Rant for the Day (keep it clean)

[dademoss]

All you can smell here is whatever powder they use in fireworks, and Teddy is in his bunker.

I'm thinkin he will never be much of a gun dog

 

[Peanut]

Another thought: are these 'friends' who visit at odd hours some tweekin' crackerheads? They show up at odd times during the day... don't they have friggin' jobs? Any visible means of support?

They are always bad news... If he's immobile and methhead then he's bringing dealers/methheads across the street.

I'd set up a couple game cameras, write down license plate numbers. Trouble is coming even if you avoid the guy from here on... that's been my experience. At least you can point the cops in the right direction. Saw it ruin a couple people i cared about, and there was always continuous trouble.

 

[zannej]

Onions! I have a love hate relationship with them. I love the taste but they do not love my digestive system. I can't eat hydrated/fresh onions except in very very small quantities without having problems. The stew I ate yesterday was absolutely delicious but it was heavy on the onions and I'm now regretting eating it. I'm hoping the Pepto will kick in soon because this sucks and I want to get stuff done, but can't bend or lift stuff and I have to stay close to the bathroom.

Peanut, the person with all the visitors reminded me of my best friend and how the cops thought he was a drug dealer because people are/were showing up at his house all the time. They come by to ask him to look at car parts or their cars or their phones or their laptops or their computers. He's the tech guy who can fix a lot of stuff so people are always dropping by to ask him to fix stuff & they also drop by to ask advice on things. Since his dad passed, his Mom has been coming around to dump stuff in his yard/on his porch because she's a hoarder but doesn't have the space where she lives to store stuff. Because my friend had trouble with the church people next door vandalizing his yard and stealing stuff, he put up cameras. The cops told him that looked suspicious and made him look like a drug dealer. He told them he didn't care so long as people stopped vandalizing and stealing stuff.

Which reminds me, when I was at my friend's house the other day, his grandfather rolled up and started laying on the horn again. Sat out there at least 10min honking before he finally drove off. Friend was too tired to go out. The old man always does that when he wants something. He'll want my friend to come do his laundry or fix something on his vehicle, etc. Always says he'll pay him but never does. Entitled narcissistic jerk.

 

[Magus]

Onions! I have a love hate relationship with them. I love the taste but they do not love my digestive system. I can't eat hydrated/fresh onions except in very very small quantities without having problems. The stew I ate yesterday was absolutely delicious but it was heavy on the onions and I'm now regretting eating it. I'm hoping the Pepto will kick in soon because this sucks and I want to get stuff done, but can't bend or lift stuff and I have to stay close to the bathroom.

Aw jeez man, you too? Try some crackers and milk, it helps me sometimes.

 

[zannej]

Magus, Crackers and milk sounds like a good idea.

Also, I completely forgot Mom has a doctor's appointment today and I scheduled my curbside pickup for the time when she'll be having her appointment. They usually take 45min to an hour after appointment time to actually see her so I'll have to do the pickup late. It's too hot to keep things cold in the cooler for too long-- although, I can put some ice packs in there.

 

[havasu]

I completely forgot Mom has a doctor's appointment today

On Independence Day?

 

[Peanut]

I did something sooo dumb this afternoon. I grabbed sausages from the freezer and put them in the sink to thaw with water. Not sure what distracted me… forgot the water was running. Til I heard it, a huge mess. Dad and I installed these cabinets in ‘74. So, there are now places for water to go besides over the front. 2 drawers filled with water, it ran a while…

Now I have towels spread on the kitchen floor which are covered with junk that got wet. Even the box of sos pads got soggy. I have the floor fan running, gonna leave it til morning.

It’s amazing how much crap accumulates in the cabinet under a double sink. I redid the plumbing and painted a just few years ago. Now it’s filled with cleaning products I forgot about. They get pushed to the back, can’t see them without taking a knee.

Did manage something constructive today. Mounted a wall hook I got at a hardware store last week. It’s perfect to hang two large Mag-lites by my front door. There are two parallel hooks or rods, pointing straight out from the base. Slightly curved up on the end and have a rubber coating. The lens end of the maglites won’t slip between the rods, just the long part. It's made to hang assorted tools from, happens to be perfect for maglites also.

Those two lights needed a home badly. I always seemed to forget where I left either. Now I need place for my boonie hat by the door, have a head lamp on it. Hurricane season is here, plus I go out at night often, check the critters, the garden. Coyotes are always an issue, sometimes worse than others. I listen, keep track of how many are in the area. No calves here now, just a herd of heifers but they don’t need to be chased.

 

[zannej]

On Independence Day?

