Mercy! Mercy! That Dang Nabed PERCY!

Picking up the Lift

Picking up the Lift


Well Yesterday I went and picked up the new portable lift for the Garage. It was a typical farm project… You have to do three things first before you can do the one you want to.

First off I had to get a wiper on the truck because it was forecast to rain. Last year I installed an electric windshield wiper unit to replace the old vacuum driven one, however I had not replaced the blade. Rummaging through my order box I found one. Now all I had to do was install it. The problem was that to put it on I needed the grooved barrel it attaches to. No problem I reasoned, I have three period trucks sitting out back I can get one off one of those. Well the barrel fit but it was the wrong part to go on the ’53 and needed to be drilled out to fit. This I did and used a bit that was too big and it just freewheeled when the wipers turned on. “Shucks!” I muttered. Finding a small washer I used my new welder to weld it in and predrilled to the proper diameter. This worked and I was in business.

At two we set out for Marshfield and the trip up there was uneventful. At the grounds everyone was trying to break down and leave at the same time and the traffic was horrible. I had to park and walk in and when I did everything had changed so much I had trouble finding the vendor’s location. Eventually I did and we coordinated the pickup. By this time the traffic had thinned and getting to the booth area was without incident except that the truck began to run a little hot.

The return home was uneventful. Upon arrival came the challenge of getting the half ton unit and control dolly off the back. They were still hooked together. First I put the dolly in the bucket of the tractor and lowered it off and next took a strap and attached it to the lift and the bucket and off it came too. Then it was easy to scoot it into the shop where it is now prominently displayed.

When I think about all the things that could have gone wrong that didn’t I consider the whole effort extremely successful. Living on a farm teaches you to do things in a systematic manner and often alone. I say alone but that is not exactly true….Linda and I do many things together like fixing the wood stove, moving dead vehicles around, cutting wood, mowing grass and feeding the dogs and cats.

I will have to let everyone know tomorrow how the lift works and pick up on my discussion of fixing rusted out vehicle panels using the welding vs. the gluing technique. I know my army of readers is terribly excited to hear about all that.

Perhaps instead I’ll describe what we saw and all the interesting people that were wandering around the Farm Tech show… maybe both