what we have going on is we've got uh these two air drills you've seen
350 3850 and a 4350 um they're about uh 2004 2005 vintage well
finally after all these years of use and running fertilizer through which is very very corrosive
the undercarriage and the metering system on both of them are where have corroded holes into
different areas and we've been kind of nursing them together to take care of us eating
we finally decided either we had to do something really major or maybe just partially major and
we chose the partially for this right now uh unless these things are fixed up they would be
of no value in trading either so what we got going is uh we've got a some uh a company coming that
deals with this kind of situation and uh they're gonna help us upgrade these to uh almost new
status at least all this undercarriage i just got to put the pin in and uh tow it over to the shop
um if somebody sees me and stops and asks what am i doing this in january i'm going to tell them
i think the winner is getting about half done it's time to get the iceberg lettuce in
okay we just got back from our trip my dad decided to be a um well i guess above me on
he's kind of um an overachiever let's put it that way he went and got the air cart put in
the shop so it's nice and warm in here reason why we have this air cart in here is because we
are expecting some friends some people that are going to help us install some parts and pieces
on this air cart that's going to make our lives a lot easier the issue that we're dealing with this
air cart and the other one and this has been going on for years and it just keeps getting worse and
worse and worse and more challenging to try to get it to do its job it's called rust corrosion
and fertilizer is usually the culprit the whole manifold and everything underneath there is just
rotten um it's leaking you're not having consistent flow into the fields and this
company has stainless steel kits that go underneath there new roller housings
and it's going to wake this thing up and we are going to not fight the problems we had before
it's going to be awesome we look forward to this and actually this is uh this is one of the things
that i've been wanting to do for a long time so anyways we'll wait for them to get here they're
on the road they should be here shortly and then when they get here we can get some stuff done
hey guys hey good to see ya good to see you you're uh wait hang on a second you're
matt right uh actually the other one i'm the better half you're the better
half the better jesse okay jesse adam adam nice to meet you too hey you're
jesse thank you so much for showing up let's get to work right does that sound like absolutely
because it's cold let's see what you got going on in there yeah now let's find out what kind
of rusty stuff that you guys got to pull apart and refab uh oh oh we might be talking for a while so
i'm going to cut this and then we'll get to work does that sound good i like that
idea
all right we're gonna try just taking this bar folding it down and then we're gonna see if we
get inside the shop because it is cold out here okay so what we need the case tractor for is we
actually have to drop the manifold the manifold is a bunch of tubes that run from the tanks that
go out and feed all the product to the air drill the manifold is rot there's a lot of pieces on it
holes things thin wall and steel and the corrosion with a fertilizer destroys it now the tractor has
the hydraulics to run that we cannot drop until we have the hydraulics so what i had to do over here
is we hook in the hydraulic lines going to the tractor but there's also thing called a case drain
which actually runs off the fan we did this one time where we hooked up the two lines to drop
the manifold and at back pressure there's a check valve and a valve body here that didn't quite seat
right and it put pressure to our fan and we didn't have the fan hoses hooked up or the case drain and
it blew the seal out in the fan so i'm hoping if i hook the k strain up and put it back into the
tractor so i can just feed into the crankcase or not the crankcase for the transmission
that way when we drop it if there's any back uh return it'll just blow it right into the uh trap
let's not hope let's just not take out that seal in that pump because then it's gonna make a mess
and now i gotta change the seal over there's not too many of it let's drop the manifold
this is the manifold and what the problem is is you've got this is called a double shoot and
you've got two layers of tubes one on the top one on the bottom they got these dividers right here
and what happens is that all that fertilizer gets stopped stuck in the tubes and it starts
sitting or wearing on the tubes and so there's holes all over in here so when you're blowing
that air with the product it's shooting out of holes now we've been siliconing
it we've been putting rags and stuff just trying to get through but what's going to
happen is if you can't get the right amount of fertilizer the right amount on seed onto your
into your field your stand's not going to be very good it's going to suffer you want to try to give
the best opportunity you can for your product your seed to grow the best that you can so if we can
fix these problems it'll make our lives easier and hopefully better yield which means more food
and people get to eat more food because well that's what we want to do right but all right
now we gotta disconnect and get some stuff on we might turn this card around we'll play it by ear
so
well that was pretty anticlimactic just one kick see what it takes there we go we got a little
slight problem for whatever reason the tractor hooking up this card out here we can drop the
manifold we've been trying to get the hydraulics to lift the cylinder and it just will not lift it
up to take off the safety support so we're going to crack the lines bleed the hydraulic oil out
of it and maybe we can pry that safe support off and then it'll drop so that's what we're trying
it's absolutely amazing on how the cold weather comes things don't cooperate that's why like
engineers that do stuff in the factory and everything's working great and it does work
great but then there's variables that happen like cold weather and dirt and grime and stuff
that changes up their engineering skills not saying that this was an injury flaw it's just
