I Rented a Lift... and Made a Big Decision

[00:00:00]We got a crazy day ahead of us. But if if I time this right and everything goes perfect, which it always does, we get to finish this video with what has to be the coolest project that I've ever been a part of. So, we got to get this going.

[00:00:14]We're doing tree work to start with and then it's top secret. You're you'll you'll you'll see at the end, maybe.

[00:00:19]Okay, HERE WE GO. OH GOD. SO, WE'RE GOING TO BE USING the little bitty Ryobi this morning and probably the 55 saw.

[00:00:28]Diameter wise, it's not a huge tree, but she is definitely dead sketchy and hanging over two buildings. So, we're gonna be renting Dirt Perfect's lift on this one. We're just going to run this through the benchtop real quick. Make sure she's good. We'll do the same thing on the 55.

[00:00:48]So, I got the general shape back.

[00:00:51]Now, I'm just going to get her tuned in with the file.

[00:00:56]If you're good at this and you have a lot of practice, you can get that shape back with the file, too. But I am not. We're going to scope out the world headquarters real quick and see if I can find some lumber.

[00:01:11]Got a lot of stuff for sale out of here right now. Uh and then we'll probably Well, we'll talk about that another day.

[00:01:20]Uh, I have a feeling we're have to build up one side of this lift. Beautiful. That looks That looks Looks great.

[00:01:31]Here's our chariot for today. We're going to drive her about uh Oh, she's probably 2 miles at least. There wasn't even any back and forth on this. It is just far easier to travel this thing where we're traveling than it is to trailer it. You've got to build the trailer deck up on the low boy so it doesn't punch through the deck. And by the time you get the truck and the low boy and everything set up, we could have drove it.

[00:01:57]I asked Mike, trailer or drive. He didn't even hesitate. He said drive. I don't know why we undid this one. Get a picture of the hour meter and send that on.

[00:02:12]Almost 7,000 hours on this rig, by the way. Heat up here.

[00:02:54]He said fuel it up here and then whenever we're done, we'll put fuel in it at the market and that way we're replacing the fuel that we used. That's the way we normally do it and then we just pay an hourly rate on top of that.

[00:03:08]He's trying to talk me into doing a video using the Case Mini dragging the broken Caterpillar around, but I don't know. I don't know if I got it in me to do that. Let's see. Fuel's on. We're going to give her a choke. Oh, wait. Oh, she's electric. Wow. Okay.

[00:03:27]And we just got to load everything in the basket that I'm taking.

[00:03:40]Got my two saws, my gas, my oil, my harness.

[00:03:44]saw box with files and wrench, some waters. I think the only thing we need now is sweet tunes and a nice scenic drive.

[00:04:07]Well, fun thing. It won't turn left.

[00:04:10]It's like it's trying. It's just not We're kind of off of the road. We're off the highway and if we go up and down, people can get out of this road. But let's see if something's come unplugged down below.

[00:04:37]They're not excited about it. I'm not excited about it either, buddy. I don't want to be here. Get mad at me.

[00:04:46]Just looking for something obvious like a like a broken wire or So, let's There's no blown hoses or anything like that. These are the drive motors. Where's the hoses for the cylinders themselves?

[00:05:03]Right here.

[00:05:10]If I can tell you what I'm going to do.

[00:05:13]We're going to crawl forward and let's swing around. We'll put the basket over here behind the guardrail and then at least people can use this road while we problem solve it. At least people can get around now. I got that going for us. Looks like they run up through this panel. I don't know if there's anything going on in that panel.

[00:05:31]Let's take a game.

[00:05:33]There's some moisture down here. Nothing crazy. It just looks like this. I shove the phone up there. The only thing I see up there are hoses.

[00:05:42]The great thing about phones is we can Google things now. So, let's see if maybe there's a common problem or something that happens.

[00:05:51]Says the same thing I was thinking initially is that sometimes um the drive orientation system what it calls it. So, if it feels like it's unsafe, sometimes it'll lock functions out and that can be the turning, but we've kind of diagnosed that by swinging all the way around 180. And then we've lowered the boom all the way down on both ends and tried and it still acts like it's locked out. So, it should not be locked out in either one of those positions, but I feel like we've tested that. Also, I've got uh it's hard to see. I've got no warning lights other than that, which is not that wouldn't lock me out.

