Big Rigs. What do you prefer

[durallymax]

Ah to be young and that ambitious again... Good for you Vinny. :thumbsup:

In a way. Im still lazy though and wouldnt do much if I couldnt do it by machine.

Heres the Valvecover off my Jetta TDI that I did. The trailer would be a breeze compared to this thing. A lot of sandinf then 5 stages of compounds plus a sealer at the end.

 

[RI Chevy Silveradoman]

WOW! Huge difference there Vin. Nice work.

 

[Ed HD]

Nice setup Vinny!! If you need another tanker, we might have one for sale soon. 82 Polar, ~6200 gal, was a milk tanker, been using it for water. Got leaf spring suspension, though...

You'll also be driving right by me when you head to Fargo. Wave when you go by the St. John's Univ. exit west of St. Cloud! :hello:

 

[durallymax]

Nice setup Vinny!! If you need another tanker, we might have one for sale soon. 82 Polar, ~6200 gal, was a milk tanker, been using it for water. Got leaf spring suspension, though...

Thanks for the offer, we're staying with newer ones (mid nineties and up) and dad prefers 6,500s. Our oldest one has Reyco spring ride, it's not terrible but it is noticeable. The other two are air rides. All are Brenner/Bar-Bel's which is nice because one of their plants is 10 minutes from our other farm.

I think it will be awhile before we need one though. Were at 1500 cows now between the two farms with dry cows which we house at a different farm. This keeps both farms around 600-700 milking cows and keeps us under the CAFO cutoff which is 700 cows or more. The reason we do not want to go CAFO right now is due to our current setup. Our manure storage would need a large overhaul as we only have 8-10 day storage currently. We do have a nutrient management plan and apply manure properly, but in order to meet CAFO requirements you need at least 6 month storage. In doing the expansion there, we would likely want to incorporate some sort of solids seperation. We probably would not do it immediately but would want to get everything setup properly before hand. Our parlor is only a double 7. We have it fairly maxed out right now running 20hrs per day. In order to be able to justify the added costs of making the DNR happy, we would need to add quite a few cows to make it worth it. The parlor limits us to adding another 100 cows, which would not be worth the hassles. Thus we would need a bigger parlor, but cannot build one in the current building, nor would the current building be an ideal location for further expansion. If we are going to build a parlor, its going to be an efficient one. We have a 40 stall rotary at the other farm and would be looking at probably putting in a 60-90 stall rotary at the home farm when the time to expand came. Rotary parlors are very efficient, but unlike parallels or herringbones, they are not easy to add on to later on. Thus you have to build big enough from the start. We would also need another new barn of course and from the sounds of it, we would build a cross ventilated barn. We are also looking at adding onto our current barn to make it wider and turn it into a cross vent barn as well. The idea would be to expand to at least 2,000 cows right away with things like manure storage and milking facilities positioned for more down the road. In order to do this we essentially have to build a completely new milking setup which will be a large investment obviously. Right now my brother and sister are going into college and in 5 years when the rental on the other farm is up they should have a better idea of what they want to do. It also should work out to time it with a farm tech days show which will help lower a lot of the costs, our county is due to host soon.

 

[Ed HD]

Got it. Figured I'd throw it out there, lol. We'll probably just sell it back to the dealer we got it from. Dad says he'd be happy if he got back what he paid for it, considering we've put a few thousand in painting the chassis and fixing some wiring...

 

[durallymax]

If you list it you will probably get what you paid maybe more if it is still 3A Food Grade. They are in high demand. Our first one we paid 26k for and it was a 96 spring ride, the last two were both 40k, air ride 6500s one was a 97 the other is an 01. They dont loose much value.

 

[Ed HD]

Yeah. We paid $18,500 2 years ago, it's still worth that easily. I can't see why it wouldn't still be food-grade, all that we've ever hauled was potable water. Guy at the dealer said when we bought it it was the only one he had available, the rest were going out to ND to haul water for fracking...

 

[3500GMC]

I like the old Diamond T's

Funny Pepp should mention Diamond T's

I opened my big mouth and said 'yeah I'll give her a good home' to a guy that has this late 60's Daimond T...It was said to be a '67 but the hood or headlight assy might have been swapped out- (rect. vs. round lights)

Don't have it yet and probably shouldn't go through with it but I can't turn down the Deal.. It's not all that pretty But could be.

