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What are you doing today, II

Didn’t haul grain like I’d planned on, was -39 last night with a-50 windchill, went to start the semi only to find out the circulating heater had quit 🙁, no wonder it was so stiff when I tried starting it. Have switched most things we use in the winter over to circulating heaters so when they do quit it only takes a few minutes to change it out, not like a block heater where you have to drain all the coolant.
 
waybomb said:
Use battery warmers too!
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Yes they make a huge difference, don’t have them on this truck though, looking to get rid of it shortly anyway. Have been having a strange problem with our grain truck and it’s batteries. As it gets cooler out, like still just above freezing, it gets pretty sluggish. One day earlier this winter it was about-25 and went to start it and just a couple grunts was all it could muster, put the charger on and wasn’t taking a charge and gauge was up around 13 volts. Thought oh no the batteries are frozen so put a tiger torch under it and went into the shop for something and came right back out, maybe a couple minutes. Tried it again to work the batteries to heat them up and it fired right up! Same thing happened a couple more times after and only a few minutes with the torch on it it started like summer time 🤷‍♂️. Can’t figure that out, it’s not like the batteries actually had time to warm up much. Put battery blankets on and it’s been fine ever since.
 
The chemical reaction slows as it gets colder.
lead-acid-battery-freezing-temperature.jpg
 
My '95 Dodge oneton has a block warmer. I plug it in at night and the engine is warm in the cold am when I start it. Both batteries are also warmed.
Temps got down to Zero F overnight.

Last night the circuit blew at the house receptacle. So, this morning, 5:00 AM, everything was cooooooooold! Ignition on, I waited for the internal heaters to cycle, and the diesel fired right away. I let things idle for 10 minutes. Cab was warm. No issues.

BTW, This 30-year-old Cummins has over 400,000 miles on it.
 
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Had a Mercedes 300SD. All i had was a heated battery blanket. Hold the gloplugs on until the light went out, turned the, and it weighs start right up.
Sure do miss that clackety clack. Those old 5 cylinder diesels sound so fine.
Later i added a block heater on a old mechanized full voltage timer. I turned it on about 2 hours before i was planning on leaving, so I had heat right away.
 
waybomb said:
Had a Mercedes 300SD. All i had was a heated battery blanket. Hold the gloplugs on until the light went out, turned the, and it weighs start right up.
Sure do miss that clackety clack. Those old 5 cylinder diesels sound so fine.
Later i added a block heater on a old mechanized full voltage timer. I turned it on about 2 hours before i was planning on leaving, so I had heat right away.
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I had one of those Big 300DL sedans. Top of the line Mercedes that, at the time, burned the cheapest fuel. 24 Miles per gallon with a 24 gallon tank. Full six cylinders that produced 190HP at High torque. Awesome beast that was not at all sluggish. Even off the line.

Great Highway car pleasant on long hauls.

Maintenance amounted to Oil and Filter changes every 3,500 miles. New tires from time to time. I bought it used at about 160K miles and gave it to a friend at 420K. He fixed the minor tranny issue and gave it to his girlfriend.

As much as she enjoyed the car, I wish I had kept it.
 
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Been a long busy day and another new customer, they clean houses and impressed. They have a fleet of 5 Chrysler minivans which are used. Last mechanic they went to was a hack and had to fix a mess with one this shop did.Had a missing bracket including some fasteners. Was in for an oil leak, oil filter cooler housing was bad. Told them about the missing bracket and fasteners which I did find and put back in. Told me thank you.
 
I decided that I wasn't leaving the house this morning when I looked at the forecast. -35 windchill. No thanks. I did a bunch of final touch up paint upstairs instead and watched a couple movies. I hadn't seen the new top gun movie yet so watched that. I must say...very well done movie tying it to the first one. 👍
 
tommu56 said:
I started my School bus driving training today 20 hours total most of it is redundant because I have a CDL already but no S endorsement for school. I'm going to PENDOT tomorrow to see if I can bypass some of this because its patterned as a non CDL licensee taking the stuff. I don't have a problem with 6 hours driver training which is part of the 20 hours.
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Of course they don't have a path to bypass the junk already on my cdl :mad:
Got scheduled for my Physical for school buss its supposed to be "different" Finger prints after that. (already have them for my CDL)
More training thursday.
 
