A Scattered Mind Leads to A Scattered Day

Added: 2026-05-12

[00:00:20]Grain check says I think he's eating a little bit. I still haven't put sweet feed in there. I think I'm going to town tomorrow and I plan to get a bag of it and then we'll try that and hopefully we see the grain consumption go up a little bit.

[00:00:36]In the meantime, it's just handpicked grass under the grain. Every time I come back and check, the grass is gone. And I think the grain looks like it has gone down a little bit. So, I think this is working, but the sweet feed will probably work faster.

[00:01:12]Well, it looks like the future has finally made it to our neck of the woods. I don't know if you guys could tell on that clip. I know the lighting wasn't great, but that was a drone spraying outfit that just drove by. I don't think drones will ever replace airplanes for rice farming. I mean, I guess never say never, but uh at this point, as far as I understand it, the drones can only carry like 10 or 20 gallons of material, so they just kind of spot spray. Kind of neat to see. I've never seen one in person. I've seen them online quite a bit, but I think that's one of the first ones I've seen out here.

[00:01:46]There you go, you greedy cats.

[00:01:51]Still need to walk through the cows this morning, see how everybody's doing, and then we'll kind of see where the day goes from there. That's what's going on today on Farmer Tyler Ranch.

[00:02:25]I think that calf is getting a little bit better. I've noticed every time I come out to check on her, she's in like a way different spot. It's not like she's just staying in one area. You know, today she's down here. Tomorrow she'll be a few hundred yards that way.

[00:02:38]So, she's moving around. And I noticed now, like just just this morning, she's doing a lot more walking on her tippy toes instead of on her knuckles. So, like I say, in time, this will resolve itself. But it just does take time. And while it's happening, I like to make sure that the calves are still mobile and still nursing and doing everything that they need to do. I was this close to locking up the mother and the calf together so that she could never get too far from it. But I've noticed every time I come out here and it stands up, she comes over to it. So I don't think there's any need to separate them from the herd. And I don't want to do that if I don't have to. I'm down to six cows left that still need to have a calf. And out of those six, there's two of them that I feel like could happen, you know, kind of any time. And then the other four, it's just like I don't know. Hope hopefully they do. I'd say I have the most hope for number 17 here. You can see she's making a bag. In fact, it wouldn't surprise me if she has a calf this week sometime. She looks like she's actually filled up quite a bit since the last time I looked at her. We got 41 here. She had the Fourth of July baby last year. Number 58. I'm pretty sure that she is bred, but she's just making no indication that she's getting anywhere near CVing. So, you know, I wouldn't expect anything out of her over the next week or two. But, uh, hopefully she she gets it done here pretty soon.

[00:04:07]Number 52, I think probably is bred, but I'm afraid that she's going to cal so late that it won't make sense for me to keep her for next year. The last two I'm waiting on, I think it's these two here.

[00:04:21]Should be number 24 and number 11. If these cows are not those numbers, then I probably have a bigger problem because they are not here. This is number 11, better known as the lumpjaw cow.

[00:04:33]And like a couple of the others, I think she'll have a calf. I just don't, you know, she looks like she actually is filling up a little bit. So, I'd maybe put her in the same category as like uh number 17, where I think it's going to happen fairly soon, but, you know, hasn't happened yet. And last on the to be determined list is number 24.

[00:04:55]I just I don't know. I feel like maybe this cow is not bred. Uh again, she typically in years past would always cave right along with everybody else.

[00:05:05]She was never one that, you know, I identified as being like a late cavver, a habitually late caver. So, we'll see.

[00:05:13]My plan is to see where we're at at the end of May and kind of start making decisions as to whether I want to try to sell them or give them a little bit more time. But sometime around the end of May or the middle of June will be that 60-day window that I would like for them to all calave within. So, anybody who hasn't done it will be up for consideration, shall we say.

[00:05:40]I guess you must be done.

[00:05:44]Yes, you are. I'm back in the shop now.

[00:05:46]I want to try to get a little bit more done on the Aiden. You know, I'm just trying to chip away at this a little bit at a time because this project in my mind at least kind of holding everything else up. I'd like to get the New Holland in here and add a second remote valve to it, but I don't want to bring it home from the ranch cuz right now that's the only tractor I have that I can leave over there and move hay bales around, which I still need to do from time to time. In the last video, I was talking about how I wanted to replace the bushings in that crankshaft pulley. And I asked for your guys's advice as far as what I should use, how I could do it.

[00:06:23]And the answers that I got pretty well reflected what I had going on in my mind. A lot of different ideas. Hard to really say what's best, but I'll tell you what I finally decided on.

