Leafing Rig, the Sequel

So far, so good with the 812.

I spent an hour or so today getting it ready to work as the front end of my leafing rig, then hooked it up and filled a couple of boxes before I ran out of light. To get it ready, I needed to do a handful of things to it:

• Swap the hitch ball. It was too small, as I guessed it would be, but the mounting hole was sized for automotive hitch balls, rather than proprietary bits like my 430's was. Convenient, to say the least, and the 2" ball I'd had to adapt to the 430 bolted right on.
• I mounted the Trac-Vac chute to it. The chute is a little banged up from 3 or 4 seasons mounted up to the 430. And it fit the 430's 40" deck better than this one's 50"-er, but I was able to make it work reasonably well.
• I replaced a drag wheel on the deck. I actually took one from my gas grill, which I'd repaired with lawnmower wheels a few years ago. Home Depot specials, but metal centers, not nylon.
• I adjusted the mixture screw on the carburetor to lean it out, some. I also dropped the idle speed a bit, because it seemed unnecessarily high.
• I re-gapped the points, and reinstalled the points cover. That seems to have helped starting. It runs like a champ, actually. The smoke belching out is also just gray, now, so it looks like straight-up oil smoke. Needs new rings, it would seem -- or maybe they're just stuck. If I end up keeping the tractor for next year, I'll have to get that looked at.

Some quick points and impressions of my first couple of hours using it:

• It's definitely not sissified. The tractor seems to go up hills just as readily as the 430 did, full trailer and all. It's got power aplenty and I don't get the sense that the hydrostatic transmission has a problem transmitting the torque to the ground.
• The gearing is definitely more usable. It's got a fast reverse, two ranges and four speeds. The top gear is a sort of "road" gear in either range, and it helps me get out of the way much more readily when I have to loop onto the road to turn around (it happens).
• The brakes stink. The independent axle brakes on the 430 were much more useful than the single transmission brake on the 812.
• The hitch seems very sturdy, despite my misgivings about its design.
• The deck seems a bit healthier than the one on my 430, but not radically so. It's wider, though, so I can actually snort up more leaves per pass. The leaves are nice and dry right now, which makes it easier too. If I hang onto it, a new pan might be worthwhile, but I'd need to pull it apart to see how all the pieces are doing, first. This deck, btw, looks exactly like the one that came with my walk-behind. That one had a spindle go bad, and I replaced it 5-6 years ago with a brand new Gravely 50" deck -- one of the last available after they stopped making them. The pan was in better shape than this one, and it had new drag wheels and other new parts on it. This is not the first day I've regretted discarding it, rather than keeping it around for parts.
• The shape of this seat does not facilitate riding around with my girls, unfortunately.

Tomorrow I'm going to get back out there to make a bit more progress. I have Ava for the day, so we'll see what her appetite is for helping. First, I'll need to go over to the auto parts store to get a quart of oil, a container of Marvel Mystery Oil, and a new spark plug. I'll also get a container of some engine degunking stuff to mix with the oil in the hopes that its problem with smoking has more to do with stuck rings than worn cylinder walls. If that fails, mabe dump a little kerosene into the cylinder and let it leak down into the oil for a few days before having the engine pulled apart for new rings.

The plug is for the truck loader's engine. I broke the insulator off the old one yanking the wire off. It doesn't have a kill switch, you see. So I have to pull the plug wire, which is more comfortably done with a stick (or the handle of a rake, in this case) than a gloved hand -- less zapping involved that way, but unfortunately a bit more breakage of plugs.

And before I climb on, I'm going to grease up the spindles on the mower deck, as well. Anything with a grease fitting or cup, for that matter. I'm hoping I've learned my lesson re: lubricating stuff!

A lesson I already know is that I need to use a little restraint, here. I've already dreamed up a half dozen things I could do to it to improve it. But now is really not the time...

All for now,

J

Gravely 812 Tractor

I mentioned the Gravely 812 that I just bought. At first glance, it looks much like the 430 I traded in for it, but mechanically it is substantially different.

There have been several distinct generations of "real" Gravely riders, plus a couple of dead evolutionary branches. Just a few words about the ones that seem most relevant, here. The first Gravely rider was a very pragmatic response from a smallish industrial company watching its market for small farming equipment disappear and the market for large residential and commercial mowers emerge. It was really more of a camouflaged Model L walk-behind tractor and sulky combination (complete with center articulation) than a rider in the tractor/car/go-cart sense. From what I can tell, few of these were made, and fewer still survive. I think it was called the Suburban or something like that. It was clever, but not what the market needed.