No. I was wrong. LOL. It's now today. They called for the reminder yesterday. I'm a derp. I got my curbside order but I was sick all day with digestive issues.

Got up at 5:30am to work on my bathroom and was like a monkey with a football. My punch slipped while trying to get some brad nails flush so I dinged the PVC. I kept dropping my tools and the shop towel. I even dropped the entire caulk gun while it had an open tube of caulk on it. The hook on the caulk gun kept catching on my shirt. It caught on the curtain rod and I tried to move it out of the way but the whole thing fell down. I'll have to figure out how to get it back up-- it was a tight fit. I had the windex on the wrong setting so it blasted instead of misting, which made a mess. At one point the caulk tube got turned so when I was trying to get the caulk to come out it was backwards and didn't go into the crevice. Caulk wouldn't stick to the nail heads to hide them, but it kept sticking to my glove-- which tore. Went through a few gloves and some shop towels. Got caulk on my shirt (shirt was $2 from the clearance rack so I don't really care). The caulk started coming out chunky and I was sweating too much so I decided to take a break. I was going to nap but my brain won't let me. I'll probably go back in there in a bit to resume working. The no-drip feature of my caulk gun does not work. At least it wasn't hard to squeeze it out though. The construction adhesive was a bear to squeeze out, but the caulk was coming out decently.

Hopefully round 2 will go better.

And I hope everyone is having a good day today.

 

[Magus]

If you're doing drywall or rough wood, make "granny paste" out of cornstarch and boiling water and put it on with a putty knife, once you paint over it, nobody will know.

 

[zannej]

Its a bunch of pvc boards and printed plywood walls. I now have caulk in my hair, but the caulking is done. The "no drip" caulk done dripped like crazy all over the place. Good thing I put painter's tape over the tub spout to protect it from drips. I will probably need to do some touch-ups later and definitely need to paint. Need to find a good brush-on primer that sticks to plastic. I don't want to try to spray paint in there.

My hair is so thin that it slipped out of the bun I put it up in while I was working. I can't keep it up because it just slides right out and I don't believe in using hairspray or products like that.

 

[The Lazy L]

FedEx. Another shipment that requires my signature scheduled for delivery today. Changed my plans to be home. It is a half hour past the time FedEx said it will be delivered. According to their tracking it’s still on its way to their local hub.

 

[Magus]

My hair is so thin that it slipped out of the bun I put it up in while I was working. I can't keep it up because it just slides right out and I don't believe in using hairspray or products like that.

Cut the sleeve out of an old T-shirt and wear it like a bogging cap. it breathes well and keeps crap out of your hair.

 

[Amish Heart]

Hmm. That'd be a head covering. I think I've seen every variation. I've got a few.

 

[havasu]

I now have caulk in my hair

Girl, apply it to your fingers, and spit before applying. It keeps it in the tube, and not in your hair!

 

[zannej]

LOL. I did actually do that (before reading your message).

I touched my hair to get it out of my face while I had caulk on my hands and my hair fell against the caulk tube. Plus that thing kept dripping and drizzling all over the place. I was cursing up a storm as it was going all over the place after I stopped squeezing and the no drip thing was supposed to kick in. Good thing I covered my tub spout with tape.

At least the stuff came out of my hair easily since it is so thin and straight. Plus I'd been sweating a lot and the sweat was all over my hair. Still need a haircut desperately.

I'm exhausted but I feel better about the progress.

 

[Wingnut]

I use the old-fashioned caulk guns, and you can stop them from kickin' out caulk by backing off the ramrod, or whatever it's called. It's a PITA, but it works... then ya turn the rod back the way it should be and carry on, aye?

I still get the occasional length of caulk off the end of the tube, but I can usually find some place to apply it without too much interference in my project.

 

[zannej]

Yeah, I had to back the rod off on it but sometimes I wasn't fast enough and I had other tools in my hands for wiping/spreading, etc. Waaay too much was coming out. And the caulk shrunk when it dried so I need to do some touch-ups. Entire bottom of the baseboard needs to be redone, but I sort of expected that. Only a few other areas that need touch-ups and it should be ok. Will have to watch for more shrinkage though.
My back and ribs are still being hateful. Ribs started hurting because of the way I was bending. Extra fat pushing up against them doesn't help. Checked my weight at Mom's appointment and it was just under 202. That was with my fanny pack on and I think it weighs at least a pound.

 

[Peanut]

This afternoon another storm blew in, electricity went off, again. 3rd time in 4 days.

Since I already had the tools out for another purpose I decided to work on the generator (8kw Genrac). I’d been dreading it, sort of annoyed cause I just had it serviced in late May. Tested it when I got it home, ran it 30min, aok. Next use I filled the tank, it ran like carp. Figured I had a bad can of fuel. Got busy with other things.