[00:06:34]Initially, I thought I was going to go with brass bushings. I even bought a little chunk of brass here to make them out of, but after I thought about it a little bit more and read through all the comments I got on that last video, I decided that wasn't the way to go. Now, a lot of people said stick with rubber because you need that soft interface so that when you're starting the engine, you know, you don't have that shock load to the system. And this piece here that connects the drive shaft to the hydraulic pump is mounted on rubber bushings. So, I thought that, you know, that was probably good enough. And, you know, maybe it is, but they did put rubber bushings in that drive pulley probably for a reason. Uh, you know, it would have been a lot easier when they're manufacturing that to just have holes that the pins fit in perfectly and not have bushings at all. But they put bushings in there. So, it started to make me think that I mean, yeah, you could make them out of brass, but they would be hard and over time they would become oblong, and that's kind of not what you want. That's the reason that we're replacing the ones that are in there. So, I think the ideal material would be something that is soft and springy so that when it absorbs that shock, it it just goes back to its original shape. like brass would absorb the shock, but over time, you know, brass doesn't return to the shape that it is. That's probably why they used rubber. Um, but we see what happened to the rubber bushings. So, you got to remember these kits were made back in the ' 50s and they didn't have access to all the materials that we have now. Now, most bushings are made out of polyurethane. And this was a suggestion that I saw from many of you in the comments, and I appreciate that. And I think that polyurethane bushings are the way to go. Now, the issue becomes, how do we get polyurethane bushings that will fit? Because no one that I'm aware of is making, you know, a drop-in kit that's ready to go. But what I did find is some polyurethane bushings that are intended to be used on the leaf spring shackle for a golf cart. and they according to the Amazon listing are really close to the size that I need to fit in there. And I think to to trim it down to the final dimension that I need it to be, I can do that on the lathe.

[00:09:00]Now, unfortunately, those bushings are not here yet. I think they're supposed to get here tomorrow or maybe the next day. But that's fine because there's still a lot of other things that I need to do on this. The first thing that I'd like to do is get my temperature gauge probe set up. This was one of the jobs that uh led to the almost complete disassembly of this tractor. So, this is something that I definitely want to get done.

[00:09:25]Now, from what I've seen, there's two different ways that people do this. You can either drill and tap a hole here in the side of the head and just thread the probe in right there. I guess this is more of a permanent fix. They even give you a little face there to drill into, which maybe some aid ends came from the factory with that installed. But I'm kind of leaning against that because if you mess up, you're on the hook for a new head. And you know, drilling a hole right there seems like it would be a good place for a crack to start. So instead of do that, I'm going to do the other way that I think is a much safer route. And that is I'm going to cut the top radiator hose and remove like 3/4 of an inch. And then in that cut, I'm going to install this T that has a threaded hole in it that accepts that temperature probe.

[00:10:19]I need to cut this hose, I think, at 2 and 1/2 right there.

[00:10:37]Hope that's right. If I've measured everything correctly, I should be able to put that on there, that on there, and this entire thing should be 10 and a quarter, which it is not. What happened?

[00:11:02]Nine and 7/8.

[00:11:06]Well, that's easy enough to fix. Just pull these back a little.

[00:11:16]All right, let's do that again. If I measured everything right, this should be 10 and a4.

[00:11:24]Perfect. Now, before I took the hood off, I looked at this to try to figure out like where I wanted this port to come out at. And I think I want it to just shoot straight off to the side like that.

[00:11:43]We'll clear the alternator.

[00:11:46]I mean, once I get everything back on, I can loosen these clamps and clock this a little bit different if I need to, but I think it's going to be about right there.

[00:11:58]So, now I can take the temperature probe. And this is not a final installation. This is more just to kind of show you guys how it works. So, we got the probe here.

[00:12:09]It'll go right in that port and tighten down, which obviously we're going to want some Teflon tape and thread sealer and all that good stuff.

[00:12:21]So, now that probe is in the cool side of the radiator and it's telling me what temperature the engine is. All right.

[00:12:29]Well, job done, as they say. So, I've been thinking about what do I want to do next? And I think the big thing that is going to hold me up from putting this back together is the the flange or the hub or what, you know, I don't really know what to call it. It's the piece that connects the drive shaft to the hydraulic pump. This little guy is what I'm talking about. This is the old one, but it will not work with the new pump because this is for a 3/4 in shaft and the new pump has a 5/8 shaft. Now, just for a refresher, I was able to find a replacement part online, but they wanted like $120 for it, and that just seemed like it was too much. And I think I can fairly easily make this should be it.

[00:13:35]Heat. Heat.

[00:14:17]Well, I've got my part clamped up together here in this Cclamp.