[00:06:30]What What it seems like I don't think it's the switch because you get a reaction left and right. It seems like there's a solenoid not opening allowing the return pressure to go where it needs to go. Like it's getting pressure to turn, but the return side of the cylinder I'm saying this right because I don't know what I just said. It's getting pressure to turn, but the return side of the cylinder isn't allowing the fluid out. That's that's kind of what it seems like. I wish I knew which solenoid it was because some of these are similar solenoids and I feel like I could swap it out to test it. But I I'm trying to figure out which one it is in this valve block. We got her limped over here. She'll turn just a little bit and it's like a 37 point turn over there.

[00:07:14]Eventually we got her.

[00:07:16]At least we're off the road now. We can look at a little bit more. Got to figure out what we got to do here.

[00:07:21]Looking for the solenoid for that. I say we got valve blocks here. There's some moisture here. That's not the problem though. Um, [music] so we can follow the steering hoses a little bit better and figure out where we're going. But here's the steering hoses here. You see they come up, they come in, they tee.

[00:07:55]So this uh there that one pushes like if this gets pressure pushes that way and then the other side of the tea is this one pushes that way. That way they're both turning the same way. Same thing opposite. Uh if this one gets pressure it pushes it that way at the same time. This one gets pressure which pushes pushes it that way. So that didn't do me much good. I mean, I know where it goes into here, but this is basically one giant orbital valve or I don't know if you want to call it orbital valve or or orbital junction. I don't know, but that allows fluid to flow through on each circuit when it needs to regardless of where the pump house is located. So, the pump is directly bolted to the engine. that allows the fluid to go in and that orbital style valve allows that fluid to be distributed whenever it needs to be regardless of where this is at in rotation to the frame. I did just call the customer and give them a heads up and let them know. Probably won't be today, but So, the manual he sent, I couldn't find the hydraulic, but I Googled it and I found it. So, we've got drive hydraulic. It's got serial numbers. Oh, yeah. On a serial number 3000. So, Mike, well, he's not here now.

[00:09:09]He just left. He's going to come back in just a second. Uh the consensus, we agreed, same thing we were just talking about. Something in here is stuck. We've narrowed it down. I finally found the correct diagram for this. So, we've got the correct diagram for this. This is the steer, which is what we were seeing with the hose coming in. So, we have steer here. This is a test port. He's running to get a gauge to see what pressure is coming out of here. This is the pressure relief valve for that.

[00:09:37]There is a check valve right here that's screwed in for the steer. These are also related to the steer as is that seems like a good time to [music] talk about it. So, we're not doing the side jobs anymore. We did a little experiment to see if it was something we wanted to do.

[00:09:55]We did a few of them and I made up the decision that after we were done with this customer, we're going to be done with side jobs. We got the issue resolved. Kind of temporarily bandaided together. Check out Derf Derf old Derf. Check out Dirt Perfect.

[00:10:12]Couple months there'll be a video comes out about the diagnostic process of this. This thing's got 6,500 hours on it. You know what I mean? Stuff's going to give out every now and then. We're like a half mile from the job. So, we're going to try to get it walked to the job and then in the morning we can hop right on her. I'd called him early to let him know I probably wouldn't make it today, but I have enough time to at least get the machine here. He's going to get his cars moved. Uh, I need everything I can get to make this maneuver here.

[00:10:59]Let me show you the tree in question.

[00:11:01]There might be another tree in question here, too. I'm just noticing it's this tree right here. Not the big hickory that's still living. Obviously, it's this dead one. It's not a huge tree. And if it didn't have this fork coming off of it, we could probably just drop it right at us and be okay with it. But it is hanging a little over the house. The main concern is what's hanging over the garage. So, we got the lift so we can go up and limb our way down uh to probably about there. And then we can just drop it the rest way. Hopefully. The whole driveway's got some slope to it. So, I'm trying to see where I want to set up and have the best reach. And I'm thinking I just want to try to get snuck over here. Also, I'll tell you what I'm charging for this. You're not going to believe it, but it ties into the whole theme of the direction we're looking to go. And the whole reason we can go this direction, this is what I want you to keep in mind because of things like this. Just put a brand new alternator on his skid steer and the brand new alternator you got doesn't actually work. So, now you got to jump it all the time. And other relatable experiences.