Today I took off the fuel line to drain the tank. 7g, so i had buckets ready. I noticed the new fuel filter, half of it was dark, supposed to be white. It was white when I picked it up from the shop. So I drained the fuel, thought I should look inside the tank. Getting the filter screen out of the fill port is very difficult… probably why the guys at the shop didn’t look inside.

Didn’t take long to figure out the real issue. In all my years of working on farm equipment, vehicles… I’ve even pulled fuel tanks from junk yards and used them. Yet... I have never seen this happen inside a fuel tank, NEVER. It’s trashed, completely unusable. The inside of the tank has a factory coating, cream colored, it’s dissolving, starting to flake. There’s more… there are un-coated metal brackets inside the tank. I can see 2. They are dark brown with rust which is coming off in flakes the size of a dime but disolves if moved.

This was clearly a quality issue. I called the support people at Genrac. I wanted an explanation for what occurred and what to do about it. It’s out of warrenty, didn’t care, wanted a few answers. At least tell me where I can get a replacement, in plastic. The lady I spoke with was very knowledgeable, very well trained.

And she had been trained on this… just in theory. It’s never happened before!!! I’m the first one! I’m pretty sure they’ll get more calls on this, told her so.

Get this.. Genrac engineers recommend draining the tank after use, shouldn’t leave fuel in it.

Now tell me… in a real world situation, how many people on this planet actually drain the fuel from their portable generators after each use?

First.... the opening of the drain valve on the tank, the inside diameter less than 1/8”. Guess how long it takes to drain 7g of fuel from a line that small! It’d have taken me an hour! I saw that wasn't going to work and siphoned it out, the tiny drain got the rest.

Someone should have back handed the design engineers who came up with this approach! Clueless, no connection to the real world. I battled guys just like them in my last company.

This is simple… Do customers want to spend an hour draining the tank after each use? Is this something a customer would want to buy? It’s Not rocket science!!!

And most importantly… WHY on God’s green earth would someone coat the inside of a fuel tank with something that shouldn’t be in contact with fuel for long periods of time? This is beyond stupid...

And mount metal brackets that rust?

Anyway, I registered it when I bought it. The lady had my number, said she needs to talk to the tech people in the morning, will call me around noon tomorrow. I’m gonna need a tank regardless, might talk them into trading. If this really hasn’t happened before maybe they’ll want to see it. Sure, send me another one and I’ll ship you this one.

Below, the tank is empty… this is what it looks like dry. The yellow looking part is the coating, color varies, looks soft but it’s not. Hard, like paint on metal. Can’t see it but there are dozens of tiny cracks in the coating. It comes up in tiny pieces but bigger than powder. The rust from the brackets comes off in bigger pieces but turns to powder with movement. The rust is the black I see in the fuel line filter. (the tank top is dirty, the pup ate the cover I bought for it)

 

[Wingnut]

Peanut, some of the guys at lilhonda.com use a product to refurbish fuel tank interiors, I forget the name of it but it seems to work alright for them. Some of those old 'barn find' minis aren't in the best shape because they've been sitting for decades, lol. You could probably pull a search at that site to find the appropriate threads, I think I've seen more than one thread on that issue in the past. Good site, plenty of knowledgeable folks there...

On the other hand, a nice new plastic tank would solve the problem, lol. I have a plastic aftermarket tank on my KLR, it's also larger than the original metal tank. Back in the day, I preferred those translucent plastic desert thumper tanks on bikes, the kind where a rider could check the fuel level at a glance... those are still my preference, this tank on my KLR is black & opaque, which doesn't help when it comes to determining the fuel level.

 

[zannej]

We've been getting brownouts and brief power outages. Its' affecting the outlets and APC units. Modem keeps getting borked.
I went to see if I could get the porch light switch to budge and the toggle lever broke off. I put tape over the hole for now.

The painter's tape I used left some blue residue on stuff and I'm worried it will not come off cleanly when I go to remove it. Crossing my fingers and knocking on wood.

 

[Magus]

Rubbing alcohol on a coarse rag. if it still resists a dab of baking soda mixed in normally does it.

 

[havasu]

Pull the tape before the paint dries. Easy-peasy.

 

[Magus]

Or moisten it a bit with a damp sponge before you do.

 

[The Lazy L]

This afternoon another storm blew in, electricity went off, again. 3rd time in 4 days.

Since I already had the tools out for another purpose I decided to work on the generator (8kw Genrac). I’d been dreading it, sort of annoyed cause I just had it serviced in late May. Tested it when I got it home, ran it 30min, aok. Next use I filled the tank, it ran like carp. Figured I had a bad can of fuel. Got busy with other things.

