I’ve already heard the jokes about not knowing my own strength, thanks. . .
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Something about that Power take off thing not being connected any more just doesn’t look good. The boss says to put it back in and braise it, but that is something I thought you did with chuck roast. Hope it isn’t on too important a piece of machinery!
Oops!
Hubby says to push the cable back into the hole, push the knob all the way down, then follow the cable housing and find out where the cable unhooked on the other end and re-attach.
Laurie - thanks!3Collie - Yikes! I’d rather have the roast, too. It is nice having handy husbands around.
Lisa - You understand the handy husband, too. I wouldn’t let Allan near plumbing, though. Everything cannot be fixed with a hammer & a cutting torch!
I’m kidding - Allan was very mechanical - around FARM MACHINERY. I visited a friend (who happens to be the best mechanic) with my digital photos in hand. He dropped what he was doing to help. I had already seen where the cable was broken - we had fingers crossed that there would be enough left to work with. There was. The feeder truck is feeding again.
After the second time I did this on the light blue IH truck when it was fairly new (early 80’s) we ordered an extra cable and kept it on hand so we wouldn’t have to wait or engineer something to get it dumping again. I think we still have the new cable but I wonder if anyone knows where it is?
One time I was coming down the hill to the stop sign on West River Road with a load of green chop when I tore the clutch cable. The cables look a lot the same but the results are quite different! I was really glad to get the truck off the edge of the road out of the way and stopped. This was well before cell phones, etc. so eventually I got help and after the prerequisite cussing, it got engineed and I was back in business.
OHHH now I get it. I didn’t realize the cable had broken. yikes. Glad you were able to fix it. Makes you wanna just scream when things like this happen. I’ve had my fill actually and now want the world to magically become a place where nothing breaks even when I’m around. Sigh…
The hood latch cable on the wife’s family truckster did the same thing a while back. Getting the hood open was a trick and a half, then it turns out that a new hood latch cable costs more than the car’s worth. Thank heaven for spools of wire and American ingenuity, and the fact that I was blessed with a surplus of both, LOL. There’s still something to be said for not having a car payment though . . . . . . I’m not quite sure what that is just now, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.
I once had the throttle return spring decide to take a hike on the old GMC Astro (not the soccer mom micro bus, the old box shaped cabover semi tractors from the ’70’s) that I used to haul freight back and forth to Casper WY with. It fell off just south of Crow Agency, but since that’s pretty hilly country, and the truck had no excess of power, I just let it roll wide open until the top of Aberdeen hill at the state line. Then I decided I best fix it before I had to stop at the scale in Sheridan, so I shut off the key and kicked it out of gear, rolled to a stop, jacked up the cab, luckily found the remains of the spring hanging off of a wiring harness next to the fuel pump, bent it back into shape, and VOILA! Good as new. Those were the good old days.
I once had a highway patrolman threaten to arrest me when I rolled across a scale in that truck. When I asked him what for, he said “well obviously you stole that piece of shit from a museum someplace!” I hauled a lot of freight with that old beast, and it never left me stranded as long as I had a few tools and a heavy dose of patience.
first. go to the fridge and get a cold beer.
if there is none in there you will need to go to the liqour store.
since clearly your vehicle is disabled - you should call a friend to give you a ride to the liqour store.
better yet - have the friend stop at the liqour store on the way over (note to get twice as much)
then drink with your friend and stare blankly at the truck.
drink until you find you are laughing about staring blankly at the trunk.
this should help you figure out the problem. and if not… well who really cares.
:)
Phew! I’m glad you got the PTO cable fixed. Ain’t truckin’ (aka farming) fun? Many years ago, I was a longhaul trucker - reading some of these replies as well as your blog bring back many, many memories, good & not so good. *lol* Good ol’ cables & springs & all that happy stuff. And WY & MT & all good places west … *sigh* I’ve been stuck in the midwest far too long. ;o)
A few four letter words, free.
A few swigs of good bourbon to knock off the winter chill, $5.00.