[00:14:22]I've got everything cleaned up and acetone. I'm going to TIG weld this because I want the bead to be small so that it doesn't get in the way of of the other things that I need to add. I probably will have to come in with the mill and flatten these ears where the holes are going to go, but a TIG weld is typically a lot smaller than a MIG weld.

[00:14:41]So, I think that's the way we're going to go.

[00:15:06]Well, I think it looks pretty good. My my uh my concern here is that I don't TIG weld nearly as much as I do other processes. So, I guess I don't really have a good feel for like if I've got a good weld or not. I mean, it look it looks nice enough. It doesn't look perfect, but it looks like it's melted in. And, you know, hopefully it's good.

[00:15:31]I don't think a TIG weld like this is quite as strong as a MIG weld or certainly not a stick weld, but hopefully it'll be strong enough for the way that I want to use it. I guess if I suddenly lose hydraulic ability on the tractor, I'll know the first place I'll look. So, the next step is this piece needs to be machined a bunch, but I don't want to do that while it's hot. I want to let it cool naturally. So, while it's cooling down, I'll get going on the next thing that I wanted to do today.

[00:15:58]Did I mention it's a different day? I I don't even think it really matters. Like to try to get a little bit more done on Bree sidewalk today. When you guys last saw me working on this project, I was just doing the ground work with the LS and I got everything cleared out here.

[00:16:13]Since then, off camera, I poured another little sidewalk extension over here.

[00:16:21]So, it'll bring this one out and it should be in the perfect spot to now meet up with that one. So, I'd like to get the forms off of this new little sidewalk extension and then I want to build just like one big long form connecting these and then I can just pour it in sections as I have time. But if I've got the one long form done, then I think that should be a little bit more of a of a manageable task. So, that's what we're working on for a little bit at least.

[00:17:14]where it's wet.

[00:17:31]There we go.

[00:18:05]Well, this side of the forum came out nice and straight. You got to love that.

[00:18:08]It is leaning a little bit, but that's not really that big of a deal because I'm going to, you know, put fill dirt back in next to the sidewalk once it's done. So, that won't matter. But, I think I've had about all that I want of outside work in the sun today. It is really hot. I think the the high today is like 95 and I'm not sure what it is now, but it feels like it's getting close to that. And I think my part is probably cooled off enough that we can go finish machining it. So, let's go do that.

[00:18:38]All right, there it is.

[00:18:49]Just want to make sure I'm not grabbing a high spot on the weld or something that would cause this to not run true.

[00:18:57]I can actually go in a little more. I know it's probably kind of hard to tell on camera, but it's actually running very true. I didn't get a lot of warp there. And you know, having everything pinched together in that C clamp probably helped out a lot with that. But at any rate, we still need to take an eighth of an inch off of that the the tabs there, the ears, the flat part, the flange. What what do we want to call that? You know which part I'm talking about. We got to get that down to 1/4 in. And then I've got to get the the overall height the same as the old piece, which once that's down to 1/4 in, that that should be where we're at.

[00:19:49]Heat. Heat.

[00:20:06]All right. See where we're at here.

[00:20:10]251,000.

[00:20:13]The target was 250. So, I'd say we're there. And for anyone that doesn't understand why I did it this way, like why not just weld a quarter inch piece of flat bar on there and not have to do any machining, it's because now I know that that face that I just machined is going to be perfectly perpendicular with the bore that we're going to drill in the part next. And because of how this is used, you know, it's in a drive line spinning a hydraulic pump. You need all of those those things to be kind of perfect or else it'll want to wobble.

[00:20:47]It'll put unnecessary wear on bearings and seals. We want this to be as perfect as I can make it.

[00:21:16]Well, good deal. The one that I'm making is starting to look a lot more like the one that I'm trying to copy. All that's left now is I need to brooch keyway into the center bore and then I need to drill holes in either tab so that I can connect it to the uh shaft coupler thing. This thing, I'm not actually sure what this is called, but I don't have everything that I need to do all of that today. So, unfortunately, I know people hate it when I do this, but we got to press pause on this for now.

[00:21:50]Well, I just got back from town and I did pick up some sweet feed for the bottle calf. So, I I kind of wanted to put this in front of him before I give him a bottle just to see if he shows any interest in it at all.

[00:22:21]Well, he's got a one track mind right now. All he can think about is drinking milk and he's not even going to investigate that sweet feed. So, I think I'll just have to check in the morning, see if he got into it overnight.

[00:22:42]Well, I guess we'll wrap this one up here. Thanks for hanging out with me today, guys. And I hope I'll see you again on Farmer Tyler Ranch.