Today I took off the fuel line to drain the tank. 7g, so i had buckets ready. I noticed the new fuel filter, half of it was dark, supposed to be white. It was white when I picked it up from the shop. So I drained the fuel, thought I should look inside the tank. Getting the filter screen out of the fill port is very difficult… probably why the guys at the shop didn’t look inside.

Didn’t take long to figure out the real issue. In all my years of working on farm equipment, vehicles… I’ve even pulled fuel tanks from junk yards and used them. Yet... I have never seen this happen inside a fuel tank, NEVER. It’s trashed, completely unusable. The inside of the tank has a factory coating, cream colored, it’s dissolving, starting to flake. There’s more… there are un-coated metal brackets inside the tank. I can see 2. They are dark brown with rust which is coming off in flakes the size of a dime but disolves if moved.

This was clearly a quality issue. I called the support people at Genrac. I wanted an explanation for what occurred and what to do about it. It’s out of warrenty, didn’t care, wanted a few answers. At least tell me where I can get a replacement, in plastic. The lady I spoke with was very knowledgeable, very well trained.

And she had been trained on this… just in theory. It’s never happened before!!! I’m the first one! I’m pretty sure they’ll get more calls on this, told her so.

Get this.. Genrac engineers recommend draining the tank after use, shouldn’t leave fuel in it.

Now tell me… in a real world situation, how many people on this planet actually drain the fuel from their portable generators after each use?

First.... the opening of the drain valve on the tank, the inside diameter less than 1/8”. Guess how long it takes to drain 7g of fuel from a line that small! It’d have taken me an hour! I saw that wasn't going to work and siphoned it out, the tiny drain got the rest.

Someone should have back handed the design engineers who came up with this approach! Clueless, no connection to the real world. I battled guys just like them in my last company.

This is simple… Do customers want to spend an hour draining the tank after each use? Is this something a customer would want to buy? It’s Not rocket science!!!

And most importantly… WHY on God’s green earth would someone coat the inside of a fuel tank with something that shouldn’t be in contact with fuel for long periods of time? This is beyond stupid...

And mount metal brackets that rust?

Anyway, I registered it when I bought it. The lady had my number, said she needs to talk to the tech people in the morning, will call me around noon tomorrow. I’m gonna need a tank regardless, might talk them into trading. If this really hasn’t happened before maybe they’ll want to see it. Sure, send me another one and I’ll ship you this one.

Below, the tank is empty… this is what it looks like dry. The yellow looking part is the coating, color varies, looks soft but it’s not. Hard, like paint on metal. Can’t see it but there are dozens of tiny cracks in the coating. It comes up in tiny pieces but bigger than powder. The rust from the brackets comes off in bigger pieces but turns to powder with movement. The rust is the black I see in the fuel line filter. (the tank top is dirty, the pup ate the cover I bought for it)

View attachment 111409

Partly fill the gas tank with dry sand. Fasten the gas tank to a vehicle’s wheel. Drive to town and back. Hopefully the sand has scoured the inside of the tank clean. Remove the sand, clean the inside of the gas tank with compressed air. Pour some gasoline safe paint inside the tank. Hand rotate the tank to coat all the surfaces inside the tank. Pour out excess paint and let dry. Might work.

 

[zannej]

I pulled it while it was still damp and that worked. There were some pieces that stuck-- the ones high up and harder to reach didn't want to come off easily. The paint is sloppy but I don't care.

The cleanup is going to suck. I need to figure out where to put stuff. Probably need to bring a trash bag in to fill up with all the tape and plastic and empty boxes.

I'm really hoping there won't be any leaks once the water goes to the showerhead. No leaks from the valve thus far.

 

[Peanut]

Update on the tank… the lady called me back this morning. Had no other info, referred me to jacks small engines for a replacement tank.

They want $340 for the same tank, nope, way to pricey. A few months ago I bought a replacement tank for the 5kw genny that I haven’t used yet. It’s only 5g, narrower than the genrac tank, paid $125 for it.

Take a little effort but I can mount it to the genrac frame. Sounds like a plan to me.

 

[Magus]

Can't you rot the old one out with vinegar and patch it?

 

[Peanut]

Can't you rot the old one out with vinegar and patch it?

Who are you answering?

If me, the goal is a working genny as soon as possible, not to fix an old tank.

 

[zannej]

I hope the fix will work, Peanut.

 

[Magus]

If you had a cheap plastic 5 gallon Jerry can, you could run a nozzle from it and a fuel line until you got the right parts.