I have a 1972 Ford model 3500 that I use to maintain the property and grade the driveway that's 1\8 mile long. A week ago, I tried to start it and the battery was shot, of course it's 8 years old, so I replaced it and got it started only to find the 3-point lift would not work and decided to rebuild the hydraulic system. I used 2 cable come-a-longs to pick up the scraper box attached to the 3-point so it could be moved into the shop, and I could use the overhead electric hoist to lift the heavy parts. The roof and the seat had to be removed to allow the hoist to have a straight shot to lift the 3-point hydraulic top cover assembly. The 3-point lift is in the top cover of the forward part of the rear end housing (separate from the transmission) with the tilt and scraper box angle controls on top. I pressure washed the tractor before it was moved into the shop and you can see the two lift arms and the hydraulic hoses that go to the two cylinders at the back. I made a lift plate ...

 Last post I started this stained-glass project by drawing a picture then making it the correct size for the window. I made a frame with 1X1/2 strips of wood screwed to plywood and added the zinc frame on the edges. The picture was altered to fit the size of the glass panels that I had bought for this project. Next the picture was transferred to pattern paper using carbon paper to transfer it. The pattern is cutout by using pattern scissors that allow enough space for the copper foil on the edges of the cut-out glass. Below you can see the blue & brown mountains with copper foil and the sun and sky cut then ground to fit together as close as possible. The picture was put down in the frame as a guide for the pieces of glass as they are cut and fitted. This is the first bird rough  cut with the pattern glued to them using the glue stick shown.  A closer picture of the bird with glued pattern on the glass before being cut. The glass cutter I use is shown beside th...

 The project is almost complete as far as I want to take it at this time. It needs some body work and paint, front grill assembly and wheel alignment. I will get the wheel alignment a little closer, then it can be driven. I've had the car for a year and did not spend a lot of money on it as it came with a lot of parts, some usable some not and some needed to be altered, that was a good challenge. The new bearings, crush sleeve and spacers came and the rearend pinion assembler was rebuilt. I started a new project to keep myself busy and got out all my stained-glass tools and supplies to make a stained-glass window for the south side of the caboose (If you search my blog for caboose, you can see the complete build). Step one is to draw a picture of what you want the window to look like, I chose cranes, clouds and mountains. After some changes the drawing was transferred to a clean sheet using carbon paper. The glass came in 12' X 12" sheets and were laid out on the picture t...

 I moved the car from the hoist to the center bay where the overhead electric hoist is to handle the hood install and to try to set the front wheel alignment. Below is the caster/camber tool I got at Amazon and got the camber set pretty close using the excentric adjustment on the lower control arm. I fabricated a top-in tool from some left-over metal framing material, from a picture I saw on Facebook, that bolts to the front wheel hubs. Slots were cut at the bottom ends to hold the tape measures and adjustment made by turning the sleeves on the steering arms. The front of the wheel is 1/16 closer than the back measurement. A string line was strung from back to front with the string touching the back and front of the rear tire, steering wheel was set to center then measurements taken from string line to front jig to set the front wheels parallel to the back. A new hood, without turn signal or hold-down pins, was ordered from CJ Pony Parts that I called and put on customer pick-up as...