only funny cuz it's true... my tractor day this afternoon!

[souNdguy]

got off work after lunch.. needed to come home and get ready to help my horse farrier put up hay this weekend. I help him load and move hay and i get some hay for free.. etc.

I use an old beater 850 with a superior loader to move bales .... my only 00 series with power steering...etc.

anyway.. i've been neglecting it a tad for the last 2 years. ( it's only been getitng oil changes and air cleaner servicing for the last couple.. )

anyway. push button starter died sometime last year and I've just been hotwireing it wit hte lil wire for a while. figured it was time to fix that.

went to pull her up to the shot and cut some of the kudzu that grew on her at the fence row where i parked her in march after putting out my last hay earlier this year.

starter gave a couple tries and then nada.. just solenoid click.

weak bat i told myself.

pulle dthe charger out of the equipment shed 20' away, plus my tool bag. put charger on.. hooked vom to starter cable.. hmm.. 12v to the starter.. but no movie.... banged it a couple times with a whacker. thinking brushes finally got a lil short. nope.

ok... time to pull starter... got starter about half way out ( loader frame's a PITA ). noticed fuel leaking from carb breather hose. slipped it off.. lost about a cup of gas, with gas steadily trickling out... hit it with the whacker a few times. nada. shut gas off. went ahead and puleld carb as it was gonna have to come off to get the starter out anyway.

starter had a wee bit of thrust play.. say about 900 thousandths...

threw her on the bench to work on another day, and then went to my spares shelf and selected my last spare starter. i had home-rebuilt this one and swapped it off my naa a while back..

swapped the drive over and then took the carb apart.

yummy.

not bad actually. some rust and a lil sediment.. and a stuck float valve.

cleaned it all up in a dip... cut a gasket out of some paperboard using a template i keep in my gasket template folder.

got back out to tractor with fresh starter and carb still smelling like chem-dip. threw them both on, moved ground wire down to starter ear, gave a quick 2 turns to the main and 1.5 to the idle,
killed bat charger. got the linkages back on.. air hose.. turned gas on.. figured i'd need to clean plugs or dink with the points .. she banged o n the first rev... ran smoother than she ran last year. I thought she might have a fouled plug as she was running rough last time i used her.. musta been bad case of nasty carb.

feeling triumphant, i started driving her to the shop to get that push button for the starter fixed. about half way there i noticed the swarm of hornets coming out from under the cowling.. i took about .75 seconds to turn the key off and left her in gear and exited to the left real quick!

came back with a pump up sprayer loaded with permethren and gave the entire machine a good coating.

while the bugs were vacating and passing on i mowed for a bit.

hour later.. no more bugs.. got her to the shop and the push button install went in with no hitches... strangely enough.

de weeded her.. and noticed rears were sagging a lil.

I bet a lil air will fix them up. hit both rears with the air line.. and wouldn't ya know it. both rear stems started peeing water and eco-af.. couldn't get em to stop. grabbed the jack and a timber and bumped the rear offf the ground to take some pressure off. put in a couple valve stem cores and all was well.

ps squealed a lil bit.. probably a hair low on oil... filter was new as of this year.. so topped that lil sump off.. cut oring in the squezum clamp putting cover back on...... grrr... changed oring ...looked at a few other minor repairs.. but decided against them. everything i touched today broke while servicing it.. so figured i had done enough!

 

[Royse]

That would be hilarious if it didn't sound so much like some
of my days! Sometimes I would be better off at work.
I'm glad to know I'm not the only one! Thanks for the laugh.
I'm also glad you got it back on the working side!

 

[Fred Werring]

Was thinking this sounds about normal...till I got to the part about the hornets...amazing how fast you can move with the right motivation, isn't it?

I'm laughing with you, not at you...much

Be Good
Fred

 

[cbrown9064]

That's a great write-up Soundguy! I could feel your pain all the way. I feel the same way when working on my F-150 snowplow truck. I bet you were moving pretty darn fast when you saw those hornets!

 

[RBnSC]

Last week My brother and I went over to a friends house and was helping identify a ford tractor (640 with a sherman). MY brother pulled the hood and found a huge wasp nest and was faster than all of them except one.
Ron

 

[NoNewParts]

good story
old equipment, work on em an hour to do 15 minutes of tractor work.
And if you only have a short time to get some mowing done,
you can bet, they will be difficult!

dang bees, SOP, 'OLE' the tarp off cuz there will always be bees attached to it.
long stick to lift off the can on the exhaust.
whack the hood to see where they come out this time.
And, never, ever, forget to check for a nest on the bottom of the seat..... :shock:

 

[Mark Slater]

That sounds so much like me last Sunday with my 3400. Except I snapped the throttle setscrew in half, had to cut off the collar, and found the hornet's nest as soon as I removed the cowling for the instrument panel. I never got back to putting in the new starter switch because of the thunderstorm and nightfall. Still got to work on the PS, swing cylinders, etc...

