The bracket for the slow moving vehicle sign broke a couple of years back. The only time the tractor hits the county road is when I'm plowing snow and then only when I'm clearing out by the mailbox and turning around. However, it's not a bad idea to have some reflective material on the back side of the tractor. I'm slowly getting things taken care of that have been on the back burner for a while, so it was fix it or scrap it.
The bracket broke where I had originally bent it - no real surprise there- especially since the sign vibrated quite a bit while running the tractor. I welded up the corner and then added a gusset. The bracket was originally riveted to the sign so I had to drill the rivets out and bolted it back together. The rivets were underneath the stick-on part of the sign so weren't visible before. The bolts can be seen but it's better than not having the sign.
I moved the horses supporting the jitney frame out towards the middle of the shop so I'd have more room to work around it. After getting it moved and leveled up again, I tacked the splice plates I made to the main frame rails so I could clamp the rear section on.
I was figuring I'd have to remove them when I got ready to weld the rear section on, but I didn't want to have to worry about having a bunch of clamps in my way or something moving.
After clamping the rear section in place it became obvious that the transmission is going to be too close to the differential to have any type of a driveshaft. The frame was built with a 92" wheel base according to the plan. However, the original car probably had a four cylinder engine and a manual transmission, which would have been shorter. Looks like I'm going to have to stretch the frame, especially since I wanted to move the engine back two inches. That's easy enough done, I'll just have to get a piece of tubing and decide how much I need to add.
I've got the trans mount bolted on and it hangs down quite a bit below the frame rails. The crossmember will have to have at least a six inch drop. Nothing insurmountable, just need to design something and start fabbing it up.
I was once again perusing the SCTA rule book and depending on the speeds run, the tires have to have the proper speed rating. I looked up the tires I'm planning on using on the Coker and the Speedway sites and neither of them listed the speed rating. Something else I need to check on if Bonneville is ever going to happen.
And speaking of tires, I was going to get the motorbike chopper out and run it down to get the mail but the front tire was flat. I tried airing it up but it was coming out almost as fast as it was going in. And a day or two later, I noticed the rear tire on my commuter bike was flat. It too wouldn't take any air. I checked my tube supply and, of course, I don't have a spare for either of those. I figured I'd pick up a couple of spares from the bike shop right down the street from the cardiologist when I went there on Tuesday but the shop showed no sign of life went I went by. I don't know if he went belly up or was on vacation, but no tubes just the same. Looks like I'll have to order a couple in.
I filed a claim with the post office for my lost brake shoes. I'm not holding out much hope for getting my $50.00 free insurance but you never know unless you try.
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