able to make a good contact with or without the grease. If the connection isn't tight enough to displace some grease it is going to overheat and fail anyway. Though it was made for Aluminum connections the Zink works well to protect connections of dissimilar metals and seals out the contaminants and moisture from any connection.

Anyone got the inside scoop and know what it is this year?? Let’s hope it’s not a rear engine rider with a 30” deck

Quality Inn 1465 Doran Dr. Scotland Pa ( Keep the car wash vacuums open for impatient truck drivers! )

Got some logs pulled outta the forest today.

As a teenager I was working as a carpenters apprentice on a job site and was looking for a bucket. I opened a 5 gallon spackle bucket in the dumpster. Lets just say that I’ll never do that again!

It also appears like it's rubbing the PTO hoop. I think a 1/2" belt will slip on the PTO pulleys because they are designed for a wider 5/8 belt and not variable like many aftermarket pulleys are designed. Maybe that's why it's so tight but IDK. If the pump pulley will handle a wider belt then go with a wider belt. The suction hose doesn't have any pressure on it. But use a stiff hose because stronger suction pressure could collapse a flimsy hose. The reason for asking about the color is to see if it's ATF or motor oil. It possible it could've been changed to hydraulic fluid too.

I’ve been tinkering with my 702 over this past week, going over it, putting together a mental list of what it needs with hopes to find at the big show, but the list keeps growing. I’ve kept the 702 stored indoors for over a decade now after the steering sector snapped. I have my trusty 401 that has been keeping my yard mowed for almost 30 years, so the 702 project has been at the bottom of lifes list of projects. But now the deck on the 401 is sounding louder than ever. Bearings are worn, shafts are worn, keyways are rough, but the deck is still solid. More oil is on the wheels than is inside the trans. Hubs are loose on the axles. I lost a wheel a couple weeks ago. Hub set screw threads are gone, so there’s a blob of weld holding the wheel on the axle. It’s in serious need of some TLC. It did get a fresh predator motor this spring. The last one was on there maybe 12 years. Still ran but was getting low on power and temperamental starting. Thought i’d get 702 going because I know the deck is good, or so i thought. It’s weird how time makes you forget stuff. Luckily it was just a woodruff key for the left side had sheared. So that’s all good now. Since someone had got all happy with nickel rod and welded just about everything together on the rest of the tractor, i just mig welded what was left of the sector to the shaft, mainly to make it easier to move around until i find replacements at the big show. i bought the 702 15-20 years ago as a “ran when parked”. Well sure enough, after a battery and carb n tank clean, it was running, but it seemed tired. At the time i had planned on occasionally plowing snow with it so no big deal. Shortly after replacing all of the tires, the sector broke. So once again, it was a “ran when parked”. Since then we had moved. The new tires got swapped on to the 401 because the original tires were coming apart and the front wheels were rusted through. The new place has a fairly steep bank sloping to the rear of the property. After fixing the deck on the 702, welding the sector, and charging up the 12 year old battery it fired up. I took it for a lap around the yard. At first i thought the deck belt was slipping, but no. That’s how quiet it’s supposed to sound. Lol. Poor little 401. But boy was that 7 horse struggling. So LOUD. I made the mistake of going down back. Had to disengage the deck and pulled the throttle out all the way, i barely made it back up the hill. So last night i was thinking about how loud it seemed and just so little power. So this morning i went out and sprayed soapy water around the head and cranked the starter. Sure enough, bubbles coming out near the exhaust side of the head. AH HA. So i pulled the head, gasket wasn’t complete toast, maybe the bolts were loose, but i zipped them off with an impact gun, so no idea. Soaped the valves and aired the exhaust and carb. Had some light bubbling, so i pulled the carb and breather and checked the valves. .006” intake .023” exhaust. Good enough for me. I got on the phone and located a new gasket locally but I figured i couldn’t make a 25 minute drive in 9 minutes before they closed today, so i cleaned everything up and put it back together. Finished mowing the level area of the yard with it. Struggled getting it out of all 4 gears every time i had to back up. It started to get a little better, but i’m hoping a new shifter pin will fix it because the shifter has a lot of rotational slop. A new pin fixed the 401 when i had the same problem. I did drain the trans and filled it with ATF to flush it out. Hoping it comes around. I checked the bore, 4 times. I kept getting the same thing. 2.882”. I don’t know what that is in dog years, but that’s what it is. I could push the piston around, as there is a serious gap to the cylinder wall and the piston is stamped STD. Obviously no visible crosshatch, but no scoring either. I couldn’t pick up on any rod noise, but it’s hard to hear anything over the steering shaft buzzing in the aluminum tank. After mowing with the 401 for over a quarter of a century, the 702 just felt odd. Maybe it’s just the whole low power, but it definitely seemed geared lower too. I like a 32” cut as i have obstacles and tight areas. I can wheel the 401 around quick and easy. I just don’t see that happening on the 701. Always loved the easy steering on the 401. All 4 tires are foam filled, and i have a pair of Taurus rotors that i filled the vents with lead, 25# each, so the 401 sticks to the ground. I’ll probably be looking for a complete correct deck for the 401 and another motor for the 702, some front wheels (the 702 is currently rolling on my old 867 tires and wheels that i foolishly parted out back in the 90’s) So yeah, that was my day. The 702 cut beautifully, but it’s had a rough life long before i got it. It might be best as yard art.