The second generation Gravely rider was the 400 series, of which my 430 was part. This was essentially a 500-series walk behind tractor transmission (itself an evolution of the L gearbox design), bolted into the back end of a tractor, with elaborate and stiff linkages to relocate control levers from a handlebar position to a panel between the operator's knees. The number designated an engine spec. A 424, for example, was a 12-hp Kohler. The 430 was an Onan 12. There were others, too.

Again, the 400 series was a very practical response from Gravely to the new market -- they took what they had and repurposed it, but this time in a more conventional and compelling way. The result was not particularly refined, but quite effective, in my experience. The big bronze drive gear and independent brakes pretty much made my 430 unstoppable, even when towing heavy loads of leaves around the yard -- a great choice for leafing duty in that regard. The rear tires pretty much churned away no matter the load (no belts or fluid drive to slip, and I never had a clutch give out), and if tire traction was low (say, on wet grass), I could lightly apply the appropriate rear brake for the slipping wheel, just like an ABS-based traction control system, forcing the differential to put the torque to the other wheel, which might have better traction. A little fancy footwork and it always made it up. You'll have to grant me just slightly slower response times than an ABS controller.

Anyway, it was a great tractor, and a complete beast, but the engine was let down by a bum fuel pump and a lax owner/operator, and it needs a heart transplant, now. The guy I traded it to seemed interested in slapping a Kohler on the back to replace the Onan, and selling it back to me. And maybe I'll need it back at some point. I'm actually pretty pleased that it went to the guy it did, in the manner it did. He's a guy who finds old tractors, fixes them up for short money, then sells them. With a new Delco starter solenoid, a new right axle seal, a new throttle cable and a replacement engine (which he's in a good position to find), it could readily serve someone else perfectly well. And he could make some money in the process. For my part, I got $50 off the 812 for it, and it's out of my way. All in all, something I'm content with.

But in the mean time I'm eager to figure out this new-fangled 812 model, which is a third-generation Gravely rider, and probably only 30 years or so old, vs. more like 40 for my 430. The 800 series looks all the world like a 400 series until you lift the engine cover (to which the seat bolts) and notice the entirely different gearbox sitting there. This one is a 4-speed hydrostatic transmission that I really don't know much about, other than that when you have one fool pushing a dead 400 and another fool pushing a dead 800, the fool that drew the hydrostatic transmission will easily win that race.

I really need to get out and about on this "new" 812 to see how it works, but here's what I'm hoping for:

1. That the gearing will offer greater flexibility for picking up leaves than the 430 offered. With the 430, I had to essentially crawl around the yard in low range and high gear, spinning the blades at high speed but moving at a walking pace, to give the mower and sucker combo enough time to actually pick up all the leaves that passed under the deck each lap.
2. That the rear hitch will be strong enough to support the trailer tongue. It looks stout, but overleveraged and undersupported. I doubt the ball that's on there is a 2", so need to check that out, too.
3. That the transmission will be sufficiently oxen-like to pull the trailer up hills, and that the shift to a hydro didn't sissify the whole thing
4. That the lack of independent/steering brakes won't be a problem when it comes to slick grassy hills
5. That the whole thing will hold up long enough to do what I need it to this year with the leaves

Time will tell.

In the mean time, though, I got it running. And with a few words of wisdom and reassurance from the tractor's seller, I learned probably enough about small engine ignition systems to be dangerous. It's not what you'd call an easy starter. And neither is it what you'd call smokeless. But it runs, and if I can get the ignition points gap set a little more precisely (can't find my gap gauge), I'm sure both will improve.

Ignition points are essentially a little switch that tell the coil when to fire the spark plug, and for how long. The points gap is important because it essentially determines the precise ignition timing. Since the switch is opened and closed by the camshaft, a tighter gap will close earlier and stay closed longer than a wider gap, meaning the spark will come earlier in the ignition stroke and last longer. But too narrow a gap will make for too long a spark, and you can cook the points. I think mine are slightly wide right now, so the spark is essentially too late and short. Even so, it runs.

To get it working, I pulled off and reattached the connector to the ignition switch, installed a complete tune-up kit (points and gasket, condenser and plug -- I think I mentioned this last week), fiddled with the trigger wire from the points to the coil, messed with the choke, and ultimately resorted to starter fluid, once I had a spark. Making it run well should be relatively simple. Hopefully.