6-71n Detroit, 5 over trans, two speed axle, wet line, set back front axle, low mile ex farm truck. Runs real good and sounds, well, MEANER THAN ALL GET OUT.. The ol two cycle Detroits are awesome.

..


And then the possibilities:

I need another project like I need another hole in my head!
.
.

 

[Ed HD]

BTW, Vinny, when you come through MN, between Clearwater MN and St. Cloud, I-94 is 1 lane in either direction, 60 MPH, as they're replacing the southbound side of the road. I'd not be going north after 4 PM through there, or south before 9 AM. Just FYI. I'm sure you're familiar with how 94 is pretty much from St. Cloud to the Chicago area.

 

[durallymax]

Thanks for the heads up. Ill try avoiding those times but looking at the map it looks like ill either be driving through it in the morning or back through that afternoon. Just going off google maps time looks like id hit it around 10am, then fargo just before 1 im sure an hour will be wasted in fargo which puts me around 5 coming back through. Could leave earlier then we only have to go through bobtail and can avoid it with the trailer.

 

[Ed HD]

Yeah. It's fairly slow even mid-afternoon. Not the worst, but I'd rather bob-tail through Twin-Cities rush hour than drag a trailer through it, lol.

 

[durallymax]

Got the new belt today. Drove out last night. Lots of construction, still made it in 8hrs. 9mpg overall.

Needs a bath and needs to be polished but the actual functional parts are nice. Wireless controls are veey nice.

Ill get some more pics tomorrow, I have 3 loads of wet fiber from the digester to haul.

 

[durallymax]

Apparently i forgot the picture.

 

[3500GMC]

Looking good, Vin.

Curious, can you run farm tags? Do they stipulate any weight classifications?

 

[durallymax]

Yes we run 80k farm plates. Cost is just under $600 for the year. Regular 80k state tags are just under $600 per quarter or $2,400/year. The plates are identical ours just have a yellow restricted sticker. They limit you to only hauling your own products. Also do not need a CDL if within 150 miles.

 

[btfarm]

Nice trailer there :thumbsup:

 

[durallymax]

I snapped a few pics of the details.


Access panels on front fenders.







Underneath covers, you can see red cap on grease zerk and the tensioning setup.





Roller right before landing gear





between landing gear and 5th wheel plate.





You can see both front access plates in this picture as well as the adjustment nuts for the belt. The hydraulic filter is added for the EH controls. They are more sensitive to debris so they add this filter so that you do not have to worry about contaminants from trucks.





Inside one of the access plates.





Belt tension gauge. Keep tension between the fingers. They set it tighter from the factory to allow for initial stretch.





Rear controls, hydraulic and suspension gauges, and rear access panels. You can get in cab variable flow control as well.





Inside the lowest panel, jungle of hoses, upper ones allow access to the rams for door locks and such.





Bumper can be unbolted for bagging if needed.





Knife gate. Has a very thick seal, they said for chopping they tell guys to leave the secondary locks open and the knife gate up an inch or so to preserve the seal.





You can see the secondary locks in the picture. They are what the 4th function is for. You can also see the other door locks as well which are opened when sending hydraulics to the door rams.









Heres a short video of it, not running full speed, maybe 1300rpm on the truck, pump is 30gpm@1600.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3vsnnvtBJew

 

[btfarm]

Lot goin' on with those. Pretty well thought out by the TK engineers.

 

[3500GMC]

Now that's working smarter!!

Cool tools, cool tools. Love it.

Did I see steam rolling off the 'dirt'..?

 

[durallymax]

Now that's working smarter!!

Cool tools, cool tools. Love it.

Did I see steam rolling off the 'dirt'..?

Haha no dirt. Its fresh fiber from a local methane digester.

Simply put, they take manure, collect the methane off of it using an anaerobic digester, run that through a couple of big gensets to create electricity, then spin the spent manure through a centrifuge to seperate the water. This stuff is what is left and it is moist and very potent, even with the tarp open, when I go in their to clean it out its strong (and I smell manure all day anyways). They will also take some of this material and run it through a large dryer to dry it down significantly. The dried material is used for animal bedding, the fresh material can be used for animals like steers and such. The "stale" material is used by landscapers.