SOLVED! Post 2853 Leaking Injectors, Dealer Techs Rock! Extended Cranking after Engine Swap 3.4L 5vz

Haha

I have this dipshit co worker and we have a lot of bats in our area. He constantly bitches about them getting into our buildings and what not, want em dead! But he's the first one to freak out about all the damn mosquitoes and starts laying on the deet! He's such a dipshit.

 

Steel post, 6"x6", 3/16" wall thickness, 1/3 in ground. That's what I used. I lovemy8'gatelots.

 

The bigger the post the better. That way and new hinges can be moved up or down,,and still be able to support big gate weight. Did a 10'x10' tall wood gate door setup for my ex. Used a 8"x8" beam for the end gate door posts. The extra surface area of the 8x8 allows for a nice sized plywood patch,,so you can reset your hinges if needed. Wood treat the stems and just set them in a dirt hole with the last 10" of the hole filled with,,say 3/4" minus crushed rock. You set in concrete and you are committed to that spot for awhile. Just sayin.

 

Here's a view of each side of the rose bed and fence/gate section on top of it that is coming down.

 

Here's what it looked like near quittin' time yesterday.

 

Wonder if the roses will survive the transplant?

 

Yep, I agree about spiders. We usually leave them be, but when they are covering the stones we're moving, some become casualties

 

I've accidentally killed a few spiders too. Life is cheap in the bug world.

 

The big beefy fence post will go where the right back corner of the topper is in this pic.......it will hold up the giant gate that spans ~3/4 of the total driveway width, and will stay closed most of the time. But being able to open it and have that massive opening to the backyard will be so nice!!

The other normal sized fence post will go on the far left of this pic, at the base of those rickety ass stairs that are being mutilated today. That will support the 1/4 width gate opening that we'll walk through most of the time. Having to maneuver around the edge of that rose bed every time we walked through that gate with everything under the sun has been a real treat the past 10 years!!

 

Making good progress.

I picked up concrete in the Taco, and Eric got a seriously deep hole dug for the beefy post. Demo-ed that fence panel, and getting ready to go pick up a big post and set it!!

Still not exactly sure how we'll handle a variety of aspects of this project, but we're figuring it out as we go!!

 

Time to pour some concrete around those babies then make some drinks!!

Tomorrow will be giant wooden gate building 101!! Yikes

 

i know your not going to listen ....

but I suggest you wait at least 4 full days to let that concrete set hard and solid. sure it looks hard and seams cured but put pressure on the post or start hammering on it and the concrete will separate from its bond on the posts and may even fracture. you can take a hammer tomorrow and gently tap on that concrete and it will chip away to pieces like nothing because its not had time to fully cure, that takes several days to happen.

concrete is hard enough to walk on after 1-2 hours but there is a reason they leave the forms on for a week before removing them, its still not "hardened" and can be chipped or broken easy and isn't "rock hard" for several days.

do everything else but DONT HANG THOSE GATES! do that next weekend, otherwise they will move with the weight of the gates hanging on that uncured concrete.

there is a HUGE difference in concrete setting up to be able to walk on it such as a sidewalk, and putting something that exerts pressure on it like a post with a heavy weight pulling on it.

 

Spiders are good they eat the rodents .

I am pretty sure they would give the Raccoons a good fight as well

 

I disagree with you.



About the part where you said "I know you're not going to listen........"



I agree with the rest of what you said.

No need to worry anyway. This gate probably will not be built and ready to hang for at least a week or so. Eric's back to work tomorrow. Today we're looking at our cedar supply in the shed to evaluate what we need to buy if anything, then planning the design of the gates and the rest of the the area we're gonna be working on. This is the part I love and he HATES. He's not into talking about design ideas for hours on end; it's pretty much my favorite thing!! He will be impatiently waiting for me to say, fine, go ahead, just build it however!! But with a little compromise on both sides and some J & B later, I'm sure we'll get through it

 

I like the way this driveway looks with the random sized boulders!! Would be cool to do that in our driveway, or even just the portion near the new gates or something.

We do have a bit of a slope up to figure out. It would be just inside the gates, as you enter the backyard - a minor upslope. For now we left the lowest 2 rows of mannerstones in place to keep the dirt behind it back out of our way while setting those posts. But those bottom levels of mannerstones will need to come out if we want to be able to drive smoothly over it.

Well, if we want to be able to drive over it in the Civic, that is

Thought about purposely making it a random boulder strewn incline of "rough road." That way we wouldn't even have to leave home to get our off road time in with the Taco!!

