# Fossil Ledges Crawler is alive...



## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

It's alive Robin. My friend Bert, (the diesel mechanic), gave up on it for now, too many pressing Fall repairs. We've had a couple of days of warm weather and I was sulking because I now have about 460 dollars in parts in it and didn't want to wait for Spring. So, I put the top end together, visualized some of Biring's chicken rituals, and the beastie actually started. I was able to move three horse manure piles and cleared a fence row. I ran it for over three hours today.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

If it hangs together, I will run it for about seven more hours, adjust the valves, time the injectors and put the hood and sheet metal back on it. Tomorrow, I need to change the oil and pressure wash it so I can grease everything before winter.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Huge congratulations on getting it out of the barn under its own power. 

So, what was the final DX?


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## Overmountain1 (Jun 5, 2020)

Sweet! That's great news, I'm sure! We are looking into getting some type of tractor too, altho likely nothing as big as this. And yes I know it's not a tractor, just sayin.  
Awesome work! I'm so spoiled- my hubbs fixes it all, a lot like you folk! He owned a diesel truck for maybe a year before he took over the maintenance and work, and now he could rebuild one. That man can learn anything.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I miss my tractor. I used that thing more than I drove my truck. Here it's just not as useful because I'm so heavily treed here.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> Huge congratulations on getting it out of the barn under its own power.
> 
> So, what was the final DX?


The final DX is a leaking big O ring at the bottom of the front cylinder liner. It keeps oil and antifreeze out of the cylinder. The blower was getting locked up because antifreeze was getting in. All of that antifreeze, (three gallons since the rebuild last year, about 55 hours of run time), went out the exhaust or into the crankcase oil, which looks like a milkshake. All because that O ring didn't seal properly down in the block. So after re-doing the entire head again and getting all the antifreeze out, I tried a bottle of sealer in the block. So far it is holding. If that O ring stays sealed then it's good to go. If it leaks, then the tractor goes in the barn for a winter teardown. The whole head and top end would have to come off, then the belly pan, oil pan, pistons, and connecting rods. Then the offending cylinder liner would have to be removed and a new rubber O ring installed. After that the assembly is the reverse of taking it apart. All for a several dollar big rubber O ring.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> I miss my tractor. I used that thing more than I drove my truck. Here it's just not as useful because I'm so heavily treed here.


What kind of tractor?


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

A Kubota L series. 

So the tear down you did the first time didn't go that deep? 

Was it doing any of that kind of leaking before the original work? Or did the original work cause that seal to fail?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Kubotas are great tractors! The John Deere crawler has a rebuilt head, new pistons, cylinders, the whole rebuild kit was done. It was not leaking before, it was just worn out and smoking too much. It was a new O ring that failed, an inexpensive part that would necessitate a total rebuild. So we shall see, cross my fingers, I'm going to try to move some of the pond dirt to a low place in the back pasture where the horses have made it muddy. I'm still trying to take advantage of this warm weather.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Well, you know I'm pulling for it to keep on trucking while you need it right now. 

It stinks that you did all of that work and had that one little thing fail.

I need to go see what the Guineas are up to.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Hope your day goes okay with the Guineas and the Baby.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

LOL You know how you recognize their different voices? That's what got me up to go see what they had gotten into that time.

When are you planning on moving the dirt? I'm like, come on machine don't fail him now.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I am moving dirt today. It's still wet, every farm around me is harvesting corn, although the moisture content is still a few percent too high.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Which yields stuck Combines, busted Combines and Combines with blown engines. Everyone feels pressure with the weather and will run the Combines 24 hours a day.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I get the machine failures from being overworked. I didn't know that the wet corn could magnify the failures. 

What are they aiming for? The weather being agreeable like they do down here with cotton?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

They need the weather to be dry enough so the combines don't get stuck. You can harvest higher moisture corn and soybeans but you lose money because you have to dry the grain to a lower moisture content. When I was a kid, we had two Massey Ferguson combines and we always kept an extra rebuilt spare engine to swap when you blew one up. Then you took that one and rebuilt it for next year. The motors are much more rebuildable than car or truck engines you can only bore a few times. In ag engines you replace the cylinders and the pistons as sets.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

OK, now that makes perfect sense. We can have rain one day and it be dry enough the next for heavy farm machinery due to sandy soil in many areas. 