More as I learn more about how this generation of Gravely rider delivers the goods.

All for now,

J

Big Weekend

Big weekend. Lots of changes.

1. I swapped out my Gravely 430 with a blown engine for a Gravely 812 rider that currently won't start. It might be the ignition switch, grounding it out. Not sure. But it's a nicer machine than the one I had. At least I hope it will be, once it's running. I spent a bunch of time today both on the swapping logistics and trying to get it to run. I replaced the points, changed the condenser, changed the plug, and even swapped over the coil -- no joy. Will try the switch tomorrow.
2. A good friend of mine moved to Amsterdam, and she'll probably be gone for a couple of years. So I helped her move her stuff into storage on Friday, then she spent about 24 hours experiencing my weekend-with-the-girls whirlwind. Dinner out Friday night. 8:30 soccer on Saturday morning. Trash. Laundry. Bake a cake. Clean the hamster cage. House showing. Soccer 2. Frost the cake. Carve Jack-o-lanterns. Hand the kids off to my wife for trick or treating, then off to the airport. It was fun to share. But crazy. The cake is fantastic. Hershey's recipe -- the best I've found, and I did a good job with this particular one.
3. We adopted a Keeshond. Actually he is my aforementioned friend's, and while she's gone, we're going to take care of him. He's a good boy -- settling right in. The girls got to show him off at soccer, yesterday, and he was quite the draw. He's very fluffy, so it's understandable. I will be vacuuming every other day, I think, which is good anyway -- should help Juli's allergies.
4. My broker (my mother) hosted an open house today. There's one couple that's apparently pretty interested, so we'll see what happens, there.
5. I made a pot of black bean chili with a blend of sirloin tips and ground beef. I also used beer, a dried chili that I grew in my garden this summer, a sweet red bell pepper, a sweet onion, a bunch of different spices (notably some chipotle powder), and I even added some molasses to play around a bit. Tastes a bit like catsup/ketchup/catchup as a consequence of the last. But it's good. And there's no ketchup in it -- honest.

Anyway, a big weekend.

Not much going on with respect to bikes, though. I need to start making time in the mornings for the rollers.

All for now,

J

What to do with a rusty old bike?

I've had a few minutes to look over the Columbia Speedliner my sister brought up to me from the auction of the family homestead. In the daylight, I mean. It's very complete, and with the exception of the front wheel (which has a different rim and tire on it than the rear), looks completely original.

Unfortunately, as you can see, it's also almost entirely rusty. The paint (which may once have been cream) is mostly gone, replaced by a light coating of rust over the whole frame and all bodywork and accessories. The chrome is all pretty much gone, too, from the handlebars, stem, cranks, rims and crash rail on the saddle. The whole thing looks as though it was ridden for a little while, crashed into something, fixed, and then put away for a very long time in a place offering protection from rain, but from not other forms of seasonal moisture. Too bad, really. The frame design has the same features I thought were cool on my Columbia -- the U-shaped seatstays and chainstay, the wishbone connectors to the bottom bracket and seat tube, and the integral kickstand.

But the question is what to do with it. On the one hand, it's pretty much complete. So for someone looking for a bike to dip in an acid tank and fully restore, this might be a decent choice. Except it's a Columbia, not a Schwinn. And it's a ladies' frame, not a men's. So I doubt seriously that it has any collector interest, given its condition.

I've had a few thoughts. First, throw it up on Craig's List and see if anything pops up. And second, cannibalize it for parts for my own Columbia, then FreeCycle it. It has a few parts of interest, after all.

For one, it has that two-speed Bendix rear hub with the handlebar cable shifter. I need to have a set of wheels built up for my own Columbia, and though I have a set of Suntour hubs ready and waiting, there's nothing that says I couldn't also get this coaster-brake 2-speed hub working again and built into my rear wheel. The shift linkage and shifter are frozen up, but the hub turns, and I'm sure I could rebuild it. And if I took that path, I wouldn't have to worry about setting up the Columbia's frame for a rear brake. And I wouldn't have a single speed, but rather a pair of gears to choose from. On the other hand, I'd probably have to work just as hard up hills as with a single speed, given the drag introduced by a coaster brake.

Then there's the kickstand. I haven't seen any others like the one I need for my Columbia, and here one presents itself. Even though this one is pretty rusty, it could be sanded, primed and then painted or even just twined and shellacked to present an interesting detail. There's a chance it wouldn't work in my bike's mount, but I should be able to check that out without too much difficulty.