[00:12:00]Me too, man. Me too. Same thing. Anyway, this is a jump pack. Mike, you've already got a jump pack. I do. You're not wrong. It's a 1224 JNC. It's a great jump pack, but the thing is also the size of a small car and takes two days to fully charge. This takes like 2 hours to fully charge. How many times can you jump the skid steer on this thing, Mike?

[00:12:18]I'm glad you asked.

[00:12:20]We are dead. Battery master's on. You can see the gauge working, but we got nothing for start. All right.

[00:12:29]Oh, easy, easy. Oh, okay. Or maybe even a third time because you can't figure out the diagnosis of your alternator.

[00:12:38]Fourth start.

[00:12:41]Start number five.

[00:12:43]And a multitude of other times on top of that because I've got to take that alternator back to the shop and get a new one. 4,000 amps. It's 88 watt hours.

[00:12:52]So, not only can you jump stuff, but it's also just a big battery bank as well if you need to charge your phone or whatever you got to do. It's also an air compressor, 160 PSI max, but it is an air compressor. You just screw the tube in right there. Kind of a handy feature.

[00:13:06]Fella can never have too many jump packs, especially when everything you own needs a jump. You know what I mean?

[00:13:13]Or it's handy to just kind of keep in your truck as well. We're actually on our way to go get the ruckus rake right now. The video's probably already come out, but we're going to go uh we're going to get some stuff done.

[00:13:24]We're We're going to Okay. All right.

[00:13:27]Okay. I feel like I just want stuff to work. And a lot of days the world just Nope. Just kidding. That's the wrong side. Good news is it it can't do that though. It's got protection. not do really.

[00:13:50]While you guys go shopping for jump boxes, which there'll be a link in the description in the comment section below, probably if I remember to do it.

[00:13:57]I guess I'm going to be getting an alternator for this truck, too. That's fun.

[00:14:02]Everything's fun. I can make the same amount of money in 10 minutes that I can make for, let's just say, a week of doing dirt work here. But just stay with me. I promise you it's there's a happy ending to this.

[00:14:20]I've come in from another angle. I don't think I can swing her from over here just because of the trees.

[00:14:26]I'll show you here in a second. I got too much boom.

[00:14:31]So, we were able to get her nested into here. Uh, she's tight, but she's doable.

[00:14:38]There's just a whole lot of boom. And because of the trees over there, I couldn't get leveled up and then swing over. So, we'll see what this does for us. The goal here is just to get stuff cut and dropped, and we'll we'll pick it up and organize it once it's on the ground. But, but I don't want to make a bunch of trips up. Where you at? Hold on.

[00:14:58]Okay. I'm not getting any alarms here as far as being out of level. So, and it doesn't look terrible. We're uh we're just going to take her slow and she starts chirping, we'll try a crib. Have to cut our way up through it. I almost brought a sawzaw.

[00:15:18]You know those little one-handed limmers they make? That'd be perfect for something like this.

[00:15:27]Everything is a one-handed limmer if you try enough, I guess.

[00:15:42][screaming] Try a technique here. Look at that.

[00:15:56]kind of terrified.

[00:16:13][screaming] [groaning] Going to go a little higher here.

[00:16:31]I think there's a little bit here we can just cut. Let go.

[00:16:42]Get this fell out of the way.

[00:16:52]>> [screaming] >> We are definitely over the garage.

[00:16:58]Um probably until we get I mean all the way down on this one honestly.

[00:17:10]Beautiful.

[00:17:16]working our way back, but we need to get over. Need to swing and catch this one and get it caught up. And since our controls are backwards right now, that should be a joystick that way. Boom. This way. It's okay. Still no one level. Everything looks happy. I think we got lucky with a sweet spot in the driveway down there.

[00:17:37]It would be sound reason that they get a little larger as we go down here.

[00:17:41]Beautiful.

[00:17:55]So, we worked all the way down to that singular trunk. We still have this one to get, but before we do that, I want to go ahead and take this one down so I don't bump it accidentally when we're working over here. It's already on the ridge. The ridge is supporting it. And um I'm boomed all the way in. Let's see if we can travel just a little bit. If a red light starts flashing, we get some beeps, then we're going to know our answer.

