Coffee Shop XXVII


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jeffrey-wimberly said:
Got the parents yard mowed today. That clover is some tough stuff. It had grown up in high dense clumps that often needed two or three hits from different directions. The yard looks much better now.
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Poor jeffrey! ;) Our lawn is such a lovely shade of dead!:eek: Might be a month before I even go and fill the tanks up!:D
 
kbkchooch said:
Poor jeffrey! ;) Our lawn is such a lovely shade of dead!:eek: Might be a month before I even go and fill the tanks up!:D
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It'll be green soon enough. I love the way my parents yard looks now but I don't love the way my back, knees and ankle feel. I'll feel much better in the morning, I hope.
 
03/13/2011

Good Morning ! from Tipton IN.
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Been working under the van today. I was having a problem with the starter cutting out. Turned out that the wire coming from the battery was a little loose. Just a simple job to tighten the nut right? Not so simple. It's a Denso starter and the wires connect on top between the exhaust manifold and the starter. Wonder what wise guy thought that one up? So this had gone from a simple tightening of a nut to removing the starter so I could get to the nut to tighten it. And before somebody says 'why didn't you just take the doghouse off and get to it from the top?' I tried that already. The aforementioned exhaust manifold is in the way and my wrist doesn't bend in that many directions at once. So after ten minutes I have the starter loose. Now comes the fun part. The power wire from the battery and the trip wire from the ignition relay are together in one unit. The wires don't come down very far so I have to balance the starter on my left hand while using a box-end ratchet wrench with the right hand to tighten the loose nut. Boy, this was getting to be fun!
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Well with that done I reinstalled the starter making sure the wires didn't push up against the exhaust manifold. That done I got out from under there and gave the key a turn. Nothing!
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Zip, zero, bopkiss!
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Then it hit me. It would probably work a whole lot better if I reconnected the battery!
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I did that and tried it again and it fired up with no hesitation. You know, it took longer to put that darn thing back on than it did to take it off and tighten the wire.


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Good afternoon folks.

It seems most of the gang has been busy doing other things lately. I hadn't done much so I didn't have much to share.

I have the day off today while my wife works so I've been bumming around the house. I gave my barn, silo and farm house a bath in India ink and alcohol. Well, not a bath, more like a shower! They look much better now. I also started carving the foam base under the farm yard. I didn't want the area to be completely flat so I gave it a little variation. This is the part that I really like about foam based layouts. The other part will be realized when it's time to move!:D I almost feel bad that this is one of the last sections that the cat likes to sleep on. Oh well, he has no shortage of places to sleep.

I think it's time to bust out the sculptamold and finish out this farm yard.

Have a good day folks.
 
Good evening. It's sunny and 57 here. Supposed to rain tonight and tomorrow.
I had an interesting solution to the brass engine painting question yesterday. I asked the owner of my LHS if he could recommend anybody to paint my 4-8-4 (the guy I had the lead on is booked up until sometime in 2013), and he told me to bring it by. I thought he either had a custom painter in mind, or maybe he was going to paint it for me. Not so. He looked it over carefully, ran it on his test track, and asked me how emotionally attached I was to it:confused:. It seems he had a standing order for one of them if it ever came into the shop. I left without the brass steamer, but took home an Atlas Gold GP38 (custom painted), Athearn RTR GP40X, and Atlas Gold MP15DC, all in Southern. The Athearn unit had a decoder installed, and he gave me a sound only decoder to put in it. Street price of this stuff was around $450 or a touch more. It wasn't exactly the way I thought it was going to turn out, but these are units I can use, are regionally topical, and I don't have to worry about how I'm going to install DCC and sound in a brass steam engine, as well as get it painted.

Other than that, I got an email from one of the mucky-mucks from the local club, it seems the HO layout had a meltdown yesterday, and with our annual swap meet coming up next Saturday. I guess maybe it wasn't my equipment that had the problems, after all...
 
Well its been a LONG time since I have been on here.

