First up is my finger. It's not broken, but it's badly bent (and cut, too). See, there's this broken door (note to self: another broken thing... need picture) in the barn that can only be opened by pushing the latch in from the side of the metal frame. Normally, I get a hammer and punch and hit it, but this day I tried just pushing it. With my finger. It opened and since the wind was blowing, it opened hard, catching the tip of my finger between the door and frame and neatly slicing the tip of my finger off. This is gonna cut down on my guitar playing for a few days, at least.
This is a 25' tape measure. It quit retracting and after WD-40 didn't work, I took it apart and found a, yup, broken spring inside. Into the trash with it. I already have a new 30' Stanley with metal housing in the shop. Maybe it'll be my buddy for a few weeks.
Oh, cool- this is a two-fer, maybe even a three or four-fer! On the trailer is a Kawasaki generator. I'm using it to run the formerly broken, now fixed (I hope!) well. This has never been a particularly reliable generator and we've long since replaced/supplemented it with a much simpler and, so far, more reliable Honda. But, since it's just sitting and since we paid good money for it, I wanted to put it back to work. It ran once. Then I brought it home and filled it with gas and took it back to the well. It refused to run. Gas was pouring out of the carb and that could mean only 1 thing. I took the carb apart and after careful searching found the broken float bowl that was not doing its job, which is quite simple, really: Shut off the fuel, and "don't let it leave the carb!" (Monty Python fans will recognize the allusion). New float bowls are $25 plus shipping and JB Weld is impervious to gas, so I restored to globs of the latter. After determining that the float pins is uni-directional and must be installed "just-so" or it'll bind the float, I (hopefully) fixed the carb and float and returned the generator to work. I'd still better order a new float.
In the background is the Yellow Peril, otherwise known as a John Deere backhoe. This thing...well, where to start? First of all, it doesn't! That's right- it doesn't start. I don't really know why. I do know that several years ago, I took it to a neighbor's to dig a new septic line for him. Loading this thing is a really scary deal and after I did a wheelie trying to get it loaded, I decided to just drive it home. About 1/2 way, it seized and quit running. I'd hit the starter and get nothing. I left it there and went home for my skid steer, with the intention of using it to lift all the arms and buckets up and chain them in place so that I could maybe tow the Yellow Peril home. After getting the skid steer on-site, chaining everything, and etc, I thought I'd try the starter. It started!!!! So, I drove it home. A few weeks later, I needed to dig on my own septic system. After starting the tool via a complex system of cables and extra batteries, I went to work. All was well for awhile and I was nearly finished with the job. I went into the house to get something and I returned to find smoke pouring from the engine. I took a quick look and determined that the fan belt was off. The last thing I wanted was a humongous piece of dead yellow metal on an open sewage hole, so I quickly moved the backhoe off the hole and drove it to near the barn. It needs a new fan belt but to get that on, I have to remove the hydraulic pump. I've never done this and it sounds messy and oily and I have procrastinated for nearly 2 years. So, the Yellow Peril sits. Oh, yeah, did I mention that it also doesn't have any brakes?
My skid steer does 10x the job of moving dirt that this backhoe does but, alas- take a wild guess!!!!- the skid steer is broken!!! It has a weird oil leak that I haven't been able to diagnose yet and can't afford to have a pro diagnose. Thus, the skid steer also sits. In between them, visible to the right of the child's play set (which, coincidentally, has a broken slide) is a Ford 8N tractor that- imagine!!!- is broken!!! It has a rusted-out exhaust pipe that'll need replacement.
I don't think the lights work on the trailer holding the generator but I'm scared to check.
Here we have a new driveshaft carrier bearing on my 1980 Toyota. Now this one I'll cut some slack as the original bearing lasted for 32 years and 170,000 miles. It was a fairly easy replacement and (hopefully) I installed it correctly. We'll see. If you see something wrong in this picture, PLEASE let me know!
This broken item is a Makita battery. It just quit working. All was fine until I put it on the charger one day. I got the flashing/alternating green/red lights which indicate a failed battery. No hope here.
My go-to-mailbox bike (an old Gary Fisher Supercaliber) has a flat-tire. I can probably fix this and it'll probably just go flat again.
And finally, for now, my boots. These are Wolverine work boots that I made the mistake of going rappelling in one day this spring. My ascending rope cut the soft soles of these boots a-part. I filled 'em up with Gorilla Glue and I'm getting a little more use out of them, but they are not far from the trash heap.
I think that sums up the broken stuff I had to deal with just on this one day. Next time, I'll chronicle the stuff that works. That will be easy as it will be a much shorter blog.
Until then, keep on the sunnyside.
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