[00:18:30]Starts getting pretty steep back there after that. So, I'm not going to risk any more than that. And uh we'll see what we can get from this spot here.

[00:18:37]Like to come just underneath it. I can.

[00:18:41]Wait, where are you guys at?

[00:18:42]>> Oh gosh.

[00:18:45]Sorry.

[00:18:57]Most professional amateur you've ever seen. We're back to the main truck.

[00:19:01]Let's run that last tall, sketchy one and then we're kind of on down.

[00:19:13]Almost there. This one's going to be a little trickier just from where I got to throw the stuff, but [screaming] we're getting pretty close to being down to uh just the trunk if you're curious. This was uh this was fully charged when we started.

[00:19:42]Not bad. Anyway, I had to come down for some water and I'm going to run this chain. Just touch it up a little bit real quick. Nothing crazy.

[00:19:56]There. She's not perfect, but she'll get us through the day. I'm going to snug this chain up just a little bit.

[00:20:02]Top off my oil.

[00:20:05]And I am going to throw a fresh battery on even though we still have some left on that one. So, this is what we're down to. And honestly, I could probably cut that and wedge it and get it do what it needs to do. But it's still over the building just a little bit. What a waste of time it would be to spend all the money on this lift to bring all that down safely and then try to rush the last 20 minutes, you know. So, we'll go up in the lift and we'll probably cut it down to somewhere below there and then we'll just drop it the rest of the way.

[00:20:36][screaming] >> [snorts] >> Mhm.

[00:20:48]Oh, where is that go? That's all the way to the ditch. That's good. I was hoping to go all the way to the ditch.

[00:21:05]Beautiful.

[00:21:25]Well, let's see if we can get this walked up out of this spot and then Well, I'll explain it.

[00:21:39]You guys had a catastrophic injury. Hold on.

[00:21:44]Now you're Look at that working Ranger, huh? What a unit. Be more of a Okay. All right. We're going to see if we can get this thing out of here and roll to the next job.

[00:22:08]Come on.

[00:22:12]Watch out for the tree, fellas.

[00:22:24]So, we've reached the next step with the lift so that we can set this.

[00:22:31]This is a 55 ft flag pole. So, we are setting this later this afternoon. I just need to get some measurements and see how we're set up on this. It's your reminder that lifts are not cranes, but they do have a capacity rating. the choke point per installation.

[00:22:51]They want it to be choked uh in here and that that'll bite. You want to be choked right there. It's 33 feet from there to that end is what I just measured. What are you doing, boss? Hi.

[00:23:07]>> He wants to say hi to you.

[00:23:08]>> Hi. Yeah, he does. He a good boy. I want to see how long his strap is. I need to figure out. Oh, I could be Man, I think I could be high enough to be above it.

[00:23:23]Let's go up there and test some things out here.

[00:23:28]Power lines. I'm not underneath it. That would be that. You don't You don't want to go up into the power lines.

[00:23:34]It's a bad day for everybody. A quick panoramic for you. Great. Okay. All right. for this tape measure that we got hanging from the basket right here.

[00:23:45]That's about the length close to it. So, I'm just making sure that I can swing once she's picked clear into that's where she's going right there.

[00:24:12]I think I've got a plan. I think I'm sitting in an okay spot. We can go up here where they want it to be picked. We can get it picked up, get the butt end slid over to the hole.

[00:24:24]And once we get there, we can just start standing it up the rest of the way. The only issue is that with a long sling like that, there's a lot of movement.

[00:24:32]You know, there's there's potential for a lot of this to go kind of like that. The guy that owns this though, he was a iron worker I believe before he retired. So he's pllicked pllicked. Oh my gosh words.

[00:24:44]He's picked plenty of steel. So we'll trust his adisement on this as well. A little nervous. Uh we'll probably do a little bit of a test and he's got some buddies coming over around 2:30. We'll try to get this bad boy in the ground.

