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Old 04-11-2015, 06:55 PM   #1
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$hit I do to make money thread.

Well fellow skoolies, here it is. I do a whole bunch of different things to make a living, and sponsor my bus sickness. I work for myself, by myself with one or two helpers at times.

I photograph every project I do. It's a portfolio of sorts.

The pics tell the story's.

Nat

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Old 04-11-2015, 07:42 PM   #2
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nat_ster View Post
Well fellow skoolies, here it is. I do a whole bunch of different things to make a living, and sponsor my bus sickness. I work for myself, by myself with one or two helpers at times.

I photograph every project I do. It's a portfolio of sorts.

The pics tell the story's.

Nat
Dude....Nate...apparently your boring and unemployed......no pictures?

Now if you post a picture of you with a bowtie and underwear only....I will barf and delete it...no pole dancing for you
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Old 04-11-2015, 07:52 PM   #3
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First up, a 1960 trailer at 66 feet long by 14 feet wide.

One of the most ugly projects I have taken on. The owner hounded me for two years before I agreed to take on the job.

Roof has been leaking for years. It was a rounded roof with no over hang, made from 2x2's and aluminum that interlocked at the seams. Every time someone got on the roof to clean the wood stove chimney, or shovel the snow off, it would cause more leaks.

There was also a porch added on with a roof higher than the trailer roof. This caused water to pool and leak badly.

This job we had to use used roofing tin off a old barn. With the tin already full of screw holes, it was a challenge to place the 2x4 strapping in the right places.

Every single piece of tin had to be cut. If it were new, they would be the right length, with no cutting. This added two days to a 6 day job for two guys.

The tin.



The cutting method.



I don't have any before pictures, my helper took them, then lost his phone.

Trusses up, strapped, and tin on.







Old low efficiency ferness chimney. I need to adjust the high heat rubber boot and install the Ridge cap.
Little one is the plumbing stack.



Wood stove Chimney. $500 worth of parts just to come through the roof.



The whole place looks like a run down $hit hole. However the land lord charges $1000 a month rent.



I changed out some of the windows and the entry door last year. The owner never lets me finish anything. Always want's me to start something else.



End truss installed wrong. Now I have to cut all but the top two 2x4's out.



The trailer had a 4 inch sag in the center, so I ran a string line, and shimmed it up to strait.

Fascia 2x6's leaning up waiting to be installed.











All one slope now.



West end done right.





Fascia 2x4's going on.



On the ground it was all mud and wet.







Nat
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Old 04-11-2015, 07:58 PM   #4
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Stupid forum setting are ruining the pic's links due to it changing the word $hit to ****.

Now I have to start over.

Fixed. Just took half hour longer.

Nat
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Old 04-11-2015, 08:22 PM   #5
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It snowed a bit, warmed up, then froze rapidly. This is what it caused.





















I'm standing up on the scaffold, under the overhang of the roof.











More to come, this job is not quite done yet.

Nat
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Old 04-11-2015, 08:26 PM   #6
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Quote:
Originally Posted by bansil View Post
Dude....Nate...apparently your boring and unemployed......no pictures?

Now if you post a picture of you with a bowtie and underwear only....I will barf and delete it...no pole dancing for you
Lol, Funny guy.

I was uploading and organizing. It's a bit of work posting pics.

Nat
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Old 04-12-2015, 12:26 AM   #7
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nat_ster View Post
It snowed a bit, warmed up, then froze rapidly. This is what it caused.





















I'm standing up on the scaffold, under the overhang of the roof.











More to come, this job is not quite done yet.

Nat
Very cool, but what all that white stuff?
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Old 04-12-2015, 08:13 AM   #8
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man, if i ever saw icicles growing sideways, i would head south.
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Old 04-17-2015, 09:47 AM   #9
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At the bus shop I work part time, the owner ran off the guys building the offices. It was due to sloppy work. So they asked me to hang the interior doors.



Shop is strait though the metal door, lunch room on the right.



One door left to hang.



A few pics of the 12 bay shop. The entire shop runs off solar power and uses only LED lighting.





The wash bay and a 2001 84 passenger Thomas rear engine 8.3 Cummins / MD3060 bus. I was changing the rear hatch latch.



In one of my other posts, I mentioned that 8.3 Cummins have a coolant filter. This one doesn't have one. It now looks to be a bolt on part for the 8.3.



This bus also used a pathetic little 120 amp open small frame Alternator. Most rear engine buses we have use medium frame closed Alternators at minimum 160 amps.



A few pics of where the coolant filter would be. This is the top rad hose.







I can't believe how flimsy the front engine mount is on this 2001.





This year of Thomas bus has the rad on the passenger side. Blue birds of this year are on the drivers side.



Nat
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Old 04-17-2015, 12:33 PM   #10
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This is the same bus, 2001 Thomas



More of the shop.







This is the kind of thing I was hired to fix. The whole yard needs to be cleaned up.



This is the Coal boiler shed that heats the shop. I didn't build this, but was hired to tear it down, and rebuild it from scratch, and up to code.
Currently it is a complete fail.



The boiler and the hopper full of coal in behind.





Someone in the management had the brain fart idea the wood was cheaper than coal. They forgot to factor in the labor of cutting the wood. Wood is 6 times the price of coal, and there for this brand new 250,000 BTU wood boiler is up for sale.



Heat lines running to the shop installed completely wrong. I have to cut the cement and bury the lines at least 3 feet deep.



These walls should have been built one piece. Here you can see the wall buckling.



What it looks like from the west side.



I have to completely tear this down and rebuild from scratch.