A good friend helping, and the good meal your going to fix, $20.00
A successful repair, and being back on the road again, PRICELESS.
I gotta say Karen…you have some pretty funny readers. That weese is a stitch! Thanks for the comment. The site is still under construction but I just couldn’t wait for the web designers to get free from weddings, trips to Paris, going to Hawaii and the piles of work they faced when they got through playing. Grrrr. So there might be some glitches and it looks cruddy but I have things to do and write about. I really like the format here for comments. It’s something to aspire towards. Plus I like your funny friends. It’s like a party in here especially now that liquor has been added. LOL.
Kirk, I feel compelled to tell you that injuries relating to PTO’s generally happen when a shaft breaks, or when a person becomes entangled in a shaft that isn’t shielded, so no worries. It’s far more common on tractors with an exposed PTO on the rear, that’s randomly connected to various pieces of equipment as needed. Usually the shaft either breaks and goes flying around maiming and dismembering all in its path, or somebody removes the safety shields and then later wears a very surprised expression on their face when a piece of loose clothing snags on something and sucks them in. They often don’t wear the surprised expression for very long however, unfortunately.
In order for that to happen on a feed truck, the operator would have to be laying underneath it, not sitting in the cab. The worst injury that could likely happen from a cable breaking is that a person could inadvertently punch themselves in the face when it turned loose, but if they were yanking on it that hard then it’s no wonder why the cable broke in the first place.
Oh yeah, sorry to be such a know it all, but I also feel compelled to tell Weese that this is Montana, no need to go to the liquor store. Beer can be purchased almost anywhere in these parts, grocery stores, gas stations, practically anywhere that serves food, and is often served at snack time in most reputable day care centers. I always took that for granted until one day long ago when I wandered the aisles of a Nebraska supermarket for the better part of an hour before asking a young clerk where the beer aisle was. He looked at me like I’d just stepped off of a space ship, and didn’t even try to hide what a dumb ass he thought I was as he gave me directions to the nearest liquor store. Shows that I don’t get out much I guess.
P.M., that stands for periodic maintenance. A good program to have on the farm is to periodically lubricate things like cables, gears, pullies, steering mechanisms, universal joints, and just about anything else mechanical.
I work on airplanes for a living and I spend more time just doing periodic maintenance than anything else. It is usually while doing periodic manitenance that I will find a cable that has begun to fray but not yet failed and to get it replaced before failure.
I know things are busy on the farm, but maintenance is one of those things we can’t avoid.
It seems I spend more time working on my tractor than mowing with it.
Good luck with your feeder, I hope you don’t have any more problems with it.
Power take off, Power Maintenance, Power Drinking! All subjects covered here!
Now, If you could just get some power climate warming for a period of time!
Bonnie - if you do ever find that cable. . . the pto is actually working better now. It was catching before, probably the kink that broke.
Niki - Ahhhh - I’ve been having one of those days for the last few years. The folks who comment here have helped me maintain a sense of humor through some very unfunny times. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I feel a bit guilty for being unable to reciprocate by visiting blogs, flickr streams, or emailing - but I simply haven’t enough hours in the day. And calving’s around the corner. . .
Hey Tommy - welcome.
Weese - Fortunately, there usually are cold beers in my fridge - and spare vehicles - in differing states of disrepair.
Justin - You never fail to crack me up - Thanks! Sometimes I think that we know too much about imbibing here in MT. . .
Nancy - Thanks for visiting - I will drop by!
Imalgmf - I learned about PM back in the days when I worked for the Sanitation Department. We had a team of mechanics to keep all of our equipment running. Come to think of it, that’s where I learned about PTOs, too. I learned about bourbon long before that stint. . . For the most part everything I do here has been through the classic “baptism by fire”. And for the most part there is no we - just me. My feeder truck may be a classic - but it’s feeding.
Moosekahl - Oops is a oft used word here, I’m afraid!
