Spectre is looking more and more like he's right. Dammit. I tore the PISS out of the transmission today - and there's a mysterious low oil pressure condition.
As you might guess, I've gone and done some stupid shit with it. You see, my father and I are in the early stages of converting a shed to a garage/shop. Before we did any serious work to the shed, though, there's this dead oak tree that's constantly trying to fall on the thing.
We've used a technique to bring trees down in a controlled manner by applying tension to the trunk with some chains and ropesand the truck before - and then with some careful 4WD work, dragging the whole damned tree to a more convenient place to cut up. This tree, however, is far and away the biggest one we've ever tried.
So we rigged it with chain - no silly light duty rope here.
And some ultra-heavy-duty fasteners between chain segments
Unfortunately, despite early indications and tests indicating that the tree is MAD FLEXIBLE and trying to fall apart, it just didn't want to come over, so we had to apply some very, very safe, OSHA-approved techniques to weaken the tree.
The tree, however, was being a TOTAL PRICK about things. I could creep the truck forward about 3 inches before a combination of wet ground and the bastard tree lifting the rear end up would spring me back - which quickly led to.... Well:
At all four corners.
After sledging some old shelves under the tires as a friction surface, I was able to get a WHOLE FOOT of forward movement with no backpull. Hell yes! Now we're getting places. Some more chainsaw madness ensued. Suddenly, there's a massive crack. I apply MOAR POWER - but the tree has other ideas. The entire truck is dragged backwards nearly 10 feet. The tree smashes directly into the shed. It impacts the roof and.... Uh, rolls off. Something snags on something and the rear end of the truck gets punted up in the air a foot or two before the chain does this:
It slackened enough for the hook to come undone, and then ripped the chain and hook back through the bumper. It's totally trashed now. Oddly, the one part of the operation that should have been a total writeoff wasn't:
I know it LOOKS like a glancing blow in that picture, but that's after the tree rolled off the roof. The upper half of the tree actually snapped off and slid down the other side. It hit dead center and only mildly inconvenienced the corrugated tin. The underlying structure is intact.
Whoever built that shed knew what they were doing.
Whoever decided to build a truck bumper out of chrome-plated rust, however, didn't.
As you might guess, I've gone and done some stupid shit with it. You see, my father and I are in the early stages of converting a shed to a garage/shop. Before we did any serious work to the shed, though, there's this dead oak tree that's constantly trying to fall on the thing.
We've used a technique to bring trees down in a controlled manner by applying tension to the trunk with some chains and ropesand the truck before - and then with some careful 4WD work, dragging the whole damned tree to a more convenient place to cut up. This tree, however, is far and away the biggest one we've ever tried.
So we rigged it with chain - no silly light duty rope here.
And some ultra-heavy-duty fasteners between chain segments
Unfortunately, despite early indications and tests indicating that the tree is MAD FLEXIBLE and trying to fall apart, it just didn't want to come over, so we had to apply some very, very safe, OSHA-approved techniques to weaken the tree.
The tree, however, was being a TOTAL PRICK about things. I could creep the truck forward about 3 inches before a combination of wet ground and the bastard tree lifting the rear end up would spring me back - which quickly led to.... Well:
At all four corners.
After sledging some old shelves under the tires as a friction surface, I was able to get a WHOLE FOOT of forward movement with no backpull. Hell yes! Now we're getting places. Some more chainsaw madness ensued. Suddenly, there's a massive crack. I apply MOAR POWER - but the tree has other ideas. The entire truck is dragged backwards nearly 10 feet. The tree smashes directly into the shed. It impacts the roof and.... Uh, rolls off. Something snags on something and the rear end of the truck gets punted up in the air a foot or two before the chain does this:
It slackened enough for the hook to come undone, and then ripped the chain and hook back through the bumper. It's totally trashed now. Oddly, the one part of the operation that should have been a total writeoff wasn't:
I know it LOOKS like a glancing blow in that picture, but that's after the tree rolled off the roof. The upper half of the tree actually snapped off and slid down the other side. It hit dead center and only mildly inconvenienced the corrugated tin. The underlying structure is intact.
Whoever built that shed knew what they were doing.
Whoever decided to build a truck bumper out of chrome-plated rust, however, didn't.
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