gearhead204

On 11/25/2016 at 0:29 AM, other dog said:

As i've mentioned before, I have pretty much no use for unions. As we all learned in school-right? unions were much needed in the early days, because before unions any company or business could literally treat their employees any way they wanted to- "if you don't like it,leave!"

Then, as time marched on unions became more powerful-bigger,stronger, faster- until the unions could pretty much treat the company or business any way they wanted to- "we want more and more and more for doing less and less and less!"

I mentioned U.S. Steel on here the other day, i've said how they quit loading me at Copperweld Steel in Warren ,Ohio 30 minutes before the shift ended when they had one more lift to load because "it's in their contract", when i'd been there all evening and half the night already. Union greed put them out of business, and when you see a sad story on TV or in the paper about "the rust belt", and how all the jobs are gone, I find it hard to feel any sympathy when I pass the old Copperweld mill and see weeds covering everything and buildings falling down- because they did it to themselves!..and they treated truck drivers like assholes too.

And i've got this set of books called "The Trucking Pioneers" -

...and I made a list of these trucking companies that are now out of business all or at least partly because of union strikes against them.

...and while I was doing all this, my shed burned down, and almost the house-

Damn, glad your ok! sorry about the loss of personal property......guess you have a new winters project ahead of you. now for the next 3 years you will keep remembering all the other things you lost that you forgot to inventory for the insurance claim....( hope you have insurance)    

steal some from a freightliner at the wrecking yard, do you have the cross pipe and elbows? 

On 11/25/2016 at 8:23 AM, hurstscrambler said:

Thanks Paul, I got some components off the engine and was finally able to pull the trans off the engine.  I have some questions that I hope you guys can help with.  

First off the the leak the the rear of the engine appears to be the pilot bearing seal had failed and been over-greased.  I'm fairly certain the clutch is the one the truck was born with.  The input shaft has no wear that I can see.  I included some pictures.  Where should I be going for these parts, the local truck center doesn't seem to want to help me much.  How difficult is changing the input shaft seal?  I know it looks like a mess, but it really does seem like heavy grease, not gear oil or engine oil.  Andy

Never messed with the trans that you have but I would double check the parts book for it, as I have never seen a clutch brake work against the front of the trans like this one is. Normally  there is another cover that the brake rides against.

winter of 96 I plowed residential areas with a 4-71 powered Gallon t-500........ at 3am people would come out of their house just to throw snow at me........except one gal she made me fresh chocolate chip cookies.....I think she liked the way it shook! 

On 11/18/2016 at 10:19 AM, Truck Shop said:

Fruits and vegetables are going to get real expensive, resulting in constipation.

YES!........I can't understand why we can't issue AG. worker visas to these people with some harsh penalty's if they are caught doing other types of work. Give them an ID #  and let them be taxed at a fair rate to cover whatever government services they may receive while in the states. The majority of these workers only want to work for the growing season and then return to Mexico, and "vacation" for several months before returning for the next years crop.

just by eye, if the amount of input wear is greater where the rear most clutch disc hub rides  the bell housing may need to be refaced. Having a single counter shaft trans hanging on the back should improve your odds of things being ok. It was a common issue with twin counter shaft trans. especially  if the buggy spring was left off after trans work, as the trans weight would cantilever onto the bell housing.  

20k for that truck!...........yikes nice paint but that's about it, looks like it hasn't  be  run in several years and the drivers are all mismatched

yes check the dimmer sw. had several throw me that curve ball as for the power good luck we have a 74 gmc 6500 w/ a 366  in a fire truck tender with a 1800 gallon tank i've  been thru the carb and distributer trying to find its problem but it all checks out.........it almost can pull a 6% grade at 20 mph loaded as long as its a short grade!

nice piece of engineering ! but would not be able to haul didly squat in my state, the bridge law would kill it.  

I have no knowledge of different mounts on a B.C.  as far as a book look on ebay for an 855 cummins service manual the 855 book should cover all configurations, as far as the rear main I myself would do it .Now this would be a good time to also check the input shaft for second clutch spline wear, if you have notable wear you could have the bell housing machined at this time to retrue the housing.

Carlot: I guess we were posting answers at the same time 

4 hours ago, BAD DOG said:

Would it be possible to get a pic or two of the Sanden bracket you have and maybe a few measurements, it would be greatly appreciated . 

