Like many of the other days, I don’t remember much of what happened from the 22nd through the 24th. I struggled a lot. I do remember that. Fighting off negativity and mild depression.
I don’t think I really got much of anything done. I just felt overwhelmed mostly, drowning with so much pressing down…
But, there were two really good things, and so I’ll mention those. The first is that the new antacid medication I was prescribed seems to be working. It’s called pantoprazole. It’s the same family as omeprazole, but for some reason, unless it’s just coincidence, it seems to be much more effective for me than the latter. I’ve actually been considering seeing if I can sleep lying down again.
Oh, that would be so awesome. I miss lying down so much. 😅
🤞
The other good thing was that the little grinder bits that I ordered from Amazon for my Milwaukee dremel tool came, and after a heck of a lot of effort (and that feels like an understatement), I was able to get both bushings out of the excavator arm.
🥳🥳🥳
I also realized why it had been so hard to get them out.
The excavator hadn’t been properly maintained. There is play between the arm and the bucket that is supposed to be reduced using shims so that the bucket doesn’t wobble back and forth as it does its work. Since the shims hadn’t been used, the sides of the arm kept getting smacked by the bucket. Over time, the metal around the bushing on the outside mushroomed inward, trapping the bushing inside because the metal on the outside had mushroomed inward such that the diameter of the bushings was now larger than the metal on the outside.
Trying to pound the bushings out simply pounded them against the mushroomed-in metal.
What I ended up having to do was grind away the mushroomed-section. But I didn’t want to do it all at once, because I didn’t want to grind it too far. So I would grind a little, and then I would recheck by trying to bang out the bushing, and then I would bang it back in, and then I would grind out more.
I don’t know how many times I had to repeat that procedure before I was finally able to get enough metal ground away. Eventually, on one of my smacks with the sledgehammer, the bushing came flying out.
🥳🥳🥳
With the bushing out of the one side, I was able to slide a very large socket through, and simply pound the bushing out of the other side. The one side took me probably, and I’m just guessing, 8 hours worth of work?
The other side probably took me 10 minutes.
So now the bushings are out! And I put the two new bushings in, and I ordered a bunch of shims, so that the issue doesn’t repeat itself, and so there isn’t so much slop in the bucket anyway, which makes it feel like it’s about ready to fall apart.
So there you go! I actually don’t think I even need any more pins and bushings to make it daily usable. I think I’ve replaced everything that was absolutely necessary.
Oh wait, there might be one more thing that needs to be changed, one more bushing… I’ll check that out.
Anyway, I ordered a bunch of shims (expensive buggers. The average price for the 30 shims I ordered was like $6 each. All they are is just big washers. Can you picture that? $6 per washer? Good crap.
But they can charge that because nobody else makes stuff that big. So, you just have to eat it.
The shims delivery date I think was the 25th. Then the excavator arm and bucket can be shimmed up. Once that’s done, I’ll clean up the rust and paint, and with the bushings replaced, the rust gone, and a nice fresh coat of paint, she’s going to go on the chopping block.
Hopefully it doesn’t turn into too much of an ordeal.
Lift the world.
~ stephen
Lift the World 