I gave up after I figured the tractor universe was against me that day. Everything I touched seemed to make more work so I stopped.

Thanks souNdguy. Glad to know I'm not the only one with bad tractor luck this week.

 

[barney stephens]

Hey guys ever heard of "ole murphy" ie. anything that can go wrong will go wrong. Seems ole murphy is hiding some place close by and making things go haywire,and he knows every trick in the book.So when ole murphy gets after you BE WARE!!! get away any way you can!!!!Signed Barney the (alabama Mule) Stephens have a nice day!!! P.S. Soundguy i bet you get lots of replys to this story

 

[Abnormal]

Keeps life interestin' don't it )

 

[Anonymous-0]

I worked with a guy who believed in the "force" like the Jedi Force fro Star Wars. he explained it me that there is a certain vibration to everthing and you can control things with your mind. so we were painting a tube pipe fence and all of a sudden a swarm of hornets came shooting out of the pipe. My instinct, run. So I bolted. He screamed to use the force. And he started blowing air at them. All I heard as I ran away was his huffing frantically trying to use the force and his frequent bursts of obscenity when he got stung. I do have this to surmise about the force. him staying there as bait did save me =)

 

[crazylocha]

Sorry to hear about solvable issues, SG. Seems like all our farmers will be scrambling to get hay cut, dried, n put away before more rain next week. Tryi.g to juggle moving house to farm and still get runs made to get 5000+ rolls (not to mention bales too) at same time hauled is gonna be interesting. One of our three trucks went down last week with computer issues and had to bring it back from Georgia at 50mph max and half power, hoping new brain gets it back up in time(can I get one of those too??). Duck taping the tractor together long enough to get last few things done at farm so ready for Tuesdays move. Ran outta bubblegum last weekend. Fortunately the education from you and others here has helped keep her going. Almost there! Get tbrough this, feel free to drop me a line if need extra hand, would love to watch/learn the cutting side of things.

NoNewParts: Bees=good!! Hornets=bad!! Some of us beekeepers have to show up at peoples places to "rescue" a swarm of bees, just to have to take out a simple hornets nest. Try not to confuse them,, hornets thinking they are bees is just too much to put on the plate right now. Wonder if there is a help group for hornets with identity issues?

 

[redruff]

That's how things go with

1. My kids car
2. My tractor
3. My snowmobile...

Might help if I owned something from the last couple decades!

 

[NoNewParts]

(quoted from post at 12:52:09 09/26/13)
NoNewParts: Bees=good!! Hornets=bad!! Some of us beekeepers have to show up at peoples places to "rescue" a swarm of bees, just to have to take out a simple hornets nest. Try not to confuse them,, hornets thinking they are bees is just too much to put on the plate right now. Wonder if there is a help group for hornets with identity issues?

gotcha. bad slang on my part. Kleenex-tissue thing
living in the country my whole life, I was taught early
to leave the good bees alone. Not a problem, they leave
me alone too. Only honeybee stings I've ever got are from stepping on one with bare feet in clover.
Around here, my battle is always with those mean little yellow
critters that are ALWAYS looking for a fight. In the ground, in every tiny hole in my old house, in-on every piece of machinery.....endless

 

[crazylocha]

Not meaning to hijack SG's thread, so quick off topic:

Delicate balance with Hornets/Mud Dawbers/etc.
In the current state of the Ag industry, we spend Trillions on chemicals and chem resistant seed to eliminate certain weeds and pests. Most types of caterpillars are food source for Hornets and the likes. Yet we go out of our way to kill both, instead of letting nature balance herself out. This year my tractor shed was full of mud dawbers, hundreds and hundreds of clay mud tubes. Funny, lower numbers of moths and plant eating caterpillars. Yet most "Beeks" would have an absolute cow. (natural enemy of bees if no other food source) My hives are growing (recent late season split too!!) and doing just fine. Cooler weather just showed up in last few days after rain, and dawbers and hornets have just about disappeared, along with most worms/caterpillars.

I will explain it to them once and only once. This area is not for them, tell their cousins and they can co-exist. Otherwise its brake cleaner time. Can't have ANY of the permethrins or other anti bug solutions on property due to hives.