Thought I would come check in. I have been really busy with school, although I have done some modeling, just happens to be for tabletop wargaming and not for railroading.

But some discussions on other forums reminded me of this place so stopped in.

And since you guys are train buffs, from what I heard, UP is closing the line going through South St Paul (which should include the St Paul yard they have on it also). There is a 50% chance of water going over the top of the dyke along the river. As the rails are somewhat on top of that, they are clearing out.

Family's business is also getting ready to move if we have to. If water goes over (or breaches the dyke), the business will be 12 feet under water. We are sandbagging Tuesday and getting everything ready to move. Once the call is given, everything has to go. Should be interesting what happens in the area. The bagel plant and American Bottling (7up products) will have to close down for a bit.
 
Good morning. It's 63° and cloudy. The high will be 71° and cloudy with a 50% chance of thunderstorms.

Nothing particular on the schedule today. If I feel up to it I may get some ballast put down. I have a mix that looks rather interesting in the bottle. I wonder if it will look as interesting on the track.
 
Jeffery- What kind of mix do you have?
I bought a "grab bag" at a hobby shop about two years ago and got a bottle of "iron ore red" ballast.
I remember seeing a couple areas in Birmingham that had red ballast using slag from US Steel and smaller iron operations for track on their properties.

I'm thinking of mixing the red with two shades of gray for some main line areas. I'm too cheap to not use it!:D
 
Well, between getting excused for jury duty and helping my father get some paperwork done and getting his RV to the repair shop I had just enough layout time to select the color and grade of ballast I'll be starting with. It's for the spurs and is a medium gray blend with some fine brown and black mixed in. Felt good to drive home after 7 pm without the headlights. Of course it is only an 1/8 of a mile. I can remember when I could walk that without giving it a second thought. Without a vehicle of some kind that 1/8 of a mile might as well be ten miles.
 
Good morning. It's 40° and mostly sunny. The high will be 68° and partly sunny.

Hopefully today will be slower than yesterday was and I can get down to business on the layout without any distractions. I want at least get the spurs ballasted today. Getting part of the main line done wouldn't hurt. The big variable of course is how long can I stay on my feet. If I can get a couple of hours that would be great but I'll take what I can get. There are five spurs to be done and quite a bit of mainline. Can I get it done in a day? Perhaps I'll find out.
 
I'm on a forced day off today:mad:! My trucks fuel pump picked today to stop working on my ways to Job#1!:mad::mad::mad::mad: Lucky I had today off from Job #2! I'm going to lose two days of work From Job#1 and If my sister refuse to give me a lift to Job #2 then I'll lose 2 days there as well!:mad::mad::mad::mad::mad: The Good Lord is really testing me today! :rolleyes:

The fuel pump from my truck cost more than the Mechanic's labor!:mad::mad::mad: My Mechanic's shop has 3 other cars waiting fer new fuel pumps. I was told the ethanol is what shortens the pumps life.


Anyways $$$.$$'s in $$$$$$$$$$$.$$'s out:rolleyes:
 
vato loco said:
My Mechanic's shop has 3 other cars waiting fer new fuel pumps. I was told the ethanol is what shortens the pumps life.
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I wonder how many of those are due to fuel pump relay problems. I had that problem with my Century. They'd put a new pump in and it would work for a while then just quit working. They'd look at it and say 'new pump needed' and put a new one in and it'd do the same thing. After about 7 repeats of this I ran a hot wire back to the 'dead' pump and it came up at full pressure. They changed the relay out and that worked for a while then the relay went bad and they were back to saying 'new pump needed. The ethanol in the fuel ate it up'. I simply reran the hot wire and ran the pump straight off the battery using a toggle switch to turn the pump on and off. And what do you know. It didn't need another pump for another 6 years! By the time the pump really died the rest of the fuel system needed about $4,000 worth of work. Pretty steep for a 16 year old car. So I sold it off to the scrap yard and moved on.
 
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