that's just how it is so you could design something that is phenomenal
and then nature gets to throw in its little twist and say huh
how does that work out you know what i always wonder i always wonder what they did 100 years ago
when they didn't have easy start systems and all that stuff they were tougher than us they were a
lot tougher than us we're wimps we're uh fortunate yes we are very fortunate so we're staring out the
window just watching it drip and when it starts dripping more then we'll go out there and tighten
them up and hold we're dreaming of warmer weather yeah hey at least it's nice in here that's the key
you guys ever seen the movie raiders the lost ark indiana jones
we're about to have one of those moments
whoa boxing look at all this foam i've always wanted this like cardboard
christmas let the box those burn real easy did you guys practice sweet yes
oh hello hey who put our logo upside down oh let's get the cradles outside oh yes so what we're
gonna take out when we pull the tanks as it sits right in here there's some foam seals beautiful i
keep it they keep the tank sealed and it will be pressurized so no more corrosion that is awesome
ah the hat's gonna find there it goes for those who don't know i got a bump cap in here
i'm like a hard hat
it works so here's the problem some reason the hydraulics is not letting that cylinder
go down i need to pull the cylinder back to lift that safety bracket off
so i started thinking about it i've got this air powered little
hydraulic whatever they want to call it so i took off the one line cracked it open
and then i plumb this in the other side because they're double acting cylinder and i'm
forcing the cylinder to go one way so i can take that safety laptop so then i can pull this down
cold iron in here so we're going to pull the wiring off harness off everything so
that means all these connectors and i'm going to try to my best not to break them
because i'm sure they're icy cold
done
so we've got this front tank which is actually the best of the three it's not too bad we've been able
to get most of it out without cutting but uh this holds the middle and when we had both the plenums
in here uh we actually couldn't get the cell we're struggling so we pulled this out with the hose
cut that out and then once we tried this out it allowed us to slide this out so
this is all loose so i'll show how this comes out but here is one of the plenum assemblies
and this is how it controls airflow into each tank and a lot of times guys don't adjust these because
they can't they get stuck now this is again the front tank the sea tank so it's actually
still in pretty nice shape but the other ones are not not in good shape at all
so now we got front plenum's off we're we're ready to look at making sure tank cradle bolts are
out and this one's about ready to come out it's amazing how much dirt we're bringing in from the
fields and putting it on our shop floor and our cases in our eyes and our back because there's a
lot of dirt and stuff underneath those things and lots of corrosion this this is going to be awesome
he's pulling this cart forward reason is
we're gonna try to pull the crane in here it's getting dark outside running out of time
trying to pull these tanks off so he's gonna pull us forward we're gonna get the boom crane in here
the digger derrick and we're gonna use that to hopefully pull each one of these tanks
off there's three of them one by one get off this thing so that way we start the next phases
okay change of plans it's dark outside can't see but we got the crane inside
the shop and we're thinking about trying keyword trying to
take the tank off with that i think it's gonna work i think so
okay we are trying to lift that thing up and it's stuck in there
so we got to take pry bars and pry on or we'll just pull really hard
he's just getting it centered up there and uh it's exciting
first time i've ever done this they've done it before so i'm trusting them because they're ready
right you trust ready honestly does adam look like a miner you bet i do he's like a coal miner
look at that guy he's not afraid to get dirty he's ready guys man they know how to get the job done
hmm
what's beeping oh carbon monoxide detector's going off get out
that's a good time to call it a day yeah i guess i can disable that like my pocket keeps vibrating
now simply safe is calling me how do we silence i better answer this everything is fine yeah we're
doing just fine there's no no issue it was a it was a it was a big truck that had the shop
running we're in a farm shop so but i'm glad the system works i guess that was a good trigger wow
they they texted me my app alerted me and then they called me ten seconds that's phenomenal
within probably about 15 seconds of that thing going off pretty impressive okay it is
day two rations are getting low but the spirits are high that's that's all that
matters right it's uh it's coming along we're making some progress they're getting ready to
almost pull the tanks off of that one we still have to pull off two tanks on this one over here
but that won't take too long it's actually going pretty fast we just got to do a lot
of finessing in the shop like moving things around and um yeah but they're discussing on
what the next game plan is and i guess they're the bosses today so and we do as we're told
okay all right let's get back to work take number two going on
yeah i was lifting my tank up there you go now go up
yeah you can go up there you go yeah there better not be one scratch on that thing
that's not how we go about business around here that wasn't too bad we're getting better
every time by the time we get this one down and this one over here is going to go a lot faster
theoretically that's what they always say right and if you guys are wondering yes we did turn the
scalp chopper off so no more scalp chopping but i am hard hated so it wouldn't hurt anyways well
mine is a hydraulic line there that was tight somehow i've missed the pre-lift inspection
but we're gonna have these three tanks piled over here and then the next step's gonna go
down on the frame of this thing we gotta sand it buff it clean it throw paint on all the rust
spots so they don't continue to corrode and then we'll start assembling the new stainless steel
you