Christmas Day Trip 2014

 After opening grifes on Christmas morning
We were wanting to go were there was snow, so we drove up to  Union Creek area.

No snow to speak of, so we checked out the Rogue River in and around the area.

This is Daniel and Rochelle, to the right at
nature bridge over look.

Looking down the river from picture below you can see the water bubbling up on the left side middle.

The river in the summer time when water is low it will go underground for about 200 feet and come back up  in the spot.

It is all fenced off, so no one can fall in.

There must have been a few who have fall in.

I have only hear of a child who fell in and came out the other side with bruses and scratch but lived.
It look like it had flooded over the banks in the last 2 day before be were thee.

The Big Wreck

Left rear stuck in wheel well.

At about 4 week into school one of my big buses was T boned.

Bus was traveling on a straight peace of road that crossed an intersection that had a stop sign for the cross traffic.
The bus had the right of way with no stop sign for the bus.
Now the blazer looking car coming on to the intersection , no one seem to know how fast but I would guess between 35 and 45 mph.

Another pic. of broken spring.

Broke leaf spring.

On right is fuel tank in tank cage and tires on left side.

The bus was empty, heading out after 1st AM and going to pick up its 2nd AM and was about 3 minutes from picking up his first student.
We think the bus was moving between 35  and 40 mph.
By the time the bus driver saw the car coming the bus was about 50 feet from intersection.
and the car did not brake at all, no skid mark at all.
And no skid marks for the bus, only the one moving side ways.

The place the power pole hit and damage top, without breaking glass

So now the the car hit the side of the bus on the right side between the fuel tank and the rear tires.
With the tires on the left side of the car trying to drive over the hood of the car, and dragging it alone.
The bus broke traction and slid completely around facing the opposite direction, pointing back down the road from were it had just came from.
But first the bus hit a power pole and cut if of even with the ground and mashing the bumper and top of the bus with out breaking the windshield and ended up parked in the ditch, just like you parked  it there.  No one hurt, all walked away, but the power was out for about 6 hours for the locals.
Now my 19 year old bus it totaled, with a cost $20,000.00 to fix, it is not going to be repaired.
One of the safest vehicles on the road take a hit, save everyone. (I did start the motor and drove it about 10 feet to get it hooked up to the tow truck)

Happy B Day Alex

Alex's birthday was had on September 27.
He is all of 6 years old, and is going to 1st grade and will be a big boy.


You can see that He is throwing some moves on the camera. With a peace sign throw in to show he has peaceful intenses.

And of coarse his favorite  cousin was able to be there Dominc.
Dominc is watching Alex's back, so no one can seek up on them.

All had a great time, lots of cake and gifts.

I Had A Borning Time. Honing

I did something that I had always waited to do myself and instead of paying someone else to do it.

This is the Hone head that goes into the cylinder and grinds away the metal.

So the normal way you do this is remove the motor, take all the parts off, completely removing everything  because it is always hot tanked and some of the part can be damaged in the hot tanking.
With the plan of looking like it did when the block was first cast from steel in the beginning.
And the machine shop people do not like to work on dirty engine blocks, they would like to be able to eat off of it, before they start machining, the other reason is be able to see any damage or cracks that may be hidden.  So the two way to do this is with a Boring bar or Preseason Hone.

Piston upside down in cylinder

Hones stones, 2 type of grit 80 and 180

 Because the cylinder is under 3 inches a boring bar will not fit.
So in has to be honed.
The bar tool cuts the metal and the hone grinds it away a little at a time.

This is the Feeler gauge in the cylinder with piston  .0015 thick.

The hone is turn with a 3/4 inch drill motor and turned at below 300 RPM to to keep it cool.
And then as you turn it slowly, you have to add honing fluid to help wash away the stone and metal particles.
I pulled the head off engine and remove the pistons and oil pan.
Place a pan under the engine to cache the stuff that fall out.
I had to remove 0.020 inch of metal to install .20 over piston, that is about the thickness of 3 or 4 sheet of copy paper.
I did this to old way, witch is to hone a little and then take your new piston and stick it in the cylinder upside down with .0015 thick "feeler gauge" (feeler gauge is flat metal that is the perifit thickens).
The other way it to buy a "bore gauge" that has a dial on it, that tells you how big the cylinder is.
So the ideal is to be able to slide the piston down into the hole with the feeler gauge in the hole at the same time. You start out, you can not get the feeler gauge in the cylinder then it goes in but it stick really bad.
Then in the end, you are able to push it all the way down with out sticking, needs to  move pretty easy and pull the gauge and it slide easy as will.
The last is to finish hone to get a slight angle 45 degree on the surface to help it break in better.
The last part is to wash out the metal and stone parities away and clean the bottom end as will.
I changed oil the first 100 miles and I change it again at about 1000 mile to get the last of the dirty stuff.
Right now I have 300 mile on the motor and it runs really good with lots more power then it every had. It was going to cost about $200 to have the work done, the hone cost $150. so I saved little and learn a lot, and the next job will be almost free.

