Building a new Wood Shed

    During the winter, I partially heat my house with a wood stove insert in my living room fireplace. The insert is the smallest high-quality stove I could find online, back in 2005. I have an all-electric house and electric heat is the least efficient and can be the most expensive of all heat systems. Right now though, with home heating oil at near record highs, it might be debatable which system is most expensive. Regardless, it can cost a lot to heat an all-electric house. I did the math a couple years ago and I save approximately $300 a month on my electric bill by burning wood through the cold season.

    To do this, I need about three cords of dry, seasoned hard wood. So, many years ago, I built a "temporary" woodshed from large pallets and some left over roofing material. I described that build in an earlier post at this link. Link to the post showing me building my old shed in 2014: Feed Yourself During Hard Times: Building a Pallet Woodshed (eatbettercheaper.blogspot.com)

    Last year, I needed to move my old shed closer to the house due to some mobility issues and wanting a shorter walk with wood. I used one of my tractors to slide the old shed about 60-70 yards across my yard. Doing this, though, removed the brick foundation from under the shed that protected the wood floor from ground contact and rot. So, I knew I would need to build a new shed this year. 

    My original plan was to build a shed that was 12x16 feet but when I checked lumber prices and availability, I found that ten-foot lumber and eight-foot roofing sheets were available, but 12-foot lumber and ten-foot roofing sheets were in limited supply and quite a bit more expensive. So, I downsized to a 10x16 foot footprint. This also made it easier for me to man-handle the lumber, I had no help building this shed and I'm 62 years old.

    I found a reasonably level spot in the backyard just outside a fenced in portion out my back door. It took me a full day to put down a simple foundation, level it, and get the sill-plates in place. (I am not a carpenter so if I use the wrong term for pieces of the building, please excuse my mistakes). I built the walls in sections and then tipped them up as sub-units and used a combination of clamps and bracing 2x4s to hold things in place until I could nail or screw pieces together.

    You can see that my old shed has seen better days, though it is still usable and would have lasted another year or two. I will start transferring the wood from the old shed to the new one and then disassemble the old shed. The roof panel will be used to cover a new shooting range back stop and the good slats from the pallets will be used in the new shed as interior wall boards. 

    The shed has three partitions. The eight foot long, four foot deep, and up to eight feet high center partition will hold the bulk of the winter's wood. It can hold two cords if I go eight feet high. Then there are two four by four by eight areas on either side of the main storage area. One will hold all split pine and the other will hold whatever wood is leftover at the end of the burning season so I can start off the following winter with a significant store of dry seasoned wood. I typically start cutting firewood in September. I have 31 acres with plenty of standing dead trees so while seasoning is not required, the wood is often damp and needs time to fully dry after I cut and split it. With all the storage space being used, I could have four cords of wood on hand.

    The horizontal 2x4s, which the siding will be attached to, are cut from salvaged lumber from a patio roof I demolished a couple months ago. The boards I used for the main partitions are old boards from my sister's pool fence that I got from her about ten years ago and had stored waiting for a good use. The frame is fully braced to prevent racking and it is pinned to the ground with three-foot-long rebar. The floor is packed shale with a topping of 2a Modified stone, which will pack down to a very solid surface as it gets used.

    The siding is rough-cut pine; one inch thick. I bought it from a hobbyist Sawyer that has a VERY basic sawmill setup. Quality control isn't great, so I had to edge and trim each board as I went. I also used used motor oil to seal the end grain top and bottom since the wood was not fully air-dried and I didn't want the boards to check too severely. I paid $300 for 350 board feet of this lumber: a very good price. I started out using nails but quickly shifted to construction screws since I just couldn't hold the board in place while hammering nails into it. This was easier, but far more expensive. I used at least $150 worth of screws in this build; nails would have been about $40-$50. 

    I can't even count the number of times I went up and down that ladder; there are 75 boards on the siding. Once all the siding was on, the frame was pretty solid and steady.