Linda - too many acronyms. . . PM - could be Perimenopause, postmenopausal, prime minister. PTO had some good explanations on flickr - Pull This Out - was my favorite.
No, I’m not the OTHER Gee Dubya, I’m Lisa Dubya’s hubby. Glad you got the feeder feeding and the kows fed. On a hardworking farm, periodic maintenance is something you do periodically when something breaks. There isn’t always time to do the things you know should _probably_ be done because there’re always lots of things that HAVE to be done RIGHT NOW!
Like imalgmf says (sort of), if you do all of the periodic maintenance that SHOULD be done, then there’s not much time left to do the actual farming.
The Maritimes are good, cold but good. We’re going through the longest cold stretch we’ve had in a few years, and we’ve broken last year’s lowest temp by 4 or 5 degrees already, but that was a warm year.
Luckily, we got a bit of snowcover partway through this cold stretch, so the plants have a blanket over some of them. Winterkill has been terrible the last few years with very little snow. We had a couple of small storms with little wind so the snow stayed in the fields instead of getting blown into the woods.
No animals to keep warm besides the kids and the cat, so that’s good.
Now all we have to do are the taxes and get the equipment and plans ready for the spring.
January 29th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
Oh my. I wish I had some words of wisdom for you, but obviously I don’t. Just know that I’m thinking of you.
January 30th, 2007 at 5:14 am
Something about that Power take off thing not being connected any more just doesn’t look good. The boss says to put it back in and braise it, but that is something I thought you did with chuck roast. Hope it isn’t on too important a piece of machinery!
January 30th, 2007 at 5:45 am
Oops!
Hubby says to push the cable back into the hole, push the knob all the way down, then follow the cable housing and find out where the cable unhooked on the other end and re-attach.
(Yes, I’m married to a farmer. )
Good luck!
January 30th, 2007 at 8:34 am
Laurie - thanks!3Collie - Yikes! I’d rather have the roast, too. It is nice having handy husbands around.
Lisa - You understand the handy husband, too. I wouldn’t let Allan near plumbing, though. Everything cannot be fixed with a hammer & a cutting torch!
I’m kidding - Allan was very mechanical - around FARM MACHINERY. I visited a friend (who happens to be the best mechanic) with my digital photos in hand. He dropped what he was doing to help. I had already seen where the cable was broken - we had fingers crossed that there would be enough left to work with. There was. The feeder truck is feeding again.
January 30th, 2007 at 8:47 am
After the second time I did this on the light blue IH truck when it was fairly new (early 80’s) we ordered an extra cable and kept it on hand so we wouldn’t have to wait or engineer something to get it dumping again. I think we still have the new cable but I wonder if anyone knows where it is?
One time I was coming down the hill to the stop sign on West River Road with a load of green chop when I tore the clutch cable. The cables look a lot the same but the results are quite different! I was really glad to get the truck off the edge of the road out of the way and stopped. This was well before cell phones, etc. so eventually I got help and after the prerequisite cussing, it got engineed and I was back in business.
January 30th, 2007 at 9:59 am
OHHH now I get it. I didn’t realize the cable had broken. yikes. Glad you were able to fix it. Makes you wanna just scream when things like this happen. I’ve had my fill actually and now want the world to magically become a place where nothing breaks even when I’m around. Sigh…
January 30th, 2007 at 8:16 pm
The hood latch cable on the wife’s family truckster did the same thing a while back. Getting the hood open was a trick and a half, then it turns out that a new hood latch cable costs more than the car’s worth. Thank heaven for spools of wire and American ingenuity, and the fact that I was blessed with a surplus of both, LOL. There’s still something to be said for not having a car payment though . . . . . . I’m not quite sure what that is just now, but I’m sure I’ll think of something.