The fork would also more authentically replace the fork my bike is currently in need of. Ditto the headset. Ditto the bottom bracket. But I want a front brake, and this fork wouldn't provide a solution for that. Plus it would still need to be sanded, primed and painted. Ditto the fenders. Ditto the chain guard. Ditto the mousetrap rear rack.

Cannibalize, restore or sell. What to do with a rusty old bike? If you have any opinions, I'm all ears. But I'm leaning towards cannibalization.

All for now,

J

Another Columbia

As I understand things, my branch of the Ellsworth family has been in New England since the mid-1600's, starting with a land grant of a tract of farmland outside of Hartford. A lot of family history has unfolded for the Ellsworths outside of Hartford in the past 350 years, as you might expect.

A chapter of that history came to a close last weekend, with an auction. My great aunt will be the last Ellsworth to live in the farmhouse that has been at the center of the past couple of hundred years' worth of our family. Much of the land had already been sold off to pay for the care of her brother, before he died, and last weekend, much of the home's furnishings were sold at auction in a precursor to the sale of the property itself. This to pay for her own elderly care.

My younger sister went down to the auction, and called me excitedly about a Columbia that was for bid. She apparently went to town buying stuff, and filled Michael's truck with stuff of questionable value, sentimental or otherwise. My dad ended up having to haul the bike back my way. It was waiting for me tonight on the porch.

It's a mixte/ladies'-framed Columbia Speedliner from the mid-1950's, according to an ad I found:

http://www.auctiva.com/hostedimages/showimage.aspx?gid=187751&ppid=1122&image=243589025&images=243589025&formats=0&format=0
It has a 2-speed Bendix rear hub shifted by what looks like a brake lever, rather than the kick-back two-speed Bendix hubs that some Schwinns used to have. This allows it to retain "positive foot braking". It should coast beatifully, according to the ad. And only 40 lbs!

It is complete with fenders, chainguard, a rear rack, and a dilapidated wooden child seat. The saddle has a crash rail on it, and it has a kickstand that looks like it'd work in my frame -- ah-ha! To that point, the frame is actually very similar to my Columbia in design, but lacking the second top tube (and in a mixte style, of course). Same wishbone seat and chain stays, and probably the same of most everything else. But I don't think it's retained any of its original paint, and very little of its chrome. It is probably a total loss, honestly. But it was won for a buck, so at least it was priced right.

I'll post a picture later. For now, it's taking up space in my barn, continuing its slow journey back to the iron ore from whence it sprang. I need to figure out what to do with it, at some point.

All for now,

J

Fall Cleaning

As mentioned I would last week, I've started selling off some of my Gravely 2-wheel tractor implements. I've posted four things to Craig's List, and have had one bite so far. Failing a sale, each will go onto eBay, next:

One (1) highly dangerous Gravely open-reel two-stage snowblower:
http://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/grd/1426981656.html
This thing is just crazy. It was my dad's when I was a kid, though he gave up on snowblowing sometime in my teens, and hired a plow guy instead. It looks like it was intended to consume small animals, just as much as throw snow. Not something you want to be messing around with near the business end. It absolutely devours snow, even icy stuff pushed into snowbanks and left to harden for weeks on end. This comes with a spare reel, which I picked up as a package with the rotary plow, below.

One (1) far less dangerous but still beastly Gravely quick hitch snowblower:
http://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/grd/1426994517.html
This one was my most recent acquisition. It's not as dangerous as the first, because you can adjust the chute remotely and it has side cutters rather than open sides. It's a lot wider than the first one, so it takes more power to run through deep snow. But in a normal snowfall, the extra width makes quick work of the driveway. The nice thing about this one, too, is it is very easy to get onto and off the tractor. The downsides are that the chute's remote lever is stiff and finicky, and that it doesn't feel securely mounted to the tractor. This one I bought from eBay several seasons ago. I'm keeping one much like it that's not a quick-hitch model and slightly narrower.

One (1) entirely unconventional Gravely rotary plow tilling/trenching device:
http://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/grd/1427009100.html
I bought this maybe 5 years ago and used it three seasons. It looks awfully funny, but it excels at destroying a patch of lawn to create a new garden bed. And it does a decent job of creating rows/hills as well. In that sense it's perfect for a serious gardener/small farmer with an acre or so to plow and hill. It's probably overkill for a home garden though. If the dirt shield isn't set right, it'll occasionally chuck rocks at your head as it works -- I always managed to duck, but a hockey goalie's mask might be a good accompaniment to this one. I have a spare gearbox for it and I think some other stuff as well. I'd planned to make a spreader for it, but that was in another life.

