Well, at long last, the backhoe starts under its own power. Sometimes. I replaced the starter, all the battery cables, and yesterday repaired the broken-off (corroded away) cables feeding the cab, which was an adventure itself. Took about an hour to get controls and covers out of the way to really get access to the electrical, then ended up having to remove the seat, which is quite heavy.
The fuse block is an absolute mess and I have no choice but to replace it. Major corrosion.
Got a couple of good-enough front tires on it so now it can be driven. Barely. At least I can drive it into the garage where the first order of business will be to use the shop vac to get rid of the rest of the dried muck that's very much like pottery shards.
While I've got the interior torn down this far, the controls will get a lot of attention. Things like, for example, the shifter which was getting increasingly difficult to move and would sometimes get locked up and immovable. Looks like a lot of stuff there that should've been getting occasional lubrication but access to do so is nonexistent.
By the time I'm done repairing/refurbishing/cleaning this thing, it should be in better shape than it was when I bought it.
Wish my parents would've gotten me Tonka Toys when I was a kid. It's very likely I wouldn't be spending a small fortune on them now and could've retired by now. Don't know if I mentioned that I ended up buying the JCB 260 excavator I used to retrieve the backhoe. Figure I can put it to good use for a couple of years then sell it for a loss that'd be far smaller than rent would've been. Especially since I bought it for what would've been less than 10 months of rent.
Planning to buy a neighbor's bulldozer (a cheap, crappy, but usable Allis Chalmers) today, and another friend who works for the Caterpillar dealer is trying to find me a used 963 loader which will be VERY handy for the lake.
As an aside to this essay, replaced all the tires on the car-hauler yesterday. The sidewalls are so soft compared to the low-profile racing tires I'm used to, they were proving quite a challenge to seat. Until I remembered hearing what a lot of folks do for truck tires. A few seconds' spray of ether into the tire (while firmly mounted in the tire-changer), wave the torch near it, a gratifying explosion, and voila! Seated beads! And surprisingly, only about 10 PSI in the tires. So it seems relatively safe except for the few times the ether ignited but didn't seat the beads and instead left me with a fire inside the tire to put out.