I will have the ole girl in the shop shortly to do head gaskets  and will pull the bracket and get you some measurements and a few pics 

10 hours ago, BillyT said:

GH 204, thank you for your clarification on the wage rate! I was ready to rent a van, fill it with workers and head to Washington as a labor contractor! We all tend to only see one facet of anothers life and judge them by that! There has been for decades in Florida a situation that heavily favors businesses over workers in every pursuit including agriculture. The enslavement I referred to was actual locked gate captivity, with the labor contractors raping the women and taking an unfair percentage of the workers already low wages! The minimum wage in Florida is around 8.00. I just naturally assumed the crops you were harvesting were high dollar like the cherries you mentioned,down here it is blueberries and strawberries. The citrus crop is down to 20 percent of previous years due to "citrus greening" a disease that kills orange trees! The researchers at UF are feverishly working to find a cure if they don't the majority of our orange juice will come from Chile and central America! A lot of it already is! I am familiar with the H2A program. The computer industry is replacing American workers with people from India under that program, and forcing the displaced workers to train them or they won't get their severance package! How the hell can you afford to transport workers to and from Mexico from Washington! It is obvious there is no one answer to the problems we face! It is also obvious we cannot continue continue to keep feeding,housing, and educating non citizens forever,would they do the same for us if we illegally crossed into Mexico?!

The transportation of workers north is a challenge! I am trying to figure out how to afford several H2A workers for this next year as well as housing for them.

I am too small of a farmer for the H2A to be a good fit (only 30 acres of fruit), so to make it work, I need to team up with a few other farmers and share the guys! But the thought of bad weather causing a severe crop loss and being stuck paying the contract balance scares the crap out of me! But labor is getting harder and harder to secure when needed. The new generation doesn't want anything to do with playing in the dirt or climbing a ladder, and only want to work 4 or 5 days a week. I guess when I was that age, I liked to have some money in my pocket, so 7 days a week of work was great, I didn't have time to spend it and was saving for collage or the tool box!

I sure hope FU finds the answer to citrus greening , those tree viruses' are EXPENSIVE to deal with, we have one called little cherry disease and if you are late to find it when it strikes it will cost you the whole block! I'm in the process of prepping ground now that was Rainer and Regina cherry's for new Premier Honey Crisp trees that I will plant in April of 17 , its a rock pile that I'm getting tired of looking at ( about 50 cy. per acre of rock) hoping to finish that by the weekend (the cherries I pulled didn't have the virus, just no longer profitable).

I would venture to guess that that truck must have an 18k or larger front axle, my rw713 has a 12k and I run 12r22.5 rubber on the front of it  but the pictured above truck has at least another 4 in. of clearance than mine.......the smaller fuel tanks makes that thing larger than life......definitely creeper friendly!

14 hours ago, TeamsterGrrrl said:

Billy T, there's no way to verify that $170/day rate, and it sounds like propaganda from Big Ag. Truth is, in this century big growers in Florida have been convicted of enslaving farm workers. To give you an idea of what these Big Ag factory farms are doing, we have a couple near 10,000 cow dairies near me that almost exclusively employ noncitizen immigrants under one of the visa programs. The "farm" is basically a company town, with a million square foot "barn" and manure lagoons right next to a cheaply built apartment building that houses the workers. The workers are notable in the census data for the townships these factory farms are located in, with 30-40 farm workers they kinda stick out in a township with a population of only a couple hundred. Those census stats show a similar number of renters as there are workers at the "farms", and they're paying almost $1000 a month in rent- That's double the market rate for rent in nearby towns. These workers are brought here under a program that requires that they be skilled workers with 4 year college degrees, yet the census tells us that there are far fewer people with college degrees in the township than there are workers at the "farms"... Clearly there is fraud afoot here. The income data from the census shows a much smaller number of $170 a day workers than the "farms" employ.

So sounds like that $170 a day might be a gross figure for a 16 hour day, and before the labor contractor's cut and other deductions are made.

Would you like for me to post their pay stubs?.......Granted solid Ag. work doesn't pay this wage, but high dollar time sensitive crops pay workers well, as no insurance policy will pay for crop loss due to a labor shortage! So with the investment we have into producing the crop, we must harvest it or lose our ass! 

too new for my help! but I guess I'm not following you when you say you unhook it and it still runs, but spins free with the engine off.  So did it spin free in both directions? ..... with it unplugged? .....im thinking that they may have finally got smart and made a clutch that is spring applied and air released  now depending on how it could be wired it could be released with the key off if the truck still had air pressure.  

7 hours ago, BillyT said:

Teamster Grrrl, while I'm sure gearhead 204 didn't make up the 170 wage, there may be some hidden deductions he's unaware of. It is both tragic and ironic that some things never change! I'm familiar with the enslavement of migrants down here in the citrus industry. They were locked in their camps and not permitted to leave during the harvesting season! The dairy farm you mentioned reminds me of an investigative report I saw in the 60s on Charlie Cannons town,Cannons Mills NC. Where the textile workers were "required" to buy everything they needed from Charlies company store, at his prices of course! Rent their houses from him and go to his doctors (where of course they were never sick enough to take off work!) The movie Norma Rae was based on Cannons Mills.Another excellent report was Edward R Morrows "Harvest of Shame" about migrant workers. The same abuses took place in the coal industry in WV, Kentucky and that area with the company stores and coal and iron police( thugs and Pinkertons). You mentioned the manure lagoon and I was reminded of an enormous feeder lot of I 10 in E Texas there was a mobile home smack in the middle of the cattle pens. The smell is indescribable, but I'm thinking a worker family lives there! I forget the term,but this all goes back to the middle ages when the king literally owned the peasants! I'm not a migrants advocate, but they are human beings!