One (1) aftermarket angling plow blade:
http://boston.craigslist.org/bmw/grd/1427018958.html
This is not a Gravely part, and that shows, in that there's not a whit of cast iron on the thing. But it's a clever design that looks like it'd do the trick in terms of plowing walking paths through snow. It came on a tractor that I bought for parts out in the Hudson River Valley, and which I sold a year ago. I've never used it, but I bet it could be disassembled, sandblasted, painted, maybe updated with some replacement hardware, and serve someone well.

And once the leaves are up, the 430 tractor will be sold off as well. It's doing bang-up job on the leaves this season, as always -- blown engine or not.

All for now,

J

Leaves and Tractors

Just a quick post today, as I'm off to San Francisco in a few hours to Oracle OpenWorld. Normally a trip I'd be looking forward to, as it's one of my favorite cities. But I'll be going out alone, this time, and in this case, the trip is also eating up time that feels scarce on several fronts -- time with the house, time with the girls, and time with a good friend who is moving away.

The girls and I did have a good day yesterday, at least. After Ava's soccer game, the three of us went to Tougas Farm in Northborough, MA, to pick some apples and find some good pumpkins. We filled two peck-sized bags. I largely stuck with softball-sized Cortland (and I'm totally serious about their size, btw) and smaller MacIntosh varieties, while Juli and Ava pretty much sprinted between rows grabbing whatever sounded interesting. We'll be in apples for weeks! We made out well from a pumpkin perspective as well. I got a good pie pumpkin and each of the girls has a Jack-o-lantern pumpkin, too, that we can carve in a couple of weeks, then set out on the porch.

In any case, leaves and tractors. Yesterday I finished assembling my leafing contraption. I'd gotten the box built a week ago, and installed the truck loader onto the front of the trailer yesterday. I filled the old Gravely 430 with the blown engine with gas (and oil), did the same with the truck loader, and they both fired up right away. Well, I first had to figure out that the fuel petcock on the truck loader was off, but it was fine after that.

The girls were outstanding stick collectors while I was finishing up the rig, and each of them took several laps around the yard on the tractor with me (in earplugs). I managed to get the grass cut and leaves vacuumed in the back yard and out along the road and driveway, which is a good start. Next weekend I'll have to mow along the fence to get the leaves and grass away from it, then do the whole yard.

The nice thing about this setup is that in 2-3 hours, I can clean up the whole property, save for flower beds. I just repeat the process every weekend once the leaves start to drop, until they've finished and the leaves are all in a pile.

Previously, I'd brought the leaves to our local transfer station, but starting last year, I've been using them to mulch my garden beds, mulch around trees, and to offset erosion at the edges of my leaching field. The worms are happy, and since nearly all of my trees are maples, the composting leaves are not chemically offensive to other plants. Not that I can tell, at any rate.

The rig is working well, or about as well as it always does. The stovepipe pulled apart yesterday, so I'll need to put it back together then tape it up again. And the tractor has a blown engine and a leaky main seal, so it really needs to be replaced at some point soon. But the replacement engine I installed on the vacuum for last season is running great, and apart from having to lube up the throttle/governor linkage yesterday, it's required no maintenance at all.

Once I get the leaves up, I'm going to start offloading some old Gravely equipment. I have two Gravely snowblower attachments that I'm not going to keep (don't ask why I have two extra snowblower implements). I have a home-made plow blade that I'll either scrap at the metal pile at the transfer station or send off as a freebie with one of the snowblowers. There's a rotary hoe that is a fine rototiller, but not likely something I'll need or use at my next home. And then there's the 430 tractor. I tried to Craigslist it last season to no avail, so I think I'm going to eBay it this time. I paid $430 for it, and assuming it survives this season, will have gotten I think 4 seasons out of it. I really don't expect to or need to get any money for it, but it would be a shame to just scrap it.

I'll hold onto the truck loader and other leafing rig components just in case I'll need them for my next home ownership experience, whether that's a year or more away. I'll also be keeping my extremely reliable Gravely walk-behind tractor, though it's been leaking a bit this season as well. Also not going up for sale are a snowblower attachment and the 50" deck that I bought new maybe 5 or 6 years ago. I can always shed these later, if I don't end up needing them at my next place.

All for now,

J