I once had the throttle return spring decide to take a hike on the old GMC Astro (not the soccer mom micro bus, the old box shaped cabover semi tractors from the ’70’s) that I used to haul freight back and forth to Casper WY with. It fell off just south of Crow Agency, but since that’s pretty hilly country, and the truck had no excess of power, I just let it roll wide open until the top of Aberdeen hill at the state line. Then I decided I best fix it before I had to stop at the scale in Sheridan, so I shut off the key and kicked it out of gear, rolled to a stop, jacked up the cab, luckily found the remains of the spring hanging off of a wiring harness next to the fuel pump, bent it back into shape, and VOILA! Good as new. Those were the good old days.
I once had a highway patrolman threaten to arrest me when I rolled across a scale in that truck. When I asked him what for, he said “well obviously you stole that piece of shit from a museum someplace!” I hauled a lot of freight with that old beast, and it never left me stranded as long as I had a few tools and a heavy dose of patience.
Macgyver’s a punk . . . . I’d slap his mama.
January 30th, 2007 at 11:31 pm
Hi Sis,
My first look at a blog, and my first reply. Nice to be in the 21st century
January 31st, 2007 at 10:47 am
first. go to the fridge and get a cold beer.
if there is none in there you will need to go to the liqour store.
since clearly your vehicle is disabled - you should call a friend to give you a ride to the liqour store.
better yet - have the friend stop at the liqour store on the way over (note to get twice as much)
then drink with your friend and stare blankly at the truck.
drink until you find you are laughing about staring blankly at the trunk.
this should help you figure out the problem. and if not… well who really cares.
:)
January 31st, 2007 at 10:48 am
a note to the author, please note… the unpublished email address on my last comment was incorrect.
February 1st, 2007 at 11:03 am
Phew! I’m glad you got the PTO cable fixed. Ain’t truckin’ (aka farming) fun? Many years ago, I was a longhaul trucker - reading some of these replies as well as your blog bring back many, many memories, good & not so good. *lol* Good ol’ cables & springs & all that happy stuff. And WY & MT & all good places west … *sigh* I’ve been stuck in the midwest far too long. ;o)
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:51 am
A few four letter words, free.
A few swigs of good bourbon to knock off the winter chill, $5.00.
A good friend helping, and the good meal your going to fix, $20.00
A successful repair, and being back on the road again, PRICELESS.
February 3rd, 2007 at 9:25 pm
oops
February 3rd, 2007 at 11:10 pm
I gotta say Karen…you have some pretty funny readers. That weese is a stitch! Thanks for the comment. The site is still under construction but I just couldn’t wait for the web designers to get free from weddings, trips to Paris, going to Hawaii and the piles of work they faced when they got through playing. Grrrr. So there might be some glitches and it looks cruddy but I have things to do and write about. I really like the format here for comments. It’s something to aspire towards. Plus I like your funny friends. It’s like a party in here especially now that liquor has been added. LOL.
February 4th, 2007 at 7:56 am
Kirk, I feel compelled to tell you that injuries relating to PTO’s generally happen when a shaft breaks, or when a person becomes entangled in a shaft that isn’t shielded, so no worries. It’s far more common on tractors with an exposed PTO on the rear, that’s randomly connected to various pieces of equipment as needed. Usually the shaft either breaks and goes flying around maiming and dismembering all in its path, or somebody removes the safety shields and then later wears a very surprised expression on their face when a piece of loose clothing snags on something and sucks them in. They often don’t wear the surprised expression for very long however, unfortunately.
In order for that to happen on a feed truck, the operator would have to be laying underneath it, not sitting in the cab. The worst injury that could likely happen from a cable breaking is that a person could inadvertently punch themselves in the face when it turned loose, but if they were yanking on it that hard then it’s no wonder why the cable broke in the first place.
Oh yeah, sorry to be such a know it all, but I also feel compelled to tell Weese that this is Montana, no need to go to the liquor store. Beer can be purchased almost anywhere in these parts, grocery stores, gas stations, practically anywhere that serves food, and is often served at snack time in most reputable day care centers. I always took that for granted until one day long ago when I wandered the aisles of a Nebraska supermarket for the better part of an hour before asking a young clerk where the beer aisle was. He looked at me like I’d just stepped off of a space ship, and didn’t even try to hide what a dumb ass he thought I was as he gave me directions to the nearest liquor store. Shows that I don’t get out much I guess.
