The Gustavus Thread

[IdahoScrapper]

Be sure to take pics and post your build progress.

[Hypoman]

Hey Gus, in your pic of the sterling, what is that thing that looks kinda like a whistle?
















The best road to progress is freedom's road.
John F. Kennedy

[gustavus]

Hey Gus, in your pic of the sterling, what is that thing that looks kinda like a whistle?

It might be the mouth piece from an old flute.

[gustavus]

Couldn't ask for a sweeter deal, crane truck sold to a neighbor who will use it seasonally for his fertilizer business to carry and off load bulk sacks into the spreader.

Besides being cashed out on the truck, I'll still have the use of it during the off season.

I've told him about the front drums and shoes and suggested that he swap in the front axle from the buss which has a more common drum and shoes plus keeping the sister diesel engine for a spare - so there maybe more money on the table.

Maybe even some paid mechanical work doing the swap, who better to do the work than I who knows this truck inside out.

[gustavus]

The buss in the background will give me the frame rails for my trailer - 35 ft x two, in the foreground are the Torflex axles which I bought for $250.00 not a bad deal considering each axle is worth $800.00 not counting rims and tires.

Spent the afternoon yesterday cutting the axles free of the sub-frame, they're ready to lift out but the work does not end there still have to remove excess iron from the mounting pads. The axles were welded directly to the sub frame, on my trailer I'm going to purchase the proper mounting kit where the kit is welded to the sub with the axles bolted to it.

Should I ever have to replace one unbolting makes more sense than gouging out welds.

Turns out the axles are 8,000 lb, the 7K axle uses a backing plate with 4 bolt holes while the 8K uses 5.

Three advantages of going with the gooseneck easier to hook up and back up, allows for 20 percent of the GVW on the tongue better weight distribution.

The downside of tridem is that they tend to scuff tires on a short turning radius.

The red box to the right of the axles is my faithful 70 amp plasma.

[newattitude]

Man, I wished I lived close by you Gus, I'd be over there every day checking out what you are doing and learning a thing or two! You'd either have to shoo me away or put me to work to get out of your hair! Lol! I love this kind of stuff, wish I had more know how and experience to do these kinds of things so I love seeing what you're doing all the time!

[gustavus]

Man, I wished I lived close by you Gus, I'd be over there every day checking out what you are doing and learning a thing or two! You'd either have to shoo me away or put me to work to get out of your hair! Lol! I love this kind of stuff, wish I had more know how and experience to do these kinds of things so I love seeing what you're doing all the time!

newattitude with the amount of enthusiasm and effort you put into scrapping you would be a breath of fresh air, I would welcome your company anytime you wish to come for a visit.

The gods work in mysterious ways, the fellow came and cashed me out on the crane truck, I mentioned to him that I would like to keep the hydraulic winch when he said hold on there bro.

Sitting on the tail gate is a brand new 9 hp diesel engine, hydraulic winch and a fifth wheel, total cost - Nil. Plus I have use of the crane truck for another two weeks for which I have a couple of small jobs to do.

Now that I have the makings of a hydraulic pack, what I would like is a telescopic ram such as those used on grain trucks I hate under body hoists. I'll have to see what the scrap yard holds in store for me next week.

[gustavus]

One time a found and old 56 International 3 ton sitting is a field with no engine or transmission paid $200.00 for it had had her towed home. Bought a Chevy 350 from the scrap yard to use for making up my mounting brackets.

On engine transplants I set the engine where I want it then cut my templates from cardboard to transfer over to steel, somewhere I got a hydraulic pump from a fishing boat these have magnetic clutches on them and are sweet and cheap to install.

Then a good friend gave me some 12 volt spool valves which allowed me to operate my hydraulics remotely from an umbilical cord, installed one power beyond valve so that I could direct fluid to either the winch or the hoist.

The deck ended up with a telescopic hoist with the winch mounted onto the deck, the winch was plumbed in with solid tubing with flex hose at the hinge so that I could run the winch with the deck up or down.

To finnish the truck off peeled out all the glass, sand blasted then painted her Emerald Green in Perl using Endura paint, front bumper and grill were painted white but found that all that white was an overkill so I repainted the bumper in green. Because it had been previously painted white the new effect looked good.

Painting with Perl is a task in itself, after the undercoat is applied you need a base coat color which will enhance the final top coat in this case emerald green which was again finished in a clear coat.

After installing that scrap yard engine fired her up, I got a year and a half out of it before I came across an LT1. which ran on an Impco propane system with fuel coming from a 200 liter tank.