    There are lots of ways to install a roof, but I went with a top ridge beam with the roof rafters tied into that. There are five 2x6 posts going from the cross rafters (going from one wall to the other). Those cross rafters are further supported by the 2x6 posts I used to create the three internal partitions. So, the roof load is very adequately supported. The twenty 2x4 roof rafters had to be custom cut, which was a slow process at first but got easier and quicker as I got experience. I used 1x4 slats set at 24-inch centers on which to screw the roof sheeting. The roof peak is 13.5 feet from the ground with a 40-degree pitch, which should shed water and snow very well.

    The roof panels are 3x8 galvanized steel panels. Once fully installed, which took 30 roofing screws for each panel, they were surprisingly solid. I later had to go up on the roof to put a temporary ridge cap along the ridge to weather-proof it. I bought the twelve panels from Lowes, and I think they were about $42 each. In this picture you can see the gaps between the siding boards. They were tight together when I installed them, but they are drying and shrinking fast now that they are exposed to the air and sun. That is not a problem for this application, I need good air flow to dry the firewood. 

    I still need to enclose the gable ends and I intend to add sliding doors to the two ends. But otherwise, it is ready to go. I towed my log splitter inside, added a shelf unit to hold my wood cutting tools, and I braced some of the 2x6 posts with a 2x4 across the width, which also created a space to store my long ladders. All in all, I am very happy with this build. It is a very solid (way over-engineered) building that will last for decades. It looks good in the yard (better than the old, crooked shed) and gives me a place to get other things that were cluttering up the yard, out of sight.

 

Update 21 January 2023: I finished closing in both gables last week end.

 Getting the angles and lengths of these boards right was harder than expected. What I ended up doing was temporarily attaching a horizontal board across this wall and resting the vertical gable boards on this to keep a clean, straight line. Once I used a level to make sure the center board was perfectly plum, the others stayed true as well. The angled tops of the boards tuck up under the roofing metal so it made a nice, water tight seal. I have lots of wood left to do the two large door openings.

Repairing an 18 Volt Lithium Battery

 I have been building a 16x10 wood shed to replace a "temporary" shed I threw together a couple years ago. We all know the old saying, "Nothing is more permanent than the temporary." But I wanted a new, bigger shed so that I can store all my wood cutting equipment in one place and out of the weather. I will show the shed in a later post.

But what is relevant to this post is that after I was done working last weekend and was putting away my tools. I somehow missed my two Ryobi batteries, which were sitting on a stump. So they got rained on, a lot. I would have thought that these battery packs would be water tight, but they are not. Yesterday, when I tried to charge them, they wouldn't take a charge. The charger showed there was a fault. Yup, water got in the batteries.

These batteries are $79 a piece, not cheap. And these were two fairly new replacement batteries.

Well, I had no idea what damage had been done but I learned long ago that nothing ventured, nothing gained. So I decided to take the battery packs apart and see what I could do to revive them. Fingers were crossed.

The battery pack is held together by five star-drive screws; one in each corner and one at the top of the post that inserts into the drill handle.

These all came out very easy with a star-drive bit that I have. I got this set at a Lidl store near me. Very good quality tools.

Below, you can see the star-drive bit.

Once it was opened up I found two more tiny screws holding the circuit board to the bottom of the battery pack. I was really surprised to see such a full circuit board but these are smart batteries that sync with the smart charger to protect the components, to not burst into flames (a big problem with lithium batteries), and to regulate the charging process. 

My guess is that water was short-circuiting the bare solder spots. I dabbed off as much water as I could, shook the piece to get water out from the inside, and then dried it further with a hot air hair dryer. It took about twenty minutes to do each of the batteries. I let them cool down, reassembled them, and then tried them in my drill. Both work perfectly. 

Money saved.

Each time I do a repair like this I learn something new, which helps me to repair other things. Having a solid background in science, especially Physics, comes in very handy. I have a huge assortment of tools as well. But for this job I only needed a star-drive bit and a tiny Phillips Head screwdriver (from a glasses repair kit to do this repair.

Don't throw stuff out until you give repairing a try. Even if you can't fix the item, you will learn something usable the next time.

save Money even with the High Cost of Gas and Diesel

This post is slightly off-topic but any money you can save in one area can be used to buy more in another area. a couple years ago I rented a car to drive to a wedding 660 miles away. I didn't want to put the miles on my car, which already had 109,000 plus miles. I wanted a larger car than what I own for a more comfortable and safe drive. I rented a Nissan Altima.  I cannot be sure but considering how much power it had I believe it was the six cylinder motor.  