You can see my friends old drifting car. Poor honda civic has been beat on hard. It still starts.





This is one of the cars we race on the dirt track in summer, Ice track on the pond in winter.



A good DT466 just laying on the ground.





Pile of rads intercoolers, engines, ect. Most are still good parts.



Anyone need tires? we have around 1000.



The shop runs of a massive solar array. This is the fuel tank for the backup 15 kw generator.



This is a smaller wood boiler. It is one of 5 boilers just sitting there unused.



2 more coal boilers sitting unused.



Natural gas / propane 20 kw generator will no hours just sitting unused. It was a hospital backup we got for a good price.



This is how the coal finds its way into the boiler hopper. It's a old grain auger.



The truck that hauls the coal 70km from the mine.







My friends poor old trike.



Looking north at the boiler shed.





Nat
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Old 04-17-2015, 12:41 PM   #11
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This is the 15 kw backup generator for the solar array. It's housed in the C-Can that contains the battery's.



Battery's, inverter, charge controllers, ect.





















Battery's





Interconnects.



Looking back towards the door of the C-Can.



The 15 kw 3 cylinder diesel back generator.



Nat
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Old 04-17-2015, 01:55 PM   #12
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A nice pink sunset. Real life looked better.













Nat
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Old 04-17-2015, 06:09 PM   #13
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Very nice shop set up, where do you buy coal? there's no place around my neck of the wood that sell coal, and I haven't seen any where that does
nice pictures
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Old 04-17-2015, 09:44 PM   #14
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Not just any DT466... probably the best of the DT466s imo
the last iteration of 466 before the "E" electronic injection. I'd love to have that. And some tires...
Looks nice out there. Reminds me of the bus yard I work at.
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Old 04-18-2015, 11:54 AM   #15
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Very nice shop set up, where do you buy coal? there's no place around my neck of the wood that sell coal, and I haven't seen any where that does
nice pictures
gbstewart
Our main source of electricity here is coal. To the west 60km are the open pit mines that feed 1000 tons a hour into 7 massive coal boilers. They also sell to the public at $50 a ton.

Quote:
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Not just any DT466... probably the best of the DT466s imo
the last iteration of 466 before the "E" electronic injection. I'd love to have that. And some tires...
Looks nice out there. Reminds me of the bus yard I work at.
They are talking of crushing around 100 buses soon. Most are the good 94 to 96 mechanical engines. 5.9 and 8.3 cummins, Dt 360 and Dt 466's. Also a crap load of cat engines that I don't care for.

I'm seeing what I can do for a deal on a bunch of the Dt466's. I would like to buy around 5 to 10 of them just to have around for future projects.

All the Cummins are spoken for. I only managed to score one 8.3.

99% of these buses are to rusty to convert. However many of them only have 150,000 km or less on the engines.

Nat
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Old 04-23-2015, 08:45 PM   #16
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nat_ster View Post
Our main source of electricity here is coal. To the west 60km are the open pit mines that feed 1000 tons a hour into 7 massive coal boilers. They also sell to the public at $50 a ton.



They are talking of crushing around 100 buses soon. Most are the good 94 to 96 mechanical engines. 5.9 and 8.3 cummins, Dt 360 and Dt 466's. Also a crap load of cat engines that I don't care for.

I'm seeing what I can do for a deal on a bunch of the Dt466's. I would like to buy around 5 to 10 of them just to have around for future projects.

All the Cummins are spoken for. I only managed to score one 8.3.

99% of these buses are to rusty to convert. However many of them only have 150,000 km or less on the engines.

Nat
I will pay you in advance for a DT466!
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Old 04-23-2015, 09:43 PM   #17
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I'm working on as many as I can. I just finally secured a price on my 8.3 MD3060 combo.

I will be bringing it home soon. Pics to come.

In time I will have some DT 466's. But are you sure it's worth the distance for you to buy one from here?

Nat
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Old 04-24-2015, 09:11 AM   #18
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Quote:
Originally Posted by nat_ster View Post
I'm working on as many as I can. I just finally secured a price on my 8.3 MD3060 combo.

I will be bringing it home soon. Pics to come.

In time I will have some DT 466's. But are you sure it's worth the distance for you to buy one from here?

Nat
I don't know what that distance is
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Old 05-03-2015, 10:50 AM   #19
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A friend of mine bought a 1953 Chevy Belair 2 door hard top 15 years ago.

When he got the car he payed $2200 for it. It had the original drive line, but would only do 80 kmh. So with dreams of driving it to his work a hour from home each day, it had it taken to a old car body shop for a engine swap. Engine of choice was a 400 small block.

Sadly the car sat there at the back of a quarter square mile of old cars for the next 15 years. I saw it for the fist time this spring. It has no drive line left, and was sitting sunk into the soft dirt. I lifted it with a jack, pumped up the two rear tires, and was able to pull it out of of the yard slowly, down the narrow lane between the rest of the old cars.

Here is the pics of loading it on my trailer.





After a hours drive, it's at it's new resting place.



My really good friend Al came to give me a hand. He has a 1934 hot rod.





Nat
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Old 05-03-2015, 11:18 AM   #20
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Last season I did 6 decent size brick jobs. I got around to stacking and organizing the spares. Spares are used for warranty replacement in case a brick gets wrecked, stolen, ect.

All my brick jobs carry a 10 year warranty.

I used the inner steel from one of my buses to stack the brick on. This will keep it out of the mud and prevent sinking.





Some bricks are for retaining walls, some are for high end driveways, some for sidewalks.





Retaining wall brick.





Nat
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