I reworked the heads, with stellite valve seats and SS valves with bronze guides and teflon valve seals which the stems had to be machined to accept. The kit to install the bronze guides and valve seals was something like $500.00.

I built the truck while living in Surrey BC then just before Xmas moved the family up the Valley, anyhow I had made some money and bought a CD Player for my Sansui AU-5900 amp, wife was so pissed.

I told her no problem the kids would have Xmas, as usual, yea I pulled it off in spades.

But CD's were just coming in and I had to have one, when my brother in law came over to prove my point that tapes stretched we put an identical album into the tape player with the other into the CD and started them simultaneously switching tape or CD over to speakers occasionally. Well it didn't take long to notice that the tape was stretched and lagging behind.

I should have been a salesman I could have sold a million CD players based on this information alone.

[newattitude]

Did that guy bought your truck give you those items in part trade?

[gustavus]

Did that guy bought your truck give you those items in part trade?

No, I got my asking price. The extras were to keep my sticky fingers from removing the hydraulic winch already mounted on the crane.

After he gave me all this stuff I told him that he could have the front axle and tires from the Buss soon to be parted out.

Since pricing out the winch $1700.00, fifth wheel $600.00 Diesel engine $900.00 I feel better having given him the extras from my end in return.

When your message came in, I was busy doing my research. The winch requires 15 GPM at 1800 psi, I can get this pump from Princess Auto for under $100.00 now to find out if a 10 HP engine is enough power to run that pump.

I want to direct couple the pump to the engine to save space keeping everything nice and compact, when I get to that part will post pictures of the housing I will make and the means of coupling the pump to engine.

[gustavus]

The height of stupidity and waste of tax payers money, one more reason to live in the country.

The City of Winnipeg bought new garbage trucks equipped with a bionic arm, imagine handling those plastic bins -30 degrees. The city charges $100.00 to replace a damaged bin they hold your property hostage to assure the bill gets paid.

[Mechanic688]

The height of stupidity and waste of tax payers money, one more reason to live in the country.

The City of Winnipeg bought new garbage trucks equipped with a bionic arm, imagine handling those plastic bins -30 degrees. The city charges $100.00 to replace a damaged bin they hold your property hostage to assure the bill gets paid.

They have them all over down here also, I think that their "saving money" by not paying for a second employee plus the benefits per hour. Per truck would add up to be quite a bit of savings per week.

[gustavus]

Turns out that the little Chinese clone Yanmar at 10 hp only has enough power to run an 8 gpm hydraulic pump which is about half the volume of oil that I need for the winch. Sure the winch will run but with severely depreciated performance.

So it looks like I'm on the hunt for the same type of pump I had used on that 56 International I had built years ago.

[gustavus]

Hooked on Milwaukee tools, yesterday added this 12" compound miter saw to my collection, darn thing cut a perfect 45* angle right out of the box. I'll be using the saw to cut picture frame stock to make my own frames.

Finally after two years I got around to filling that big hole where my overhead garage door used to be before I ripped it out. The previous owner had just installed a pair of them with door openers. I hate those overhead doors with a passion.

Now I have a slider to fill the hole with a man door built in, I sacrificed an inside wall and have the slider inside the building so that i do not have to shovel snow away to pen it the the man door is going to open to the inside of the building.

Next on my todo list is to coil up air hoses and electrical cable, pick up tools, sweep and paint the floor, build some shelves and add more lights.

[Bear]

Nice setup Gus

[mrbillbus]

The height of stupidity and waste of tax payers money, one more reason to live in the country.

The City of Winnipeg bought new garbage trucks equipped with a bionic arm, imagine handling those plastic bins -30 degrees. The city charges $100.00 to replace a damaged bin they hold your property hostage to assure the bill gets paid.

These are being added to many trucks in my area. Even the private contractors are paying for the upgrades. The reason has to do with safety. Garbage collection and tow truck driving are two of the most dangerous jobs going. You can replace the garbage cart but not the person driving the truck.

Bill

[JPete]

That looks like a sliding compound miter. Either that or Dewalt is on my list. Best wishes with it.

[mrbillbus]

... The City of Winnipeg ...

How far from the US border are you? I have friends and family in Roseau MN woking for Polaris.

Bill

[JPete]

BTW Gus, thinking of you and your bear; a woman that hunts not far from here posted this video:

[taterjuice]

Well, Gus looks like you opened the can of worms.