So what I want to talk about is Hyper-miling techniques. Hyper-miling is a term that was coined quite a few years ago to describe the tricks used to get the highest mileage possible out of your car. I started using the more conservative, basic methods about ten years ago. Using the easiest techniques I was able to routinely get 24 mpg out of my 1992 Ford Explorer. The Explorer was rated at 16 mpg, when new, and mine was 17 years old.

One the way to the wedding, I had two days to drive so I could take my time and enjoy the ride. I decided to see how high I could get my mileage on the trip so I applied the normal hyper-mileage techniques I routinely use and was able to reach an average of 43 mpg. The car is rated for 31 mpg. So that is a significant improvement. What difference does that make? Well, on a 660 mile trip it is something like this:

660 divided by 43 = 15.35 gallons. At $4.25 a gallon = $65.24
660 divided by 31 = 21.25 gallons. At $4.25 a gallon = $90.31

What are some of these techniques I use? Read below.

1. Keep the car tuned up. Properly running cars are more efficient and produce less pollution. A regular schedule of maintenance for you car is the first step to even having a car with which you can hyper-mile. I recently had my 2015 Ford Edge with 103,000 on its V-6 engine gone over by my mechanic, which included a tune-up. I went from 26.2 mpg combined to 30.1; an improvement of 3.9 mpg.

2. Use performance parts when you can. High performance spark plugs, for example, like iridium-tipped "performance" spark plugs create a larger combustion spark which contributes to fuller, more efficient burn in the combustion chamber. This provides slightly more power, better fuel efficiency and lower emissions. There are also low restriction air intakes and exhausts that greatly improve power and efficiency.

3. Align and balance the wheels. Being out of alignment causes additional rolling friction and reduces mileage. The tires will also wear down unevenly requiring early replacement.

4. Check tire pressure regularly. If the tires are incorrectly inflated, there will be excess drag, or insufficient surface contact with the road, causing significant decreases in fuel efficiency.

5.  Take everything you don't need out of your car. The more weight you're carrying, the harder the engine has to work. 

6. Drive as if you don't have brakes — coast as much as possible. Plan ahead so that you aren't required to brake very much. Careful coasting will reduce your gas usage. Braking always wastes gas.

7. Accelerate as if there is an egg between your foot and the gas pedal. Unless there is an emergency, keep your RPMs below 3,000. 

8. Gather speed on level roads or while going down hill. Let gravity do some of the work for your engine.

9. Use momentum to get over small hills. Bleed off speed, slowly lose speed as you climb up and over the hill. It there is a downhill on the other side, start coasting even before you crest the hill. Your momentum will carry you over.

10. Time lights so that you can move through them without stopping. Even rolling forward slowly when the light turns green will help you avoid inertia. Starting to move forward from a dead stop uses far more gas than if you are already slowly moving forward.

11. Plan routes so that you only take right turns. This reduces the time you are sitting still at a light; burning gas but not moving anywhere.

12. Try to run all your errands at one time. A warmed up engine gets better mileage than a cold engine. Drive to the farthest away place first and then work your way back home.

13. DO NOT idle your car to warm it up in the morning, that wastes a tremendous amount of gas.

14. Be careful with using Cruise Control. Cruise control's sole purpose is to keep your car at a certain speed. If the road is mountainous or hilly, it will shift down to a lower gear to maintain speed. The best mileage is obtained by staying in the highest gear possible for as long as possible.

15. As much as possible, stop/park your car facing down hill. Pulling out from a dead stop AND accelerating uphill is a double gas waster.

16. Drafting. Drafting is the technique of following a moving vehicle close enough that the air pushed out of the way by the vehicle in front of yours lowers the air resistance for your car. This is the same technique used by race car drivers and Canada Geese flying in the V formation. There is a great deal of danger involved with this technique because to be successful you have to stay within 2-3 car-lengths behind the other vehicle. Don't do it unless you can devote 100% of your attention to watching the other vehicle. 

17. Limit use of your air conditioner. I run it when going down hill and turn it off when going up hill. Air Conditioners put additional strain on a motor, especially smaller, lower horsepower motors.

