Continuing Thread: What Are You Fix-It'ing Today?

[oldE]

Yesterday the granddaughter came in from the barnyard with a small steel wheel in her hand. Hmmm. Looks like a wheel from a truck suspending the outside stall door. That would explain why the missus was having trouble getting that door opened. No worries, I had another truck. Just a simple swap. Er, no. The hangers are different. Turned out to be an hour and a half, with a lot of that time taken up getting more tools from the shop.

Best
Les

[porsche930dude]

Replaced the wire on a foot control for a 1950s singer sewing machine. Also fixed the steering on my minibike. The trail was wrong so it handled weird. I moved the bolt on the lower tripple as far forward as possible a few years ago and it helped but still not great. So now I moved the top hole as far back as possible and it handles quite well now. But the top plate is too thin to handle the force of the shock that far away so it bent. I really didnt want to add reinforcements to the lower tripple so I reinforced it with a heavy piece of bar on top. Sofar so good. Also dug out our frog pond that was full of silt. So we could put the frogs from the fish pond in it as it doesnt freeze solid in the winter. Now im tired.

[URY914]

We don't have a "What did you build today" so I'm posting my new drill press stand that I built here. It was built with material I saved from the dumpster at work. The top and bottom are from a 1-3/4" solid core door, the sides are 5/8" plywood that was being used for shelves, the top is a 1/16" piece of vinyl wall protection material and the best is the Herman Miller drawer unit that came out of a laboratory desk system.






The drawers have removable storage bins that come in several sized and have dividers.

[gordner]

nice work.

[varmint]

Where did you get the baby anvil?

[URY914]

Originally Posted by varmint

Where did you get the baby anvil?

I found it at Sears about 35 years ago and gave it to my Dad for Christmas one year.
He loved it.
I got it back when he passed away. Cast iron and weighs 25 pounds.

[Baz]

Nice work on the drill press stand, Paul!

Buddy of mine was helping me last week and he mentioned he liked my music tastes but didn't have much himself or know the songs and bands the way I do so I made him a 300 song playlist on a flash drive. He plugged it into his truck stereo and I was very impressed with his stereo - so much I ordered a similar one that arrived today and hope to install it next week. I have a kit coming with a face plate and wiring harness that helps on the install.

I looked at a few YT videos and it doesn't look that hard to install.

Right now I still have the factory stereo with only the AM part is still working.









This thing plays DVDs too....imagine the surfing DVDs I will be able to play now - in my freaking truck!!!

[Baz]

The installation kit came today! So I can work on my new truck stereo now over the weekend.

A pleasant surprise when things arrive ahead of time.

I also got some cup brushes (wire wheels in a cup shape) for my angle grinder to use in refinishing the spade part of several shovels I have. There are all shovels with specific purposes....several the caprock style for chopping and two others more for irrigation work. The factory's finish doesn't hold up very well and there's no way I'm going to let them go downhill without effecting a refinish on them. I already used Ospho on them and now am cleaning them up then will spray with rusty metal primer (red oxide) and then a couple coats of Rustoleum. After that it's just a once a year re-spray as needed and hopefully they will last the rest of my lifetime.

These cup brushes are the schizzle!









This is one I've already sprayed with the red oxide primer......

[porsche930dude]

I just did the same thing! fixed up a few shovels a few days ago. Two just needed the handle fixed but one was WWII era and very rusty. I figured it needed preserving so i cleaned it up and had a gallon of old military paint. The paint was seperated and weird but i painted it anyway. It turned out blackish rather than green but it dried fine and will hopefully keep it from rotting for a while

[Baz]

Originally Posted by porsche930dude

I just did the same thing! fixed up a few shovels a few days ago. Two just needed the handle fixed but one was WWII era and very rusty. I figured it needed preserving so i cleaned it up and had a gallon of old military paint. The paint was seperated and weird but i painted it anyway. It turned out blackish rather than green but it dried fine and will hopefully keep it from rotting for a while

Much respect for your care of the WWII era vintage implement. I have tools from my Dad and also my Step Dad and value them more than all the others - much the same I suspect as others here. It's an honor to be in possession of certain tools, the way I see it. Must preserve and show them some love!

[GH85Carrera]

Our master bathroom get the most use by far. Recently the water kept dripping from the shower head. Great, so I shut the water off, and pull the cartridge and just replace it. Then the shower head started leaking out the side where the seam is to let it adjust from massage function to spry head. No repairing it as it does not come apart. So it gets replaced.