As you can tell I interpreted that the higher water content corn was the reason for the breakdowns.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

So we are at the foothill/floodplain of the last ice age glacier here at Nelson Ledges Township where the rock was dumped. Then the sand washed out to Parkman, Newton Falls and Silica Sand. Then the sticky clay mud washed out to Southington and Braceville Townships. I have the sticky clay mud. The crawler weighs about 6400 pounds and practically walks on water, when I was done today I bet there was easily a thousand pounds of clay mud stuck to the undercarriage. I wanted to get the muddy work done before I pressure wash it and grease it for winter. I was exhausted but I spent the extra half hour knocking mud off of it with a shovel so there would be less mess pressure washing it.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> OK, now that makes perfect sense. We can have rain one day and it be dry enough the next for heavy farm machinery due to sandy soil in many areas.
> 
> As you can tell I interpreted that the higher water content corn was the reason for the breakdowns.


The local farmers get a little wild eyed during harvest time, it's a lot of stress, and nobody around here has new equipment, so you try to go as easy as you can on it. The clay mud however is very hard on engines and transmissions.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Even when I was in college as an undergraduate, I still wanted to farm more than anything. My family said not under any circumstances! The irony is, as the kid who returned to Ohio I ended up with the farm anyway, at a point where I couldn't farm because I was a government employee.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I am no fan of heavy clay soil. I'm even less of a fan of TN Highland Rim soil. All of the top soil eroded into the valleys leaving behind something that not even a tractor auger could break through. 

They do here too. Cotton is maturing just as hurricane season is getting really fired up. And getting that last cut of hay in before the Fall rains settle in. 

I see a lot of newer equipment here. I think it's more because they hire out much of the harvesting to others. 

At least you are doing what you wanted to do all along now. And can be there full time.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Other than wishing I was younger so I could handle this farm better, I am very happy!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

How long have you been back on the farm? 

For me the gradual loss of strength and stamina has me finding workarounds on a regular basis. Takes me longer because I have to stand back and analyze when I'm going to do something big/heavy. I make several changes to my thoughts several times before tackling whatever. That's where my tractor was so helpful. Just go get the tractor, it can handle it. 

I have been entertaining the thought of getting the smaller version of the L series.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

12 years, but this is the first year retired without a government job. A smaller Kubota might serve you well with your current workload!


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

So, it's really only been this year that you've had the time to devote totally to the farm. Right there I can see a problem. Wanting to get everything that you want to get done now, not later. Been there, done that. Still do that.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I purchased this farm about fifteen years ago when I sold a property in Cleveland to be closer to my aging parents. While I was working my father coordinated getting this place into shape, it had been fallow for six years. Now my parents are gone and I am retired. The nonprofit was incorporated in 2013 and has required a ton of work since then. Just too many projects, but I got a lot done this year.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

So, if you stand back and really look you'll see that in fact, you did accomplish a lot.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

A time for every season.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

It's my own fault, the pressure I put myself under.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Yep, I get that. Most of us do it. Sometimes I envy those that can pace themselves and do one thing at a time while steadily moving forward.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Yeah, I tend to always be obsessed with trying to finish the project at hand.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

I might be stuck in the house today, it's trying to rain. But that's OK, we need the rain. What's not OK is that I will stuck doing housework.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

It's supposed to start raining here tonight but it's the last day it's going to be in the 70s, so I've got a bunch of stuff to get done while the weather is this warm.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Oh yeah. Grabbing that nice weather is top of the list for outside stuff. 

Years ago, when I still lived in N. Ga., every single weekend it rained for months making it impossible to get outside work done. But weekdays were wonderful and I was stuck at a desk. 

