Only on Sunday

Good thing JD cancelled church,I wouldn't have been able to make it anyway. Went to turn the water hydrant on in tehe old milkhouse this morning to fill 3 water tanks and the four inch brass threaded rod at the top pulled right out. The son who has cows of his own here was up north snowmobiling. The younger boy came and helped me. I told him to take the sledge hammer and start busting up the concrete floor. We had to break through the frost out by the outdoor hydrant to get a cap off so we could get a rod down to the shutoff and turn the water off to the barn.

Long story real short,the hardware store in town is closed Sundays,the one in Stanton didn't have them,told me to go to TSC,yea right,all they had was a six foot bury and that one in the barn is only down about two feet,so the handle would have been over my head if we'd have put it in.
I burned my finger so bad lighting the torch that the skin turned yellow when I had the bright idea of brazing something together. We ended up cutting 5 inches off the pipe,rethreading it and moved the clamp on the handle down to the steel rod and put it back in. Just got in the house about 5 o'clock.

God I love having cattle in the winter!

That's a sad story, I hope that tomorrow will go better for you.
Zach

Innovation under duress, it is why we play with old iron, or brass! Jim

Maybe you could have gotten some ILLEGALS to do it!

I will second what Zach said

That's about right. I stayed home from church to watch our 2 boys who are getting over their colds. I'm getting over it myself and my wife is a day or 2 behind me.

On Thursday evening after work my snowblower died about 1/2 way through the drift by the garage door. I'd bring it in the garage and it'd run, get it out and it's die before touching the snow. I screwed with the carb for a good 30 minutes before I gave up. I parked outside and let the wifey park inside. I didn't even try it on Friday with the actual temp being below 0, so yesterday I went out and tried it. I readjusted the carb and it fired right up. Ran ok, but not great. So then I put the tin back on that goes over the carb and it's running fine again. I had it off since I had to rebuild the carb back in October after I discovered I parked it under a hole in the roof and the carb was screwed up. I probably could have avoided some trouble if I would have put it back on after I tweaked the carb while blowing the first storm.

Donovan from Wisconsin

Is this the piece you were looking for rrlund? I had a hydrant that didn't work for a few years by my shop. Then this fall I had one that broke by my chicken coop. A friend taught me how to fix them on one somewhat warm afternoon. I shut the breaker switch off for the well and we took the handles off and was able to loosen the six foot rods with the rubber balls on the bottom end out with a set of vise grips. It really helped to have some water pressure to help force the rod out...especially the one that hadn't worked for 3 years. TSC didn't have the 4 inch replacement, but Orschlen's had one for $9.50. I work in a machine shop and made 3 more out of brass...real easy to do. I have some spare ones if they decide to break again and I'll know how to do it myself now.

Kind of,but it was just like a brass nut about an inch long,threaded all the way through,connects that short brass rod to a steel rod that goes all the way to the bottom. It wasn't quite the same as 3/8ths bolt thread,a metric went on it,but a little loose,so I welded three of those metric nuts together,then the steel rod was too far gone,it woundn't hold on that. I cut one nut off and welded a 3/8ths on it,but that wouldn't start on it. Trouble I've got now,the steel rod was so rusted and pitted that even after I took the angle grinder to it to smooth it up,it won't seal right around the nut at the top. Gonna have to replace it,just hope I can get by til next Saturday so one of teh boys can help me with it again. We back filled it just enough to keep it from freezing. Put some blue styrofoam insulation board over it.

They'd have had to have been Canadian "frostbacks" this time of year. Hard to find,mostly hang out in front of hockey rinks. Can't tell them from Yoopers,eh.

Hope monday is better!!

I'll know as soon as I pull up on that handle in the morning.

How about a pic of you yellow finger! I'll show you my smashed purple fingernail, take a deep breath, close your eyes and think how much you "really" love cattle in the winter, workes for me!?? Lol,, not really!

Well, I just found out the my SIL's furnace went out tonight during the game. It's an older boiler system. I guess a guy came out and rigged it to work for tonight but doesn't expect it to make it past morning if it goes that far. Gonna run in the niehgborhoood of $6000 or so to fix it....

Coulda been worse I guess...

Donovan from Wisconsin

(quoted from post at 21:02:24 02/03/13) I'll know as soon as I pull up on that handle in the morning.

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If the dirt you backfilled is dry it will be frozen tomorrow. We would always soak the hell out of the backfill to keep heat in the ground. When it gets dug up, its not easy to keep it from freezing for a year.

Emergency fixes require extra measures, sort of like being in ER for a hydrant fix. You have to either baby the hydrant the rest of the year, or have weather that cooperates. Keep it wet.