18. Open your windows for cooling up to 40 mph. Much above 40 mph and the added wind resistance is worse than running the air conditioning.

19. Keep your speed down. Different cars get their best mileage at different speeds. The sound of the engine will give you a good idea. If it sounds like it is running hard, then it is. Generally, staying below 60 mph is best.

20. Park so that you can pull out without having to back up first. Any movement that is not in the direction you need to go is wasteful. Pull through parking spots so that you are facing out.

These are the more conservative methods and you can expect to gain at least 24% mpg with practice. That can effectively reduce fuel costs by a corresponding 24%.

Drive smart, drive safe.

 

Cooking Tough (usually Cheaper) Cuts of Meat

    When I was a kid and teenager, we raised chickens for eggs. We kept about 25 hens at any given time and averaged a dozen and a half  eggs a day. But inevitably, a hen would slow down and stop laying eggs. If I had to guess, I would say we got three good years of egg-laying from a hen. So what do you do then? Do you keep feeding them and wait until they just die? No, you don't; for a couple reasons. First, it was a waste of money to feed a non-producing hen. Second, as they aged, the stronger, more dominant, younger birds would start picking on the old bird. There really is such a thing as a "pecking order" in a chicken yard. The younger hens will prevent the weak ones from eating and they will peck at and harass the weaker birds until they die a miserable death. So we would cull them out, give them a merciful and humane death, and then dress them out to eat.

    So now we had a three to five pound chicken to eat. But what you had to understand was these were free-range chickens that roamed a large barnyard and worked hard for their own food, supplemented by cracked corn and kitchen scraps. So by the time they were non-productive at three to five years old, they were pretty tough. My mom and dad liked southern fried chicken and even though these were tough old birds, my mom would bread them and fry them in a cast iron pan! Ugh, they were horrible. It was like eating a chicken-flavored car tire. What we should have been doing was cooking them down in a pot of stock to be used in soups, stews, and pot pies. 

    We also didn't have a lot of money when I was growing up so when my mom bought beef, it was usually very cheap cuts. Now we beef, she understood what to do. Tough cuts of beef were diced up for soup, cubed for stew, ground up for hamburger, or slow cooked in a crock pot as a pot roast. 

    The general rule for cooking tough, cheaper cuts of meat is to cook it for a long time at a low temperature. Crock pots are probably the easiest way to do this. You can prepare the meat and vegetables in the morning, let it cook all day, and enjoy a tender, nutritious meal at the end of your work day. Roasts, soups, and stews can all be cooked this way and as long as you eat everything in the pot, you gain the maximum nutritional value from the ingredients that you used.

    Countertop convection ovens are another good method. When I lived in The Netherlands I bought my first convection oven to slow cook meats while I was involved in one of my many hobbies. The advantage of these types of ovens is that they have up to two hour timers and you can set the temperature as low as 185 degrees. I would take a small roast, rub it down with A1 Sauce and then coat it with spices (Greek Seasoning was my favorite), and then sear it in a hot pan to seal the outside of the meat. Once that was done, I put the meat in a casserole dish type roasting pan with a grate on the bottom to keep the meat off the bottom of the pan. This prevented the meat from boiling. I set the temp at 185 degrees and set the timer to two hours and then went off to do other stuff. When the two hours was done, I rotated the meat, top to bottom, and set the timer for another 60 minutes. After the third hour I took the meat out so it could "rest" for fifteen minutes while I prepared the side dishes. The meat would be medium rare to medium, moist and tender. And this was crap cuts of meat from the military commissary. 

    Outdoor smokers are another good choice, if you have one. BBQ was invented to take tough cuts of cheap meat, that the rich folks wouldn't eat, and make them edible. My son gave me a small smoker a couple years ago and it is a true wonder. It takes some knowledge and skill but you can take rough cuts of meat and transform them into very delicious treats. The secret again is that the meat is cooked for a long time at low temperatures which allows the meat fibers to break down and flavors from the sauce, herbs, and spices to permeate the meat. Everyone loves a good rack of ribs, right? Intercostal muscles, the meat between ribs, is TOUGH. But through low heat, long duration cooking, it becomes tender, delicious ribs.