February 5th, 2007 at 8:17 am
P.M., that stands for periodic maintenance. A good program to have on the farm is to periodically lubricate things like cables, gears, pullies, steering mechanisms, universal joints, and just about anything else mechanical.
I work on airplanes for a living and I spend more time just doing periodic maintenance than anything else. It is usually while doing periodic manitenance that I will find a cable that has begun to fray but not yet failed and to get it replaced before failure.
I know things are busy on the farm, but maintenance is one of those things we can’t avoid.
It seems I spend more time working on my tractor than mowing with it.
Good luck with your feeder, I hope you don’t have any more problems with it.
Spring is just around the corner.
February 5th, 2007 at 9:57 am
Power take off, Power Maintenance, Power Drinking! All subjects covered here!
Now, If you could just get some power climate warming for a period of time!
February 5th, 2007 at 8:11 pm
Bonnie - if you do ever find that cable. . . the pto is actually working better now. It was catching before, probably the kink that broke.
Niki - Ahhhh - I’ve been having one of those days for the last few years. The folks who comment here have helped me maintain a sense of humor through some very unfunny times. I wouldn’t trade them for anything. I feel a bit guilty for being unable to reciprocate by visiting blogs, flickr streams, or emailing - but I simply haven’t enough hours in the day. And calving’s around the corner. . .
Hey Tommy - welcome.
Weese - Fortunately, there usually are cold beers in my fridge - and spare vehicles - in differing states of disrepair.
Justin - You never fail to crack me up - Thanks! Sometimes I think that we know too much about imbibing here in MT. . .
Nancy - Thanks for visiting - I will drop by!
Imalgmf - I learned about PM back in the days when I worked for the Sanitation Department. We had a team of mechanics to keep all of our equipment running. Come to think of it, that’s where I learned about PTOs, too. I learned about bourbon long before that stint. . . For the most part everything I do here has been through the classic “baptism by fire”. And for the most part there is no we - just me. My feeder truck may be a classic - but it’s feeding.
Moosekahl - Oops is a oft used word here, I’m afraid!
Linda - too many acronyms. . . PM - could be Perimenopause, postmenopausal, prime minister. PTO had some good explanations on flickr - Pull This Out - was my favorite.
February 6th, 2007 at 5:58 pm
thanks Justin. this will come in handy next time i am out that way.
(in the summer of course)
February 7th, 2007 at 7:08 pm
Hey!!!!!! You GreeK????
Lots a love!!!!
February 8th, 2007 at 4:57 pm
No, I’m not the OTHER Gee Dubya, I’m Lisa Dubya’s hubby. Glad you got the feeder feeding and the kows fed. On a hardworking farm, periodic maintenance is something you do periodically when something breaks.
There isn’t always time to do the things you know should _probably_ be done because there’re always lots of things that HAVE to be done RIGHT NOW!
Like imalgmf says (sort of), if you do all of the periodic maintenance that SHOULD be done, then there’s not much time left to do the actual farming.
February 9th, 2007 at 12:00 pm
Weese - we’ll be waiting!
Mad Greek - Thanks! We’re not mentioning which half - okay?
GW - Almost everything eventually gets done - sometimes! How’s everything in the Maritimes?
February 10th, 2007 at 7:37 am
The Maritimes are good, cold but good. We’re going through the longest cold stretch we’ve had in a few years, and we’ve broken last year’s lowest temp by 4 or 5 degrees already, but that was a warm year.
Luckily, we got a bit of snowcover partway through this cold stretch, so the plants have a blanket over some of them. Winterkill has been terrible the last few years with very little snow. We had a couple of small storms with little wind so the snow stayed in the fields instead of getting blown into the woods.
No animals to keep warm besides the kids and the cat, so that’s good.
Now all we have to do are the taxes and get the equipment and plans ready for the spring.