[00:24:56]So here's the thing. So we talked about not doing side jobs anymore, but here here's the catch. We're still going to do side jobs kind of. If I can, like I did today, line up a partnership with the work that we're doing, it works really well in a way that I can subsidize that job to help those people out. 500 bucks. That's why I charged them for that tree. That covers the lift rental and the fuel for the lift essentially is what that's going to cover. I got another small tree to take down for them, too. And then you'll see another video coming up where we're back down there doing a little bit more gravel work for them. They want a little bit bigger parking area than what we initially gave them. We're going to subsidize that, too. Now, people still kind of have to pay for materials and things like that, but I if I can do a partnership and it lines up with that job really well time frame wise and just what we're doing and I can subsidize that job for that customer, that's what I want to do. And of course, we could charge for it, make the money, and make the partnership money. Yeah, I know that is also an option, but the world's given me an opportunity that I can through what I get to do with YouTube kind of help some people out. And I think that's what I want to do. I mean, I've I'm I'm doing good in life, you know? Like, we got enough. The kids are happy. I'm happy. The admiral's happy. We get to do a tremendous amount of things. The world's given me these opportunities.

[00:26:11]Why not take two minutes out of a video, tell you about some kind of product?

[00:26:14]They pay me. I can take that money and do a job to help somebody that doesn't necessarily have the money they thought they had to get a job done that needs to be done, like taking down a dead tree or something like that. So, are we still doing side work? Kind of. Are we doing it the way we set out to do it? Nope.

[00:26:28]Nope. a fellow wants to uh a fellow's got an opportunity to do something and I kind of want to do that. So, buckle up.

[00:26:35]There's going to be more partnerships, but you're also going to see some more work. We're also going to be doing a lot of work on our property as well. So, that's kind of what we're looking like.

[00:26:42]I am excited about this flag pole.

[00:26:45]>> Andy just called me. He's got he's got two trees next to his cabin back here where he lives. Be appropriate or if you would look at those and see if >> I can look at them sometime. Yeah. Look at them and see if you >> if it you know since you got the equipment here if that's the proper equipment.

[00:27:04]>> So you got them marked or is it pretty obvious or >> It's obvious they're they're growing up right next to the porch.

[00:27:09]>> Okay.

[00:27:10]>> There's two of them about that big around.

[00:27:12]>> Okay.

[00:27:12]>> I can rope them and pull them but he's doesn't think he wants me to do it.

[00:27:16][laughter] >> I'll look at it. Um I'll look at it and see.

[00:27:20]>> Yeah.

[00:27:21]>> We're just going to do a quick pick here and just uh see how it feels weight wise. We should be all right. see if I can pick it up.

[00:27:28]>> Okay, he's going to go down there and see how heavy it is on that end. We got everything off the ground except the base, which will kind of stay on the ground.

[00:27:51]I think he's happy there for now.

[00:27:54]Look like she's going to put a wooden block under that end.

[00:28:04]Well, we tested it and uh we're going for it. The what I measured for earlier, what we have is this strap is about it's just a little bit longer than what's left of this pole. So, whenever we get it stood up, that should be just below the basket. We'll get it in the hole. I dug this with a 304. It's about 5 foot deep in there.

[00:28:24]And then once we get in the hole, we can come down uh and I can grab the top and we can try to get plumbed and he'll he'll have to pack the base with sand. That's what holds these in. They don't fit tight with concrete. They've got sand around the base. So, all right.

[00:28:39]We'll see what happens here. It's just going to be one shot cuz I only have one camera.

[00:29:16]What a boom. down.

[00:29:31]There she is. That 50 footer. He's got a He's got a 10 x 15 flag he's going to put on real quick. We can see this thing. That thing looks good. The goal is you can see it from the river. I think you will. This thing turned out awesome. I think it's pretty dagone cool. His goal is to have a flag big enough you could see from the river. I'm going to say mission accomplished. Now, that doesn't mean we're not doing side jobs at all. There will still be some random stuff that shows up, but the main goal is to take the opportunities we have with this channel and try to help people out that that we can help out with it. There will still be some side jobs, you know, like my neighbor said that his son needs some work done. I will probably do that. It's the son of my neighbor. Um, I'm working on this the rest of the evening. This will not be the next video. It's going to take several evenings to get enough of this to make a decent video. And then uh next video will be back down there. Another couple trees and a little bit of gravel work. So there you go. All right. Let me know your thoughts on it. I'm curious what you think. I don't know. I just feel like I obligated to say that. I don't I don't think I really care, honestly.

[00:30:36]But I mean, you know, if it makes you feel better, type them type enter. You know what I mean? Subscribe for sure.