    LEARN TO COOK: Research and learn new ways to prepare meats, starches, and vegetables to take advantage of and use the cheapest ingredients you can buy (when your situation requires this). People around the world that have less than you do have been surviving this way for hundreds of years.

Food Scarcity and Cost in the Near Future

"This bay of fertilize would have cost me around $18,000.00 last year. Today we put it in for just over $40,000.00. A tote of Roundup, 275 gallons, last year $4900.00 and today just over $14,000.00. This is just 2 of the inputs for growing a crop. This is not a political statement so do not take it as such. This is real world prices farmers are having to battle." - Owner-operator at Tri-C Farms, Tompkinsville, KY.

I grew up on a farm in Eastern Pennsylvania but I haven't farmed since the 1980s: I claim no expertise in modern farming. But agriculture and associated subjects such as the biology of soil, plant use of soil nutrients, composting, organic and sustained farming, etc. are still interests of mine and I do still read articles about them. Most large farms rely almost solely on chemical fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides to produce the annual crop. Their soil is nearly dead from high chemical use.These inputs are getting more and more expensive as inflation climbs, the current lack of interest in working continues, and petroleum prices soar.

Amish, Mennonite, and organic farms are not in the same dire situation so it might be a good idea to locate those farms now and see if they have an on-farm stand or operate a Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) farm. (Search for a local CSA at this site:  https://www.localharvest.org/csa/ ). These farms produce less per acre but with the use of manures, compost, and natural/mechanical pest and weed controls they are not as affected by inflation and petroleum costs. 

Large corporate run farms simply cannot obtain and spread enough manure and compost to support the high yields they must produce to turn a profit. But small food plots can. During the hardships created in Russia during the reign of the Communist Party (USSR days), food was scarce. Central control of agriculture in the world's largest but sparsely populated country did not work very well. To survive, almost every family had a small plot of land outside the city that they intensively gardened to produce fresh fruits and vegetables. With a small plot you can amend the soil with ease and control pests and weeds manually.

You can do the same. I have posted several times about my own gardening and you can go back through the posts here and find those. But today, I'm just going to talk about the wisdom of finding a plot of ground that you can raise some food to help out your pantry. Where? I hear you, sometimes it is hard.

In my own yard I have maintained a 14x40 foot garden for many years.

If you don't have a yard, you'll have to search for alternate locations.

When I was stationed at Fort Polk I had enough room in my fenced in back yard to build an "L-Shaped" raised bed that was four feet wide and twelve feet long on the long side and four feet long on the short side. That gave me a garden of only 64 square feet. But the soil was perfect; made from a mixture of sphagnum moss, course sand, composted manure, and compost from my compost bin. I grew enough food in that small plot, using Square Foot Gardening techniques that I had to give food away. 

When I was stationed at Fort Belvoir I rented a 40x60 foot plot from the county for $30 a year. I raised so much there that I actually started selling the excess at work.

In The Netherlands, I got permission from my landlord to pull up pavers from my back patio and created a 6x14 foot garden that provided fresh vegetables year round. Not enough to feed a family but more than enough to supplement what foods I was buying.

It is possible that you can find a landowner that would be willing to let you use a small plot to garden in exchange for work. 

 

Empty store shelves is a more and more common sight and is not going to get any better any time soon. The ongoing labor shortage, the supply chain bottlenecks, bad weather, pandemic-induced panic buying, etc. are not going away. YOU need to establish your own supply chain; that could be foraging, gardening, buying into a CSA program at a local farm, etc. But you need to do something. When food gets scarce, panic buying will empty the shelves and run up the prices.

Food Bargains - Rock Soup

One of the best ways to provide a good meal inexpensively is to utilize cheap foundations and then build on it. I often think of the old story about "Rock Soup". I first read this story while in elementary school back in the 1960s. Below is a highly condensed, and so not very entertaining, version of the story.

 

    Once upon a time, there was a great famine in which people jealously hoarded whatever food they could find, hiding it even from their friends and neighbors. One day, a kindly looking stranger came into a village and began asking questions as if he planned to stay for the night.

“There’s not a bite to eat in the whole province,” he was told. “Better keep moving on.”