As you can tell, I never forgot that.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

It's tough, all those years working and not being able to get everything done at home.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

It was a long day yesterday, we put up 16 thousand pounds of hay in the barn.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Dang it! I whined about putting up a ton. Does yours get put up in a loft or do you have a haybarn?

Have you fired up the beast more?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

It's put up in the loft with my Case loader. They are heavier round bales, this second cutting.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Cross my fingers, the crawler is running well and I got all of my dirt moved. Today it gets pressure washed and greased, since the good weather is gone.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Wait, I've never heard of anyone putting round bales in a loft. I see them in hoop buildings or post and beam but never in a loft.

After all that grief with it I hope it continues functioning so you don't have to do another tear down.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

The loft floor is thirteen feet, the loader with two bale spears on the bucket, just reaches it. Then whatever, bale Melissa is using for the horses, she unrolls hay for the morning and evening feeding and throws it down. It's a three person operation getting all that hay up there. We are ready for winter though.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Why round bales?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

Because that's all anybody makes anymore. There are so few small farms making small square bales. We get our hay from a friend, This year he farmed seven hundred acres of corn and soybeans and three hundred acres of hay. Almost all of the hay gets made into insulage round bales for cattle and trucked to Michigan. He only makes a few hundred horse hay bales for us and two other small farms. I guess it's more cost efficient to make big dense bales. There is also a type of big rectangular bale being made now, which is more storage efficient and you can put more on a semi trailer.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

It's been years since I've had horses. I remember even then sometimes it was a challenge to find small bales. I usually had to drive quite a distance to get what I needed. One of the people I got hay from had a semi they drove to KY to pick up hay.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

I remember one bad year here in Ohio where they trucked in a lot of hay from Kentucky.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

Yeah, I remember years when they were shipping hay from further west when we had a drought in TN.


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## danathome (Sep 14, 2020)

Poultry Judge said:


> If it hangs together, I will run it for about seven more hours, adjust the valves, time the injectors and put the hood and sheet metal back on it. Tomorrow, I need to change the oil and pressure wash it so I can grease everything before winter.


Sure do wish I had your machine here for a couple days. When Kimmi and I bought this property a few years ago I had wished there was a pond on the property. Muuuucccchhhhhhh later a neighbor asked about the pond in our woodlot. WHAT POND? When we looked very closely...a pond we had- completely and thoroughly filled with every kind of garbage imaginable; years upon years of household garbage-everything from kitchen sinks to toilets to carpets to rugs to old toys and tires to dirty disposable diapers.

Some day we hope to reclaim the woodland pond.


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## robin416 (Sep 8, 2013)

danathome said:


> Sure do wish I had your machine here for a couple days. When Kimmi and I bought this property a few years ago I had wished there was a pond on the property. Muuuucccchhhhhhh later a neighbor asked about the pond in our woodlot. WHAT POND? When we looked very closely...a pond we had- completely and thoroughly filled with every kind of garbage imaginable; years upon years of household garbage-everything from kitchen sinks to toilets to carpets to rugs to old toys and tires to dirty disposable diapers.
> 
> Some day we hope to reclaim the woodland pond.


Oops. But the pond had to be empty if you were filling it with trash. It seems the only ponds that continue to hold water where I lived were those fed by a spring. I know both ponds on our property were spring fed.


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

danathome said:


> Sure do wish I had your machine here for a couple days. When Kimmi and I bought this property a few years ago I had wished there was a pond on the property. Muuuucccchhhhhhh later a neighbor asked about the pond in our woodlot. WHAT POND? When we looked very closely...a pond we had- completely and thoroughly filled with every kind of garbage imaginable; years upon years of household garbage-everything from kitchen sinks to toilets to carpets to rugs to old toys and tires to dirty disposable diapers.
> 
> Some day we hope to reclaim the woodland pond.


Sounds terrible, why do people fill in ponds with trash?


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## Poultry Judge (Jul 15, 2020)

robin416 said:


> Oops. But the pond had to be empty if you were filling it with trash. It seems the only ponds that continue to hold water where I lived were those fed by a spring. I know both ponds on our property were spring fed.


Mine is spring fed, it makes a big difference.


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