209 TACOS - B/S and shenanigans

@Blue Canary I'm glad you were able to pick that thing up. If I were closer, I may have snagged it up before you even saw it!

 

Fucker.
I saw it and then went to bed. It was still there when I got up to feed the cats. . Bam! Happy kitties and a bumper. ‘Twas a good morning.
Miss you and @OneGiraffe. And my Sac peeps too. @TOP TACO (Top Tundra)

 

Sweet set-up.

Time to get one of these under the hood.

http://premierpowerwelder.com/

 

That’s cool. We carry a portable welder that uses the battery but it’s be sweet to have one on board.

 

Same. I've got a trail kit that can hook up 3 batteries to arc leads. 2 batteries is usually more then enough. I actually prefer arc to mig for trail repairs. I'm usually in a hurry and not having to spend a lot of time cleaning the metal is easier. Mig looks pretty but arc works better on the trail.

I also carry a lot of spare parts. This happened Wednesday when I went to recover a stuck rig on Buttermilks Loop. 45 minutes from the break to rolling again because I have spare spindles in the rig.

Said in the Captains voice from Cool Hand Look:

"Some things you just can't weld."

 

Nice!

I don’t have any pics but a few years ago my dad broke a pitman arm halfway into the Dusy... he was able to get it hot enough to weld it and get himself off the trail. I wasn’t there but saw it afterwards definitely looked like a tough one.

He’s also the kind of person to carry almost every non repairable part too. Didn’t think to carry one of those haha. I think he does now.

 

I think I am going to build my bumpers , possibly skids to , I’m sure it will take me a year to get it all done . I’d appreciate people input.only because of free time , buying complete new bumpers and skids just isn’t financially smart , I could do it but I struggle because I have the skills and tools to do it just not always a lot of spare time .

 

Not knowing your skills with fabrication I'd suggest this.

Make a real time table of how many man hours for the front, rear, skids.
Get a material count and price the material.
Take the price of a built front, rear, skids.
Subtract your material costs from price of the front, rear, skids.
Divide the man hours by the remaining.
That will leave you with a pretty good idea of what you'll be paying yourself an hour.

Then decide if that is worth it. That's all out the window if you want to do it because you can build a better product or just want to be able to say you did them yourself.

 

Part of is I like saying I built it my self , I may buy skids but I’m defiantly building front and rear pumpers . I think I can build front and rear materials $800 with them both being plate bumpers with front being able to except a winch down the road and the rear having a receiver hitch behind the license plate , and raptor lining them both in black. I’m not considering the labor as a factor into the cost cause I’d be doing it on my own time frame .

 

I build stuff myself all the time. I also like to say that I did that. I still calculate my labor into the equation though. To me it's part of the build. My time, both at work and free, is valuable. If I look at a part that only sets me back a few hundred more and would take me 8 hours to complete I usually buy it. That is 8 hours I'm not in the garage. It's 8 hours I can work on other things that keep the wife happy and allow me the free time to wheel. So, build it but take your labor into account.

 

In the end time is money , money is time, I guess part of it depends on which you have more of . I’m generally dead even on both, never enough of either , still working full time plus a little side hustle here and there . I make decorative artsy stuff .

 

These are just a few but i have got to where it is profitable. I also do custom stuff with last names too.

 

Rad man. Custom work has become super profitable. I hope it continues to go well for you. You selling on Etsy or another platform?

 

No I do have the time to meet the demand . So I have not pulled the trigger on Etsy or a online platform, right now it just word of mouth , it’s very small at this time I’m not looking to work every waking moment! Lol. I definitely like the feedback I’m getting and people like it . I am fine tuning the material sourcing and cost to max profit but try and keep it reasonably priced , it’s a fine balance I’m not looking to sell the the masses and I have to turn a profit .

 

Ready Welder? I carry one and it has saved many rigs on the trail. 20 years ago a lot of us ran on board welders and found that we would rather pull a battery and carry it and a suitcase mig to the repair site then have to figure out moving enough crawlers off the trail to get the rig with the welder next to the repair site.

But back when we were broke teenagers there were more than a few times that we had to rob 3 batts and jumper cables and burn some 6011 rod while wearing 3 pairs of sunglasses. I still carry rod in my tool kit in a airtight tube for emergencies.

 

108 at j59 right now. Low snow.

 

Yeah I just finished shoveling my driveway up the hill ! I’m in cedar ridge

 

Got things shoveled and ready hopefully it will stop soon

 

Wow. It did not stick to the roads at all in Sonora.