miracle worker

so once in a while I find myself in a position of great humility, and one that will leave me speechless, today is such a day, I am here in Boise and going to participate in the blessing of my first grand daughter, but it is something that takes your breath away and your thoughts when you look at your grandchild and see your child in her, thinking about that deeply, I have little to say, nor can I feel that I am indeed blessed for being a part of all this family thing in some small way some years ago.

John Deere tractor repair man

so a couple days ago on the home construction I had the luck I always do and got my new little excavator stuck, dang it!!!!!!!

I seem to have a tendency to find the muddiest bog holes and see if I can get in and out of them, I don't ever remember getting out easy, so while doing this I turned it sharply and made the rubber track fall off-------------oooooooopppppsssssss, now I feel like I am pretty handy, and can fix most anything after all some of the mechanics I have met are ,,,,, ok at this point I will say smarter than me. I spent 2 hours the first day working on this, my guys spent 3 hours the next day, which is a total of 9 man hours, then today I spent 4 more hours with the help of 4 guys for another hour. so all together that is a grand total of da da da da da dum 19 manhours, which at today's rate is about a whoppin total of 600 dollars, hmmmm maybe I should have called the service company I was so desperately trying to save money by not doing.

HERE IS THE TRUTH OF FIXING A TRACK

this morning I back off a bolt and grease comes squirting out, oh no that cant be right, so I take out a set screw and start tying to move a tension spring, that is not right, but to take the set screw out I had to drill it out, (didn't drill it straight and ruined it)

Then I took off a roller which must be casing the tension, that didn't help a bit, opened the rear drive box, no luck, said many words under my breath of a different language, and thought of giving up and burying the excavator.

ok so I bought a few parts too, here is the tally

bought a wide mouth crescent wrench, needed a 1 1/2 inch wrench, (never worked)

31.99

bought a screw extractor kit for the set screw, which just ruined it

15.99

bought 2 easy out screw removers, (neither fit)

10.50

had to buy a tap to fix the set screw, and a drill bit for it

25.95

and all of this during 3 trips to town, 20 miles each time so mileage at least of

24.00

that totals to a whoppin 108.43

and none of that worked!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

so I finally got a call back from John Deere and they were reading to me how to loosen the track, he said "allowing the grease to bleed from the bolt will relieve the pressure and pumping it up with grease will tighten it" "shall I fax this to you?" why of course, the entire time I was on the right track when I loosened the bolt and grease was coming out, hmmm, from the phone call to the time the track was on was less that 2 minutes, I bought new grease 4.79 greased it and had it running in another few minutes. A TOTAL OF 15 MINUTES WOULD HAVE DONE THE WHOLE JOB AND ONLY GREASE TO PAY FOR! SO MY COST

$708.43, AND A LESSON AGAIN IN READ THE MANUAL FIRST, GOOD NEWS IS AT THE END OF THE DAY TODAY i KNOCKED THE OTHER TRACK OFF AND IN THE MORNING i AM GOING TO PUT IT BACK ON IN 15 MINUTES, i HOPE.