“Oh, I have everything I need,” he said. “In fact, I was thinking of making some Rock Soup to share with all of you.” He pulled an iron cauldron from his wagon, filled it with water, and built a fire under it. Then, with great ceremony, he drew an ordinary-looking stone from a velvet bag and dropped it into the water.

By now, hearing the rumor of food, most of the villagers had come to the square or watched from their windows. As the stranger sniffed the “broth” and licked his lips in anticipation, hunger began to overcome their skepticism.

“Ahh,” the stranger said to himself rather loudly, “I do like a tasty rock soup. Of course, rock soup with cabbage — that’s hard to beat.”

Soon a villager approached hesitantly, holding a cabbage he’d retrieved from its hiding place and added it to the pot.

“Wonderful” cried the stranger. “You know, I once had rock soup with cabbage and a bit of salt beef as well, and it was fit for a king.”

The village butcher managed to find some salt beef . . . and so it went, through potatoes, onions, carrots, mushrooms, and so on, until there was indeed a delicious meal for all.

 

So the concept is to take something cheap and add to it until you have something "luxurious". I do this with potatoes, rice, and noodles. In this instance let's talk about noodles. 

Anyone that was ever in the military or a money-less student in collage has probably ate a few meals of Ramen noodles. I have eaten Ramen, or something similar, hundreds of times. And sometimes just a pack of noodles by itself is a nice, light meal or snack. But when I want a real meal, I re-enact the Rock Soup story.

 

This past weekend I bought two servings of Maruchan Yakisoba noodles. These are 77 cents each. You can get Raman noodles for about 15-20 cents a pack. I like these Yakisoba noodles better, even though they are three times the price, because they are a larger serving size, have some dried vegetables in them, and they have a better nutritional profile. 

As you can see, one serving has 510 calories, a surprising amount of fat, almost no sugar, and 11 grams of protein. The biggest downside is the high level of salt. Most of that will be in the broth and I rarely drink the broth so I probably cut that amount to a manageable half.

Whichever type and brand of noodle I have on hand, that is my "Rock Soup", and now I will enhance it like the villagers did in the story. Everyone has bits of leftover meat in the refrigerator or freezer from a prior meal. I will often have lunchmeat that was a day or two away from starting to spoil that I threw in the freezer. I'll get that out, cut it up into pieces, and fry it in a pan to make sure it is safe to eat. Otherwise, I dig through the freezer looking for small prices of leftovers that aren't big enough to be a meal by themself. I cut that up into small pieces, microwave it, then throw that in with the cooking noodles. Then I hit the vegetable/fruit drawer in the fridge and grab whatever is there; onions, peppers, green beans, carrots, peas.....whatever. Throw a good sized handful of chopped veggies in with the noodles. Cook a little longer that the package instructions because you have more solids to cook.

So we are looking at 10-15 minutes of preparation and cooking time to make a fantastic luxury-level Rock Soup that tastes great, is very nutritious and costing maybe a dollar to a dollar twenty-five at most.

Mechanical Repairs

 I have mentioned before over the years that one way to have additional money for food is to avoid other unnecessary costs. One area everyone can improve on is self-sufficiency, which saves thousands of dollars annually.  Basic home repair involving plumbing, electrical, painting, woodworking, etc. should be on everyone's list of skills to improve. Basic mechanical knowledge is another.

I have never attended any formal training in mechanics but I do have a solid foundation in the sciences and was especially good at Physics and Chemistry. Physics comes in handy the most and I have a deep understanding of the Laws of Physics to include simple and complex machines (levers, wheels, inclined planes, etc.) and the Laws of Motion. With that knowledge, and 55 years or so or tinkering, doing repairs in the field, and just experimenting, I can look at almost any machine or mechanical device and understand how it is put together and how it works. 

I have a Kubota B7500 tractor that came with a front mounted snow blower. This thing is awesome for moving a lot of snow, very fast. But it came with no instructions. In fact, I didn't even know it came with the tractor as an accessory; it wasn't listed on the advertisement (the tractor was bought from a Used Equipment lot). So I laid out all the parts, studied them and their probable attachment points, and mounted it the first time in about two hours (three years ago). A couple days ago (way later than usual) I decided to get the tractor and blower set up for a forecasted snow storm coming our way.