Geocaching Were Alien and Gaint Bee Hive Hide Out

This must be a skeletal head of an alien that crashed land on the back side of table rock.
Been here many years.
Really it is the hip bone from a cow or elk.

There is about 30+ geocaches in this area behind table rock, called the Table rock reserve, not sure why it is there, but I think the BLM is holding on to it because it has some history or geology interest.
Any way it is open to the publice to walk around on but you must stay on the trails?
This has rased a big question on my mind.
There is no trails that I could tell, one road that runs back to a old pond site.
So I just walk all over it looking for caches.
I did find a large agate and some bit of petrified wood.
I did find about 25 geocaches in the area.

I did find this poor old guy scatted all over the place, as you can see here are some of his bones.
Looks like they have been out there for about 5 years from the looks of them.

So I started picking up one here and another over there and pretty soon it looked like I had enough of HIM to put back together.
The the bone were pretty clean and the sun had bleach them pretty good, but I had some rubber work gloves in the pack so I was wearing them as I was building our friend.

The head was gone and the lower legs as well.
But think about 60 % is here.
And I think I got ever thing in the right place for the most part.

Then as I work my way around the area I did find this big bee hive rock.
There was a cache at the base on the back side.
It is about 90 feet high and you can climb up the back side to the top.
Not much to see from the top, it is a fun climb any ways.


I did the find on New Years 2014 day off, it took about 3 to 4 different time to find most of the caches.

Diving At The Swing Bridge On I.V.

 Made my secound dive for the summer of 2014 at the boy scout camp swing bridge on the Illinois River.
The temp was nice about 80 degrees and water temp about 60 degrees.
The vise was about 40 feet.
I seem to go in a big circle when I start out, and the compass kept sticking, so I came up a coup of time to get going up the steam.
But it was a good dive and I cleaned up the river some what, as you can see from the stuff I brought up.

As can be see I found a buch of stuff.
Lots of bottles and cans, I did find a big pieces of boken glass, I could not bring it  up without cutting  myself so I mashed it between two rocks in to little tinny little pieses, and buried it under some rocks.
Also I did find a $10.00 bill rolling alone the bottom, I made some money on this dive.
I made a short 2nd dive testing some new dive gear in 8 foot of water and I found nice pair sun glass.
Got down to 65 feet and got a 50 minute on an 80 cu. tank.

Toys Of The Past, Erector Set

When I was about 5 years old my parents got me my first Erector Set.
It was all metal and came with lots of little screws/bolts and nuts to hold every thing together.
It had flat metal pieces that was 3/4 inch wide and came in many lengths, 2 holes long to 20 holes long.
And other pieces, that were like panels with lots of holes space out about 3/4 inch apart so you could bolt these all together into different shapes.
I think this was one of the first new toy I got, most of the time I would get used or repair toys, and that was okay, because I did not care if was new or old, just as long as I could call it my toy.
My old Erector set was just that is was called the "Erector Set" this one in the picture is a 725 kit that my Mom found and put in a case with lots of pieces.
My old set I had, last time I saw it, was in a little metal box that it came with and some how it had gotton water in it, so it had pretty much rusted away.
I don't think that the, laws would allow kids to play with a toy of the type, today.
The screws and nut and some of the other pieces would really cause choking problems.
And most of the metal parts were galvanized or chromed, with lots of sharp edges and pointy thing, and the galvanizing can't be good to put into you mouth, and touching all the time.
I had other build type toys, but, this one I must have spent days playing and building.
Found the old set in the attic of the shop, must have went up there when Mom past away.
I did build something, and the screws and nuts seem a lot smaller then I remember or my hands and fingers were much smaller back in 1963, so that could be it.
I would build army tanks, radar station, cars and lots of other item, most what I would see traveling.

Here it is, a Radar station, it was lots of fun, really small parts.