The Best Laid Plans or How Planning Doesn’t Mean Squat!

My employer is very generous with providing the best tools for the job.  However they are a bit forgetful that some of those tools require an appropriate work area to use them in.  Specifically a tool that involves new skills and keeping those skills up to speed for the job.  The tool in question is a new Miller water cooled 250DX TIG machine.

                                                       

                                                      The Miller is as big as a frig.

So my boss and co-worker agreed that Kiotee Garage would be a fine place to temporarily house the machine so that he and I both had a shop area for increasing and practices our welding skills.

However once the machine was in place and ready for use I found that despite appearances the electrical service to the garage was only 40 AMPS and not the required 50 AMPS.

My co-worker is also a Master Electrician and when he looked over the power feed to the garage he found a ticking time bomb in my main breaker for the house and garage.  Seems the original builder/owner decided it would be a great idea to feed the 240 to the garage from the transformer side of the feed and not from the main breaker panel. 

Now all of this was identified at the beginning of a week of holiday time I was going to use to practice some welding technique.  No I spent my time off digging up the yard to replace the direct buried cable to the garage.  Then placed conduit and ran a new 50 AMP service.  Then of course a bit of rewiring on the house side to eliminate the time bomb circuit.

 

                                         The trench required to pull out the direct buried

                                         line and replace with conduit and higher rated

                                         cable.

All the Major Bits and Pieces.

I don’t have tons of spares stacked in the garage so for the Overland I have been collecting the bits as I can.  And believe me it’s tough finding the right parts when you do what I’m doing up here the Big Sky Country.   Not complaining just mentioning why this build seems to drag on forever.

And of course the demands of job and other peoples project and needs divert my time and attention.  Not to mention the weather and having an unheated garage.  Not complaining or whining just stating some facts of my life.

So here is the inventory of big bits.  Of course I have the engine, Norton transmission and clutch, the front and rear hubs and wheels plus now I have the girder fork I wanted.

So in reality life is good in The Kiotee Garage.  This, of course, means the next step will be to set everything up and build a frame to house all of these bits and pieces.  I’m hoping for late spring to have something that looks like a rolling chassis.

                                          The results of the first snow storm.

                                          The girder fork and front wheel on the bench.

A friend in the UK, a builder of huge talent, traded me the girders for a springer fork I had that became spare when I got fixated on having a girder for the Overland.  The fork is straight and one of the simpler designs of girder.  No idea of the original manufacture but it could be an early Webb.  Of course that is really not too important.  It will need some refurbishment but that is the same with all the bits and pieces I’m using for this build. 

Off the Game!

In years past the transition between seasons was looked forward too.  The cooling temperatures, the leaves turning colors, birds flying south and expectations of the first snow provided wonderful sign posts for closing out the year.

However this year the national election sucked all the joy out of this years’ close out.  The election did so by being brutal, stupid, and ugly.  In my opinion it all missed the entire point of what is going on in this country and around the world.

And of course it was hard over the last few months to ignore the election.  It was like a dripping faucet.  Try as you might it couldn’t be fixed, turned off or ignored.  So you just hope to out live it without suffering any major psychic damage.

So the way I tried to do that was to help my son with his Rover projects.  First thing was we stripped a 72 two door Ranger Rover to the bare frame and drive line.  Then we started doing the same to a 4 door Range Rover County LWB.  Mined a bunch of Birmabright for the Overland and recycled a good bit of steel. 

I think the plan is to build a sort of a trialer sort of thing out of the LWB County frame and drive line.  As for the 72 it may very well become a Series flatbed shop truck; would be nice to have a flatbed to transport the JAPs on.

                         The rolling chassis and drive line of the 72 under tarp and snow.

                            The Range Rover LWB County in the process of being stripped.