The big snow is still up in the air but regardless, it is way over due to get the snow blower hooked up. My B7500 tractor stays up on the farm property for maintaining the roads and woods during the warm months. I went up yesterday to unmount the flail mower and the belly mower, loaded it on the trailer, and brought it down to the house. Then I had to unmount the brush guard and belly mower front mount. Next is to mount the snowblower drive train frame.

This is the frame that the snow blower gets attached to. The cylindrical part is a coupler that joins the Power Take Off (PTO) shaft from the tractor to the PTO shaft that attaches to the snow blower. When I turned the PTO shaft coupling, the bearings felt dry and crunchy, not a good thing for bearings. It has no grease zirks so I spent the next hour disassembling the shaft coupling into its seven internal parts. I have never disassembled anything like this but figured it out as I went. There are seven internal parts: two split rings (I had to go buy a special tool to remove them), two locking collars that hold the shaft tight to the bearings, two bearings, and the shaft itself.

 

Below is what one of the two bearings looked like. They, unfortunately, cannot be taken apart and repacked with grease, which was my original plan. So I had to drive 30 minutes to the nearest Equipment repair shop to get two new bearings. Online the best price was $27. At the shop, they had two bearings in a box of customer returned items and the shop charged me only $16 for each. So I saved $22 right off the bat.

The tool shown is the split ring pliers I needed to remove the bearings. It comes with various tips for different size rings and different angles. Once I removed the split rings I needed to remove the locking collars, which has Allen screws being used as "Set Screws" to clamp the locking collar to the shaft. These were stuck in place and it took careful tapping with a hammer on a pin punch and prying to get the collars removed. The shaft came out with one of the collars and then I punched out both bearings.

I spent another hour cleaning all the parts with a wire wheel, a file, and sandpaper then solvent to get the burned grease off the parts. Then tapped in the new bearings, added the locking collars, then the split ring and presto, a brand new coupler.

 Eight bolts attach this frame that supports the two PTO shafts and the snowblower itself.

 Fully mounted and ready for the snowblower and PTO shafts.

 

So, all in all it took me about five hours to do this installation, which included removing the mower mount and brush guard, repairing the PTO coupler (one hour drive to the equipment sealer and thirty minutes to go to a car parts store for the split ring pliers). Total cost was $32 for two bearings and $37 for the split ring pliers (which will get lots of future use); $69 total. Had I taken the tractor and snowblower to the tractor shop to have them do all the work, this would have been over $300.

Time, knowledge, and a willingness to get my hands dirty saved me $231 on just this one repair.

Winter Car Survival Kit

 4 January 2022 Headline:

"Motorists are finally rescued from snowbound I-95 in Virginia after more than 27 hours trapped in their cars when Storm Frida dumped more than a foot of snow and closed 55 miles of the busy freeway"

It happens. I commute, weekly, from Aberdeen Proving Ground, Maryland, to my home three hours north in Pennsylvania. I have, on more than one occasion, had to pull off the road because of unsafe driving conditions and spend the night in my car. I was comfortable because I was prepared. Are you?

Horror stories from I-95: People growing desperate without food, water, gas and phone batteries are going dead.

NBC correspondent Josh Lederman reported on Tuesday morning that he was stuck on the highway overnight with his dog.

He said that traffic came to a halt around 8pm near Stafford on Monday night during his trip back to DC and he hadn't moved much since then, nor had he seen any emergency vehicles.

'Once it got to be 9pm or 10pm, I realized we were going to be here all night long,' he told Hoda Kotb on a Today segment Tuesday morning, and added that he has been eating the few granola bars and pack of gum he luckily had in his car. 

'We started to see a lot of drivers turning their cars off to conserve gas, people running out of food and water, kids and pets holed up for so many hours, people letting their pets out of the car to try to walk them on the street,' Lederman added, noting that he was worried there would be a medical emergency if someone ran out of gas in the 26-degree weather.

Make a cold weather emergency kit and store it in the backseat of your car. NOT THE TRUNK!

If you have an emergency on the road there is no guarantee that you will be able to access the trunk.

 

This is a link to a previous post I wrote on car emergency kits: Click here or cut and paste the URL below into your browser.

https://eatbettercheaper.blogspot.com/2016/11/vehicle-winter-safety-kits.html