Billy T: I used an avg. daily wage for pickers during sweet cherry harvest. I have a few guys that do closer to 250 bucks a day, and some of the slower guys do around 140 a day. It costs me around 24 cents a pound to harvest plus housing.  I'm pretty sure there are no other hidden deductions,  just the same ones the rest of us get SS, fwt, and l&i. The reason I know this is I write the checks! Our state's min. wage is 9.47, so that is the bottom floor. If workers don't make at least that doing piece work, I must pay them per hour.....and I can tell you this, they won't work for min. wage! Any per hour work they do, they want at least 12 bucks, If you pay them less, it will cost you! ......fruit will be bruised, trees damaged  and or your stuff will be missing!.....When there is a labor shortage, they know they can name their price.    

As for the guys being "locked into camp", I would guess they are our government's answer. Called H2A workers,  those people sign a labor contract that says they will work at least 40 hours but can work up to 60 if they want! The requirement is that the employers must take them shopping every 7 days or to any medical appointment. With H2A, the employer must guarantee x amount of work. If that should change, the employer may be liable for any shortage of hours. The employer must also provide transport to and from Mexico. The government sets the rate that certain duty's will pay, so when harvesting, that's typically the highest wage they will receive while under contract.     

6 hours ago, HeavyGunner said:

So how would an illegal alien be able to obtain a SS#?  Even if they could why would they since they usually are paid under the table which is why they come here in the first place. 

There are people that set them up with the "necessities" to the point that we cannot tell who's legit and who's not. About every other year, I will get a notice that I may have had an unauthorized worker. When you think about it, why would a guy work under the table for min. wage when if above the table, they can make often triple min. wage? 

glad to see "Murphy" didn't take a day off!.....I never seem to be able to find them with a carbide tipped blade but give me a chainsaw and I can find every hidden object there is 

2 hours ago, HeavyGunner said:

Illegals are paying taxes?!  You've got to be kidding!  We sudsidize them with our tax money that we earn but they sure as hell aren't paying .

they have to have a SS # and the employer must withhold SS and all other payroll deductions  they pay local and state sales tax....now if that ss # doesn't belong to them, they can't file taxes on it. so the government gets added income!.... the catch is the few problem workers that end up either being jailed or hospitalized. Those do cost us money. 

7 hours ago, BillyT said:

Like heavy gunner,I agree with Ksb Enforce the laws! Take the money in " social welfare" funds and hire more border patrol agents,creates employment! I'm referring to the money used on illegals not the money to help those who legitimately need it! A lot of if not most of president elect Trumps promises however appealing to many were "campaign rhetoric"! It is monetary impossible to build a wall along the whole Mexican border! When the money is needed for infrastructure! It is not impossible to end " sanctuary cities" and start to publicly deport as many illegals as financially feasible! It is not impossible to prosecute companies who hire illegals! These three things if properly and publicly done will remove the incentive to enter America illegally. Another thing, No person working in America including green card workers doing the work no one else wants should receive a wage so low that they can't afford decent Housing and proper nutrition! The run down migrant camps and third world conditions most green card workers live in are a disgrace to America! I noted that several states voted to raise the minimum wage. Good! I don't like Trump and I don't like the Clinton's!  But I'm willing to give him a chance!

how much money should I spend on housing people for 2.5 weeks per year? the state says I cant put them in tents, campers are not legal if they don't have 2 escape routes.....funny part is part of the labor I use are wild land fire fighters and they stay in tents for months when on fires. But the migrant housing camp can use tents (government run) 

Oh and the "So Low Wage" is about 170 bucks a day avg. for seven hours of work and I pay for the housing expenses

that sucks...........nothing money wont fix

Aw just hang some frame on the back of it and mount a cow pot on top! then find a pull trailer.......if the truck will get there the rest will follow! 

I JUST HOPE THE SWAMP GETS DRAINED!........as for the trade deals it may affect some of my apple exports but may protect me from beef imports, I am optimistic that like any good business person he will put competent  people in the right places to make sound decisions!

I think that with proper information we will also have a workable guest worker program for our farms, our current administration  likes to think they are helping us, but then drag their feet and we don't get the labor we need in time!