Took the first step towards building my shop

[Frank S]

Hope your New Years dinner has something special from the trip to town.
I bet there were a few expletives used to get the diesel running. But you beat the beast into coming alive. And you got a good day in. Can't wait to see the insulation and roof sheeting installed.
I learned with my first car (62 Pontiac Safari Station Wagon ~71) that oil viscosity was everything to getting it started when winter temps in North Dakota were -40F. As well a huge Cadillac battery. Mobil One just started being sold, and it was the missing ingredient to cold weather engine starts (5W-30 it was $2.90/qt, when regular oil was $0.65). Every auto also had engine block heaters, either one that installed in a freeze plug, or separate tank in the heater hose line, and there were dip stick heaters as well. I don't see that anymore, as synthetic oils seem to be the norm in all autos.
A new battery, darn things have gotten expensive. That should fix your tropical temp. engine start problem.

If I would take the time to pull the injector pump and re build it, that would go a long way to curing the starting and low power problems with the old gal. The problem with these old minimatic pumps is with an off the shelf rebuild you might as well be shooting craps in Vegas trying to locate one that is a quality reman. To do it my self would mean the backhoe would be down for the length of time to order in replacements for any worn parts, the price of new NOS is not in budget. I know a pump guy in Florida who used to be good if he still does that sort of thing who used to be fairly reasonable. Maybe this coming summer when the need for the backhoe will be lessened hopefully I will be able to do the pump and injectors

[Frank S]

Yeppers nothing like snaps.
it didn't quite get down to freezing here this morning kind of a change from the previous couple mornings whre I saw 18 on the digital even though the weather guessers say things like 25 or 28 I go by how thick the ice forms on the pet bowls when it is thick enough thatI have to use a hammer to break it then I know it was colder than any 25° for 2 or 3 hours. Yesterday and the day before even though it froze hard enough to freeze the hose bib on the pump house even though covered with the useless foam cover it tells me it was on the chilly side becaue the inside of the pump house has a thermostat that switches on the heaters when below 45 so the freeze has to happen between the insulated wall and the valve on the bib. My solution for this is I bought a 8" frost free hose bib so no water will be inside the pipe outside of the wall just haven't gotten it installed yet Probably should ahve done that today LOL

[Frank S]

After several days of wind and being tied up on another project I finally got back to the work on the shop
26 this morning but the wind was blowing out of the North around 15 MPH. went out at 7 to feed the animals and break ice on their water bowls.
Figured the day might be another wash out but around 10 the wind began changing direction and dying down the temp was in the upper 30's so hooked up an electric heater on the backhoe by 11 I tried to start it the wind had calmed I hoisted 7 sheets up then started screwing them down managed to get 4 before the wind decided to make a brief blow not real bad but enough to make it hard to drag the 36 foot long sheets around so took a brief break then got back up there and screwed down the remaining 3 then went and loaded 6 more hoisted them up by now it was around 3 in the afternoon had the last one screwed down by 5 then Jane told me we needed to go cut some more fire wood incase rainy weather comes in Tuesday like they think
Any way I now have 40 feet of the 61 feet of the north roof completed

[Frank S]

Everything cleared away , bus scaffold in place and the remaining purlin staged for lifting

[Frank S]

I'm preparing the base for the beam column that will be in the east wall. Later on more steel will be added to the column to make it the head piece for a rotisserie , which will also double as a weld positioner and an anchor post for frame pulling it will also the door stop for the double sliding 26 ft. door that will be on that side
But I wanted to have an extremely solid embedded base under the column so I started by excavating a hole just over 6 feet deep or about a foot and a half into blueish white clay
.
then dropped in 3 truck rims and used my plate packer to vibrate them into the floor


The worst thing was before I could even get started compacting I had to pull the carb off the engine and clean it as the last time I used it I forgot yo drain the gas and pour in a small amount of $30.00 a gallon stabilized chainsaw fuel then run the compactor a couple minutes on that stuff



As you might see the gin pole set up is proving to be quite the asset



dirt back filled and packed


scrapped away to expose the rims for welding a connecting beam to them



The connecting beam welding in place, more wheels and beams to be added tomorrow