Thought for years I was allergic to bee's. Turned out have a yellow jacket issue due to childhood 100+ sting incident. Forever will have an extremely high sensitivity there. Now I enjoy having 60,000+ women to try to please. :shock:

 

[redruff]

(quoted from post at 14:29:16 09/27/13) Not meaning to hijack SG's thread, so quick off topic:

Delicate balance with Hornets/Mud Dawbers/etc.
In the current state of the Ag industry, we spend Trillions on chemicals and chem resistant seed to eliminate certain weeds and pests. Most types of caterpillars are food source for Hornets and the likes. Yet we go out of our way to kill both, instead of letting nature balance herself out. This year my tractor shed was full of mud dawbers, hundreds and hundreds of clay mud tubes. Funny, lower numbers of moths and plant eating caterpillars. Yet most "Beeks" would have an absolute cow. (natural enemy of bees if no other food source) My hives are growing (recent late season split too!!) and doing just fine. Cooler weather just showed up in last few days after rain, and dawbers and hornets have just about disappeared, along with most worms/caterpillars.

I will explain it to them once and only once. This area is not for them, tell their cousins and they can co-exist. Otherwise its brake cleaner time. Can't have ANY of the permethrins or other anti bug solutions on property due to hives.

Thought for years I was allergic to bee's. Turned out have a yellow jacket issue due to childhood 100+ sting incident. Forever will have an extremely high sensitivity there. Now I enjoy having 60,000+ women to try to please. :shock:

So your saying your a hornet whisperer? :lol:

 

[HCooke]

Thanks for the story; I thought only I had days like that! Still, you got a lot of work done on that tractor in a short time.

 

[souNdguy]

what amazes me is that the hornets let me put the bat on charge ( charger cables under hood onto batery, flip open hood to add gas.

remove starter and carb, put it all back on.. then drive half way thru the pasture before they went all 'swarm' on me.

waited till i was moving.

 

[redruff]

(quoted from post at 21:43:50 09/27/13) what amazes me is that the hornets let me put the bat on charge ( charger cables under hood onto batery, flip open hood to add gas.

remove starter and carb, put it all back on.. then drive half way thru the pasture before they went all 'swarm' on me.

waited till i was moving.

They are goofy! Had some in the soffet at the farm right by the front door.
I went in and out all summer no problem. My bro goes out once and a couple jumped right on him and stung him...

 

[souNdguy]

i had some that built a nest inthe crux of a loder arm pivot.

I was all over that machine working on it.. then walked UNDER the laoder in front of the tractor and a few dropepd on me to attack. they got me... I destroyed their city though.. later.

 

[crazylocha]

RedRuff, Ask your bro if he had bananas beforehand <wink>

 

[souNdguy]

i'm not following???

 

[crazylocha]

Ever notice how ants time themselves to bite all at the same time?
They exude a pheromone that acts as signal="time to attack".

Bees, wasp, hornets etc. have the same thing.

Smells like bananas all of a sudden?


[color=red:814292d4b7][size=24:814292d4b7]RUNNNNNNNNNN!!!!!!!!!!!![/color:814292d4b7][/size:814292d4b7]

Formerly working for the worlds largest retailer, we had 36 cooling towers on roof. One of the contractors grabbed banana before heading up to roof to change filters and do pump service (was leaking 170lbs of Freon/day@$57/lb..

Yup, you can see it coming now....

He gets up there and cracks the side open. Springtime. Swarm season. Insects multiplying like crazy.

Banana in his left hand, lifted panel with right. High Definition rooftop cameras had great views of him running around that roof. Customers outside in parking lot called 911 and store reporting "Screaming Girl" sounds coming from roof.

90% of his stings? Left arm and face!!! He had a reason to scream like a girl.

Most flying stinging insects DON'T lose their stingers. They just kept pounding him, latched on, injecting venom.

Boss knew I had bees. Asked if I wanted to go upstairs and see if I could get them out. Pulled two hornets that were still lock-jawed on his left shoulder to identify the "issue". After squishing, had to say no thanks, I'll pass on that opportunity.


Even artificial banana flavoring will signal "Red Alert/Attack". Some Beeks have experiences where the artificial will still exude through your sweat/skin the next day, although that hasn't been tested by researchers. Any volunteers? Hear there is all the free bananas you could want.

Moral to the story? You betcha....
Might want to pay for that banana before you eat it next time. Asset Protection had him arrested for petty theft while EMS were treating him, they were there anyway for 911 calls. Boss called him at E.R. and fired him soon as he got out.