Seems like all I’ve done lately is dig ditches. And re-dig ditches. The past couple of days have been nicer, and other chores have been impatiently tapping their toes.
Ian’s tractor, for example. Its engine gave me some scary stumbles last time we were out – scary in that if it ever really breaks down there’s no force in the neighborhood that could tow it back home. Best guess was it got a slug of bad gas, so I’ve been trying to find and remove said naughty fuel. Things are coming out clear now. I let the engine run for an hour and it never bobbled. So, just to settle my mind since I’m the guy who has to drive it, I decided to take an hour this morning and drive it on the road to the Lair. It’s high on a ridge its whole length and gets no other traffic, so if something goes wrong and I have to leave the tractor there aren’t many better places.
Gas it up. The plan is to spend an hour in low gear at high engine speed for two round-trips on the road. That’ll take an hour. If there’s no problem there, there shouldn’t be a problem anywhere.
Down the road we go. Very slow, but very loud.
Driving an open vehicle always reminds me how beautiful my back yard is.
The tractor is certified fixed! Not that I ever really found anything wrong with it. And that’s good timing. I’ve got a sand-hauling gig that’s gone begging because of the engine trouble and the rain – because I won’t take Gulchendiggensmoothen into the wash again while it’s muddy without very good reason – and I can use the cash. I’m going to the big town about fifty miles away on Monday for an eye appointment. I have the cash for the eye appointment but no more, and it would be nice to knock an item or two off my running shopping list while I’m there.
On to the next chore!
Landlady has this stack of old pallets she wants to haul to the dump. Seems a crime to pay for the disposal of perfectly good firewood – better than juniper, really. And using an electric saw, it doesn’t even cost anything to cut it up!
I generally use a Sawzall for this sort of thing. If you mess up a blade on a nail it doesn’t really matter. Circular saw’s faster, but the blades are expensive.
But the old saw gets hot, and it’s slow. After an hour I’ve enjoyed about as much of this chore as I care to for a while.
Is it a petrol or diseasel engine?
With the biofuel that goes into them both now, neither fuel has much more than a few weeks shelf life from leaving the refinery. Petrol probably more so than diesel, because of the volatility drawing dew laden air into the fuel tank every night.
I had big problems with diesel for my generator earlier in the year, I used a different drum and the fine black dust from rotting biofuel blocked three fuel filters in an hour.
ps, if the nails are well embedded and out of the way on the pallets, you can “chop” them by driving over them, or putting the bucket down on them
It’s diesel, and once in a while one of the two diesel outlets in the little town nearest where we live does get some bad fuel. Word of that spreads fast. We treat the fuel for Ian’s tractor with cetane if it has to sit for more than a few weeks, and it’s in a cool dark place. I’ve never had any trouble with it. But who knows how long it’s been since the tractor’s tank was cleaned?
I think condensation is a problem in any fuel tank that isn’t brim full absolutely all of the time (too many qualifications… no machine that works has its tank full all the time).
I know on my generator, there are drops of water on the inside of the filler cap whenever I open it, but I do live in a high rainfall area.
Unfortunately we’re not able to buy diesel which doesn’t contain biofuel, and it doesn’t seem to matter how clean we keep the storage tanks, they all get a coating of black dust inside.
That dust really clogs fuel filters, so much so that I’ve started using cheap inline filters ahead of the main filter cartridge. They’re a pain as they do let some air in which has to be bled out periodically, but at least its only one or two pounds worth of filter getting thrown away every 50 hours or so.
In actual contact with water, the bio diesel produces a slimy gel, that looks like frog spawn, and that even seems to be able to clog the gauze in the lift pump glass.
needless to say, seasonal machines, like combine harvesters or the crawlers for winter time are a real pain, after the fuel has stood for 6 to 12 months.
A pal who services lawn mowers says that two or three months is enough for British petrol to go off, and the first thing he tries when someone brings one in which won’t start or run, is to drain the tank and put some fresh fuel in, and that usually does the job.
Another friend who’s a fair weather biker (around here that means about five days a year) has scrounged some avgas for his bike. It’s got a good old fashioned carburetor, and there are no oxygen detectors for the lead to poison, I gather he also needs to half the oil change interval.
Much smaller scale, of course, but I keep the fuel tank on my lawn tractor topped off between uses. I use a “stabilizer” which shall remain unnamed (initials are S-B) and have had no problem with fuel even after several months of idleness. I put the stabilizer in the 5-gallon cans I use, and it seems to do the job well, even when the fuel level in the cans gets low.
Like you, I live in an area where trees are rare. I collect pallets every chance I get. Some of it ends up in various projects, but most of it goes into my rocket mass heater.