Then the toilet seat plastic hinges just snapped as I was lowering it after my morning urination. No way I will ever find the hinges that fit right, so yet another replacement. The wife goes along to pick out the "right" seat that meets her approval. She wants one with a brushed stainless steel hinges.

I open the package at home, and every toilet seat I have ever replaced had large plastic bolts with a screw driver head to easily tighten them from above and the nut has a flap on one edge to hold themselves in place and super easy to R&R them.

Not this seat. With the fancy metal hinges I had to thread a stud into the hinge, screw a plastic bushing in place, then get a long plastic nut threaded on from the bottom. One side was easy. The side closest to the wall where there is little space was a challenge. The toilet itself had part of the porcelain water channel is in the way of the bolt. So undo the other side, and hold the seat leaning over to start the bolt, and snug it down than redo the other side. A 5 minutes task was suddenly a 35 minute task.

[john70t]

Welded a homemade trailer hitch. Quicky job. He didn't even want the welds ground but I made it a little prettier.

[Scott Douglas]

Originally Posted by porsche930dude

Replaced the wire on a foot control for a 1950s singer sewing machine.

Inquiring minds want to know which model Singer sewing machine you fixed.
Pics work!

Sorry, I've got a thing for old, mechanical Singer's as they are pretty cool machines. My wife has a Featherweight that is as old as I am and it's near mint condition too.

[Scott Douglas]

Originally Posted by URY914

That is pretty cool. I like that it is clean on top so easily cleaned after drilling something.
Are you going to bolt the drill press to the top?

[tabs]

Bought a Robot Coupe R2B food processor at a Thrift for $6. Safety Switch would not engage with the Bowl or Lid in place. If the Safet Switch was manually activated the motor ran fine. Problem was the rubber gasket had deteriorated and needed replacing. Cost of part $2.90 and Shipping $10....disassembled the unit replaced part and now it works like a champ.

I had bought two VitaMix Blenders one mdl 5000 the other a 5200 for $10 with a brand new Dry Blender Jar. Both units had the Poteniometer variable speed switch go bad. A very common occurrence on Vitamix blenders. Bought the replacement parts for 17.00 each for them . Disassembled the units and replaced the parts and now they both work like champs... I will probably sell the VM 5000.

[URY914]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

That is pretty cool. I like that it is clean on top so easily cleaned after drilling something.
Are you going to bolt the drill press to the top?

I will bolt it down. I'm going to leave it loose and see if the right location kinda "evolves" over time then when it settles in one spot I'll bolt it down.

[Baz]

Mom's 12 year old AC finally went south so today it was replaced by a reputable local HVAC business. I was there at the start and came back for the last hour to help supervise.

I also salvaged a capacitor and the thermostat.

3.5 ton 14 seer Lennox and comes with a 2 year labor and 10 year parts warranty. She had the same warranty with her last system from the same company and used it on occasion and every time they came out and took care of what was needed very promptly with no muss or fuss.

The techs did a really great job and I will be on the phone tomorrow to commend them to their manager. It ended up being about a 7 hour job - longer than it typically would take - in part because they were very thorough and comprehensive.

Before and after pics......

[porsche930dude]

Originally Posted by Scott Douglas

Inquiring minds want to know which model Singer sewing machine you fixed.
Pics work!

Sorry, I've got a thing for old, mechanical Singer's as they are pretty cool machines. My wife has a Featherweight that is as old as I am and it's near mint condition too.

Well it was just a spare pedal i found in my mountain of junk but i tested it on my machine and it works. This is the machine i use its a 1950 I think. My grandmother got it for her highschool graduation present. I started using this one after my mothers machine couldnt handle doing uphulstery anymore. She also got it for her graduation present its early 70s model i guess (the one behind it). I also have a very big industrial machine you would like that i pulled out of a barn and got going. I dont have any pics of it at the moment. its one of those with the giant motor underneth and manual clutch. Its very fast I think if i use it more i might put a variable speed treadmill motor on it. And i have probably 5 or so more old singers from estate cleanouts that i dont use but i like them they are fancier

[Baz]

Here are my shovels that I reconditioned.

Three Coronas in the middle flanked by a Wolverine and Structron...

[rsrguy]

Filling my solar batteries... 7-250 gallon tanks daisy chained in the greenhouse.. 3 down 4 to go.
The experiment this year is to see how long I can produce tomatoes at almost a mile high in snow country!