1 January 2012. Today I’ve decided that my resolution for the New Year is to keep a journal for the next year or so, with the intention of getting it published. I’ve actually been kicking this idea around since I was retired from the US Air Force in November 2010. Life after the Air Force has been so busy that I just never have taken the time to get started. Well no more. Today I resolve to take a little time every evening and jot down a little something about the day’s events. I began the day doing one of my favorite things: Tinkering. I love working on just about anything with a small engine. Lawn tractors, chainsaws, small tractors, rototillers…you name I enjoy tinkering on it. I also enjoy larger machines as well, but prefer the smaller engines. No particular reason, that’s just what I like! First thing this morning I put the carburetor back on my GT6000. I’d pulled it off yesterday and rebuilt it, hoping to cure the hard start and lean conditions. I also installed the new air filter elements that I bought a few weeks ago. The new spark plugs turned out to be the wrong ones, so she’s still running the old ones until I get a chance to run to town for the correct plugs.

Just about the time I got her running Christine showed up wondering about getting the dresser hauled into the house. We cleared some of the boxes and stuff that had been piled on top of the dresser, then loaded it into Papa’s little farm truck. Not a big project, but it’ll give her a lot more storage space for her sewing projects.

Now, back to the fun. I fired up the GT6000 and set the throttle to about half speed to let her warm up a while. While waiting for that engine to warm up I cleaned and put a few tools away. Then I started the delicate process of fine tuning the idle mixture screw. There are a couple different methods of tuning a carburetor, but they all share the common goal of getting the correct air/fuel mixture into the engine. Too little fuel and you risk overheating and bad things happening. Too much fuel and you’ll get poor economy. The goal is to find the happy medium between the two extremes, then go just a bit towards the rich side. The only tool really needed is a screwdriver, but a tachometer helps immensely. After going through the process of getting the idle mixture adjusted I had to readjust the governor a little too.

Once things seemed to be going well I put the hood back on and took her out for little spin. The front grader blade/snow plow was already mounted, and since we had a little snow the previous day I was able to push a bit of snow around. (Note; it’s not much more than a skiff of snow, so mostly I pushed dirt and weeds. But, it’s seat time!) Hmmm…still a bit of surging at high rpm under a load. Maybe I’ll need to put a bit larger high speed jet in the carb to compensate for the apparent lean condition. Or, it could be that the intake manifold gaskets are leaking in which case I’ll need to replace them. I do have complete gasket set for the engine, maybe when I get a chance I’ll just pull the motor out and replace all the gaskets. For now though she seems to be running better than before, and certainly starting much better.

After lunch I got started on another project. One of the ranch 4-wheelers got banged up pretty good when it feel off the trailer on the way from getting cows rounded up this last fall. Several things bent, including the rear axle. Might as well start there. First up: remove the wheels, then the hubs, then the drive chain and sprocket. Like most solid rear axle ATV’s with chain drive, this one has an eccentric bearing carrier that is bolted to the rear of the swing-arm, so you can adjust chain tension by rotating the bearing carrier. This part requires a little percussive maintenance to convince it to move from its home for the last 15 years or so, but eventually it comes free. Next up is to remove the large nuts that hold the bearing carrier and sprocket hub onto the axle. Not an easy task, but it does require 1 1/8” wrenches so it’s an excuse to use break out the big wrenches! There’s one nut to hold everything together, and a jam nut to make sure that nothing comes loose. The jam nut comes off fairly easy, but the main nut is going to be a chore. The problem is how to you hold the axle (which is very round) in place while applying the torque required to remove the nut. After spending a half hour or so trying to avoid damaging the splines at the end of the axle (because who knows, maybe at some time in the future we’ll have a need for an bent axle with good splines?) I decide to just use the splines in the vise jaws and get the dang thing off. A little more penetrating oil (story about how the ranch got 100+ gallons later), a little heat, and push on the end of the wrench. Hey it’s turned! Nope, the whole axle turned again. Only this time instead of just marring the unimportant surfaces the splines are now boogered. Dagnabit! Well, one more trick up my sleeve. The vise jaws have a little hole in them where the screws that hold them in place are. If I clamp the nubs in the axle in there, it might just have enough grip to allow me to finally get this one last nut off. A big tug on the wrench confirms that it’s got enough bite, but the nut still is not budging. More percussive maintenance is in order. 8 pound sledge on the end of a 1 1/8” wrench. A few good whacks and the nut finally turns a bit. Problem is the axle turned a bit too. Tighten down the vise a bit more by jumping on the handle, then go back to the wrench another few good whacks and the nut finally lets go. After that it’s a simple matter of swapping all the good parts over to the new axle.

Once the axle is ready to reinstall I decide to start removing the swing-arm. The bushings are shot, have been for a while. So disassembly continues on the 4-wheeler. The rear rack got fairly well bent up, but it’s only held on with four bolts so it comes off pretty easy. Next up is the rear fenders, which goes pretty easy as well. About this time Christine comes in the shop quite obviously mad about something. Apparently she’s been texting me about helping with something. Problem is I put my phone on the charger at lunchtime, so I haven’t got any of those messages. And now I’m in trouble for not helping. Ah well, I was getting ready to clean up anyway.