 

Lay the stones in sand, with digging out for each stone to get them level, then backfill with concrete and get the tops of the rocks clean. It is a tremendous amount of work.

Howard

 

Whatever you do make sure the doors lean against each other when the doors are closed. Unlike humans, you will never have a sagging problem with the doors.

Sounds like you have a pretty good plan. My gates are very similar too the ones in the pic, just not as fancy, but most likely heavier. Mine are a tube steel frame with the panels bolted to the steel frame. My doors lean against each other and when closed there is no sag. I did this on purpose because sagging gates would drive me nuts and I would have to tear them out even tho nothing was wrong.

I used 4 x 4 posts sunk 40". I tossed in a bag of cement and called it good. We have a pretty high water table so I wasn't worried about the cement not reacting and turning into concrete. I see a little bit of bowing on one post, but not enough to worry about and wish I had used 6 x 6 posts.

I encourage you to make both gates the same width. I thought about making mine different sized, but ended up making them the same. On the left side I made a a spring loaded access door for people to walk thru. Most people don't realize its a door. It looks exactly like the rest of the fence. I'll try to get some pics tonight if I remember.

First suggestion for naming the detached garage. I wish I would have used it for my shop, but my lovely wife named it already.

The Blood Shed.

The best I got.

 

Download a free CAD program, do the design right!

A few years ago I built a deck that required a permit, I used a CAD program to design it.

 

Thanks for the suggestions guys!!

I wish we could make the gates the same width for looks, but the topper has to live on the outside of these gates, and the gates will swing out to open. So with a total driveway width of ~11-12', then the topper occupying ~7' of that width just outside the gates, we'd want one gate to be narrow enough to swing out to open without smashing into the topper.

With the posts set, our span between them width-wise is 117", or nearly 10'. So the smaller gate will be ~42-48" wide, then the larger one will be ~6' wide + a few inches. Then the topper can still live on the driveway side of that wider gate. But we'll be able to easily move it out of the way to open and close that big gate when we actually need to open it all the way up.

Our biggest issue before was that the main gate had a stone wall protruding out into the middle of it's opening, so trying to get through there with anything big and/or heavy SUCKED!! Plus because of the way the slope was shored up, when you walked from the yard out to the driveway through that gate, you had to go up a rickety ass step, then down a couple rickety ass steps (while trying to wedge yourself through the opening carrying, oh, say, an air compressor or pressure washer, or something equally ridiculous). So stupid. That is changing One smooth consistent slope now. And a normal width gate finally, with no stone wall flower beds sticking out into the middle of the gate opening. We don't ask for much around here.

I thought of a plan to help make things look nice and symmetrical anyway, in spite of the gates being 2 different sizes. We are using 2' tall lattice to occupy the top 2' of each gate's height. Below that will be ~5' to 5'6" tall cedar fence boards. Originally, I planned to just use a 2' x 8' sheet of lattice cut to the appropriate width for the top of the wider gate. But then I realized, if we look at the TOTAL width in fifths, we could do 3 little squares of lattice at ~21" wide on top of the wider gate, with little 2x4 dividers between them, then 2 of the little lattice squares on top of the smaller gate. So it will look like 5 narrow panels kind of. A little bit anyway. Still not perfect symmetry like I'd prefer, but the damn topper's gotta stay where it is for now. I don't want it in our backyard, and until we have a garage, the driveway is where it will stay. It's at least going to get some nice new sawhorses built for it after the gate is done.

The great news is, we've finished raiding our wood stash in the shed and it looks like we will be able to use lattice, fence boards, and even framing for the gates from stuff we already have! Love that, especially since we already paid a small fortune for the 6" x 6", then a 4" x 4" for the other post, plus concrete. Eric's at Depot now buying 5 more cedar 2 x 4's to complete what we need for framing the gates. Our neighbor gave us some really nice cedar 2" x 3" boards when he converted some space in his house into a garage a couple summers ago, and we've been waiting for the right project to use them on.

And our other neighbor is a garage door installer, and was a framer before that. So he always has 5 billion different kinds of hardware, hinges, you name it, he's got 50 million. Not kidding. I love that guy He just hooked us up with some seriously sturdy hinges for each gate. Might have to do his next mow for free. Bartering is the best

Oooh, they just got back! Time to build some gates!! I love fence building. Pretty cedar fencing is the best.

 

Might see some finished product pics coming soon!!!

But don't worry @keakar , we won't hang them yet!! We'll just prop 'em up somewhere for a photo shoot when we finish building them!!