After coffee I went to pick up new arthritis meds, then went to Home Depot, then to Menards. Got stuff for the new bathroom remodel at both places. Met up with my friend who is doing the plumbing for the apartment bathroom over my garage for my sister in law. We worked on the bathroom for a few hours and I ended up at the local True Value for more supplies :rolleyes: but massive progress was made today.

I went to the fencing club and did a bit of coaching while my friend gave private lessons.

Now I'm drinking bourbon to kill the arthritis pain. Largely because the opioids and NSAIDS didn't do their job.

On the bright side, my new rheumatologist authorized me to take the new meds that I already picked up. Much stronger, and works in a different way than my old meds, which basically don't work well.


uwahtatler said:
Go to work and organize clutter
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I need help with clutter.

I'm almost to the point of giving up and getting a dumpster for the clutter.
 
My Packaging project in Troy Mo has been suspended for two days. I showed up to supervise at 6:00 AM twice but too many employees stayed home Monday and Tuesday for weather.
My drive was 35 miles. Theirs was local.
Two to four inches of powder @ 4%F.
Go figure.

No scotch tonite. :( :unsure:
I'll be there at 6:00AM tomorrow. Same sh!t different day.
 
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Not a good day, Yard came by to drop off an used engine the customer bought for me to put in and sent the wrong one. Sent a core and the engine that the customer bought was still in the car. Good thing is this yard is going to take care of it. I have the old one out already and my hoist is tied up now
 
Got back from 2 hardware stores about 90 min ago.

Picked up some tile at one. Exchanged some stuff at the other. All for the bathroom remodel in the guest apartment.

Cut a piece of concrete board to build the shower sill. Got that installed. Opened the tile boxes and did a bit of layout on the floor, just to come up with a gameplan. It is irregular shaped river rock sheets, so each wall edge will have to be cut on a wet saw so the pieces sit flush against the wall.

Should not be too tough to install, but might be a bit tedious since all the edges are different shapes, matching the edges so there are no big gaps might be fun? If you are into that type of fun. But it's just a shower floor so not really a big deal. The room tile is 12x24 rectangles and those should go pretty quickly other than the cuts around the water pipes and toilet.
 
doing bus classroom training
school buss physical
finger print's
I went to get my school buss permit test I passed
there's usually a 15 day wait mine said 2/22/25 ?? I asked they said since I have a CDL already there no wait time to test if the trainer says I'm ready go for the driving test
6 more hours classroom and 4 in bus training to go.
 
I had a fun day today at the packaging plant. First hour we ran the collating/overwrap system at 50 packages per minute. After a week of assembly, training and adjusting of everything, the system was finely in perfect tune with a flawless operation. Yielded 2,750 units in the first hour. We were set for a record 27,000 unit day.

Normal thru-put was 16,000 to 18,000 per ten hour day. This improvement would get us done with the contract just in the nick of time, today.

But then, the plant manager gave the operator the go ahead to go to 55 PPM. This over my heated objections. Within ten minutes the system crashed. Did they reset to 50PPM? Nope. They continued for hours to tune the line to the new velocity. Stressing the limitations of the equipment, and the personnel. Not to mention, making bad product and wasting time and materials.

I pleaded to go back to the sanity of a perfect speed within the abilities of the system components and the personal on it.
Nope. In fact, they removed me from the operation.

Whilst they did get it running better as the day progressed the never achieved the smooth effortless operation, that we had spent two days tuning in. The day finished, with everyone frustrated and tired, at 23,000 units. This despite the addition of a fifth person to keep up with the mess.

The plant manager justified it all by saying, "They need to learn to do it themselves!" "After all, you might die."
I wonder how much they learned that was useful.

This is a system I designed and built. Operated on this account for some 15 years. I sold the line when my company closed but kept this customer for the new owner. Never had an issue until the last time they ran the job. They screwed up bad.

On the last run before Christmas, we almost lost the account because of the "junk" these people packed. Which is why I was there making it run right.
Some never learn.

What a day!!
So, tonite, licking my wounds, I will be sourcing solace in a wee bit o' Scotch. And, with my head on a comforting lap with Crumpy.
 
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