Half-ton pickup redux

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Every manufacturer has had some lemons over the years. IMHO, it is how the do afterwards that determines if they get my hard earned money.
 
Sean McGillicuddy said:
My 2008 Taco has over 328,500 miles so far ..
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Im sure they made some changes after paying for bad frames for so many trucks. Im just surprised that they were that bad for so long . I feel most cars and trucks are made pretty solid in the last few years ,if they want to remain in business for long.
 
jetsam said:
How do you hot rod a crab? High carbohydrate crab chow? Leg tip waxing? Racing stripes and a spoiler? ;lol
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Geez, we were 10 years old... so no foresight, let alone degrees in materials engineering. We just raced the meanest most pissed-off thing we managed to catch that morning.

No joke, the Sandpiper newspaper on Long Beach Island NJ used to sponsor these races. Point being... don’t tell me a pickup truck ain’t a race car, ‘cuz I’m driving it like it is one, when there’s no load on the hitch.
 
I def agree with blades. Doesn’t matter what you buy now. It’s all trash. I’m shop Forman at a shore town in nj. I have flipped both the dpw and police fleet many times through the big three. The newer it is the faster it falls apart. We can barely keep anything for a full ten years. Even the medium duty trucks. It’s sad.
 
On the same note one thing my guys haven’t figured out how to kill yet is the fleet of 7 Kabota rtv110c that we have. They see 10k miles a year and just get filters and fluids. At least on nw thing made that hasn’t been a full disappointment
 
Someone mentioned "There's no replacement for displacement" - I'm not a mechanical engineer but I'd think over the long run that holds true. There are some companies now putting small (less than 2 liters) 4 cylinder turbos in medium sized vehicles. Sure, they'll get decent or maybe great fuel economy for the vehicle's size, but I wonder how can such an engine be durable over many miles. I'll admit the Ford F150 does great with the 3.5 V6, in both performance and fuel economy. That's not an extreme example of small engine though, so the durability of that may be reasonable. The trend seems to be though, less displacement with more power. I wonder if that will increase the value of older trucks on the market.

I had a 2001 Silverado with the 4.8 V8. Wish I could have kept it, a great engine. For a while I had a company van, a GMC Savanah 2500 with that engine with 250k miles, averaged (mostly highway) about 16 mpg. To me it's amazing when I hear of full size 4x4 trucks getting 20+ mpg.
 
Stelcom66 said:
Wow - a lot of miles, especially considering it's a 2008. The V6? Glad to see they still offer a manual transmission (I think they do) in the Tacoma.
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Automatic..==c
 
I got my 76 Dodge back into plowing form yesterday. It had lost power to the lift cylinder, so much that I couldn't pick the plow up anymore.

I replaced the pressure line to that cylinder (it was probably original equipment according to the markings... that's 41+ years!) I also got in the engine compartment to tighten my squeaky power steering belt, and found the snowplow belt was also loose. Tightened both of them up, and we're ready for snow. (I'm HOPING for snow; I've put a lot of work into that truck this year and I want to play with my toys!)

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As a side note... that plow pump is held up by one bolt. You swing the whole pump to tension the belt, then tighten the bolt. How are you supposed to keep tension on the pump while you crank the bolt down? I used a cargo strap, but I doubt that's the way it's supposed to work.
 
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jetsam said:
I got my 76 Dodge back into plowing form yesterday. It had lost power to the lift cylinder, so much that I couldn't pick the plow up anymore.
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Great to see a truck that age back in service again. Yea with those great and practical toys I can see why you'd want snow!
 
And a chicken ;)on every plow!!!!
 
Ashful said:
It looks like we have some of the same chickens, odd as I only have four. I spy a Plymouth Barred Rock on the plow, and what could be a Light Brahma on the ground.

Here’s our flock. Sorry, no old trucks.

View attachment 218903
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There's four flavors in there, which I refer to as "Red", "Brown", "Yellow", and "White". My wife does have fancier names for them, but mine seem to work fine. ;) There's a picture with one of the yellow ones demonstrating her chickenlike survival skills. Or maybe it's Limbo practice.

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And there they are uncompressed:

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One of the brown ones is missing, probably ratting around under that big fir to the left.
 
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That White one is a light Brahma. You can ID them by the feathered feet. They come from Tibet!

Back to your regularly scheduled program...
 
lol. unlike new anything, whatever works is how you do it. i normally stick a pry bar or pipe in to space it and tighten it with the other hand. you may have to find something to stick in it to keep the space if it backs off again. if it was me i would make another point to put anther bolt in the back if possible
 
BTW... my chickens are out in the coop tonight with no heat, at 6F. It's the coldest these young birds have experienced so far, in their 15 months of life, but surely not the coldest we get in the average year. Cold-hearty breeds, so we'll see how they do with it. I'm used to seeing a few consecutive nights below 0F, each year.
 
Ashful said:
BTW... my chickens are out in the coop tonight with no heat, at 6F. It's the coldest these young birds have experienced so far, in their 15 months of life, but surely not the coldest we get in the average year. Cold-hearty breeds, so we'll see how they do with it. I'm used to seeing a few consecutive nights below 0F, each year.
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It's 15 outside and 20 in the coop here. Going down to 4° tonight. They look okay though. (I put 4 cameras out there when I built the coop, so they're under 24 hour video surveillance for my wife's chicken-obsessing pleasure. It's also a great way to make friends. Me: "And so all 4 chicken cameras are live on the internet 24 hours..." Whoever I'm talking to: "- I think I hear my toaster going off..." *runs*

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Do you suppose begreen is holding off on axing this thread because he started it.... or do you think we finally converted him??

All The Best Stuff Happens After The Derailment™
 
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This one went OT 26 pages ago, chickens make it no worse. You got AC power out there at the coop, or is it all solar? Heat?
 
Ashful said:
This one went OT 26 pages ago, chickens make it no worse. You got AC power out there at the coop, or is it all solar? Heat?
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I was going to go solar, but then my wife said she wanted a 40w heater going 24x7. When I added up the power requirements, the panels were too big for the roof given the shading. I gave up and rented a trencher- which allowed me to do wired networking, too. (Then she did even more research and decided there wouldn't be a heater.) I think I am better off this way anyway, as I'm pushing out a lot of video bandwidth out of there.

The AC is running the chicken door (<5w, 10 seconds per day), the POE switch for the cameras, a 2w LED bulb that she has on a timer (something about making their days a couple hours longer in the winter for egg production), and a livestock bucket heater (a 25w thermostatic immersion heater that keeps their drinking water liquid). The cameras are powered off the power-over-ethernet switch. They're very cheap and "support" POE via a dongle that splits the power out right before the camera. I haven't measured overall power usage on that setup because I stopped caring when I pulled the AC line out there. ;)

I don't allow any direct access to the cameras for security reasons (they're a nightmare, security-wise), but I do stream a low-res version of all 4 out to Ustream so my wife can watch from work (which she actually does.) Take a peek if you want to know what chickens do when you're not watching (hint: same as they do when you are watching).
 
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That is crazy, but very cool! I wish I had AC at mine, but not enough to do anything about it. These chickens were for my son, and his interest in them is already waning, so I’m not sure I’ll even replace this flock when they’re done. The only real challenge is the liquid water thing, and I have a simple solution that works reasonably well when the sun is shining. They probably get a little thirsty late in the day on cloudier days, but they’ll survive.

I debated the timer/light thing, but chose against it. They’re only born with so many eggs, so the faster you play them out, the longer you’re stuck feeding a menopausal chicken.

From the sound of it, your wife is not going to let you eat them, when they’re done laying.
 
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