Are you "That guy" in your neighborhood? Hey *&* died, I bought a new one, you want it?

Yeah I am. Neighbor always has nice stuff and loses patience when things don't work.
Got the call today; 4HP belt drive air compressor, it won't start, blowing the breaker, want it? Well yeah!
Bout two hours in, a rotted off spade terminal on the start capacitor found and repaired, it's all cleaned up and runs like new. Called and he had already bought a new one. Put it to good use he sez.
I'll change the oil cuz yah know.



I KNOW A few of you guys are "dumpster divers" too, give up some stories!

A friend of mine had a Toyota van, kept overheating, boiling over etc, he had other friends look at it, took it to a mechanic, mechanic did a few things, gave it a tune up, got it back a week later it boils over again, he parked it in his yard, a month or so later an acquaintance of his dad asked him what he was doing with it, he told him the story, the guy says I’ll give you $500 for it, my mate was like I’ll need to talk to wife first cause it was considerably less than it cost him, anyway he calls the guy and tells him to come and pick it up, his dad saw the guy a couple of weeks later driving the van and asked how it’s going, the guy says it’s great, just needed a new radiator cap, runs perfect now, the guy still has it three years later.

Dumpster Diving
One night I was out throwing things away and there was laying some old laboratory equipment
I saw one Power supply giving around 12 V ..
I hauled it home ..Heavy old school
After some testing I saw there were tubes and it appeared to work but It could only deliver a few amperes.
So it was not really usable for Motorcycles
I had it in a corner for a long time
When I decided to take it apart for knobs switches . I got into it and noticed 4 electronic tubes large ones
Philps EL 34
Looking something like that

https://www.ebay.com/itm/EL34-6CA7-...486966?hash=item3b509c3cf6:g:1agAAOSwlx9fY0UQ

I had no Idea .But a friend was into Tube amplifiers for Guitars
He immediately told me --- For heavens sake don't throw those away
If I remember correctly these sitting there were manufactured late 60 ies
And sits in Marshall Amplifiers from that time.
So I then asked around for a " Tube Tester " but cannot find one.
If not Faulty and of the right model some one might pay $ 100 -200 a piece perhaps even more
As the saying goes " That is also money for a poor man "

'Bout 20 yrs ago a buddy gave me his piece-o-sh*t Hobart wire welder. He was on a tear.... "F&ckin' piece of sh*t!!! Ain't never worked right... tired of f&ckin' with it. Just get it outta my sight.... worthless motherf&cker!!" ... or words to that effect. Took it home. Wire was loose on the gas solenoid and polarity was backwards goin' out to the gun. 20 yrs later and it's still my go to welder.

Yup! Me too, I have done easy repairs on weed whackers, and lawn mowers. I scored a really nice Tiffany lamp at a yard sale for peanuts once, the guy said it was broken, I bought a three dollar switch and had a beautiful lamp. My mother was so taken with it, I gave it to her, it sat in her living room for years.

Nine times outa ten things quit working because of a broken wire or bad connection.

'Nuther one. Late 70's... Florida. Buddy had orders overseas. All packed up and asked me to drive him to the airport. Said sure. He showed up on the day of his flight in his 70-something Galaxy 500. "Hop in" he said... "all my luggage is in the back."
He drove to the airport and I helped 'im with his luggage. "Ray" I said, "what the hell do I do with your car?"
"Oh yeah" he said "forgot... you wanna buy it?"
"I can't afford another car Ray."
"Sure ya can." he said... "How much ya got in your wallet?"
I had 20 bucks and change...
"Sold" he sez. Wrote me a bill of sale at the ticket counter.
Drove home and put an ad in the local Penny Pincher. About a week later it sold for about 500 bucks. Only thing I ever did to it was open and close the 2 doors.

Another vehicle score. I'm in my 20s. Guy I knew had an early 80 GMC van that he couldn't keep running (this was probably early 90s). Told me it was mine for $50. I showed up with a good battery. Jammed a screwdriver in the butterfly and cranked it over. It came to life and I squirted carb cleaner in it for about 2-3 minutes. It perked up and I drove it home. Felt guilty and told him I would sell it back to him for $50 pus the battery. He told me he was finished with it and it was mine. It was my primary ride for the next 6-8 years.

Never scored anything with wheels that was worth a damn, but have picked up a few tools that needed brushes or a new cord or bearings or some such.

I suspect such deals are more likely if you live in or near a big-ish city. Us country folk have been patching things up and getting by for decades. If WE are done with it, it's scrap!

When I was a 2nd Class Petty officer at ACB2 in Little Creek I ran the HT (welding/fab) shop. One day Senior Chief walks into the shop and says they are beginning to decommission the USS Saipan a Tarawa class LHA (amphibious assault ship) and he's got a buddy (goat locker) in the HT shop on the Saipan who says we can come aboard take whatever we want from their HT shop back to ACB2. Never being one to look tool giving gift horse in the mouth I promptly rounded up a few firemen and an headed over to Alpha CO to check out an Oshkosh (big ass truck). We roll over to the Saipan and head up the brow, check in on the quarter deck, and make our way to engineering to find the shop. Once there we get the ok to basically clean the place out, his guys help us carry everything down the brow to our awaiting Oshkosh and load it all up. Not wanting to leave any free tools behind I return to make one final sweep of the shop where I find the Senior, coffee cup in hand keenly admiring his workspace now free anything and everything he might have had to do paperwork on save one thing. Bolted down (wheels and cart conspicuously missing) to the main workbench was a Millermatic 300. Not really having much need for a 5th welder in my HT shop or wanting to carry that pig down the brow I hesitantly asked what was up with the welder. To which Senior Chief replied with a very distasteful scowl "that fuckin piece of shit aint ever worked, I took it out of the system and we're gonna deep six it on our way to the shipyard". Then he looked at me said "if you want it, take it. But you better take it home or to the pawn shop cause ITS OUT OF THE SYSTEM AND ITS JUNK!". Then blankly stared at me the way only a Senior Chief can stare at a PO2. "Well you want it or not? I ain't got all fuckin day...". To witch I replied, Aye Senior its as good as gone let me go grab my guys. He smiled sipped his coffee and strolled off. When I returned there were two E3's from the Saipan E gang fervently unbolting it from the work bench, one looks up and says "Senior says to help you get this thing off the ship". I smiled and said thanks guys. We get it into the truck and head off. I tell my guys, we gotta stop by my place before we head back. The three firemen shrug their shoulders and accept there fate as they get to get out of work for a little bit because the LPO wants run personal errands, no skin off their backs. As my wife looks on in skeptical amazement as I back the giant Oshkosh up to my shop (tight squeeze) She comes out the back and says, "what are you dragging home now???". I smirk and say, oh just dropping off some tools I'll explain later. My Guys help me unload the behemoth and set it on the floor in my shop. The firemen stand around for a short while oooing and ahhhing the various bobbers, choppers, and hotrod that inhabited my garage. We make our way back to the Phib to sort and stow our booty. Needless to say quitting time could not come soon enough, I had new toy to play with. I make my way home completely bypassing the wife to make beeline straight for the shop. I affix a cord to my new welder and drag it (still no wheels) over to the 220 outlet. I flip the switch and she buzzes to life. I open the wire feed bay and see a 20lb roll of solid core wire, pleased with myself I grab my hood to do a little test welding. two pieces of scrap metal tossed in my vise, and the moment of truth.... Nothing.... slightly disheartened I take a moment to to asses the situation. I go to the tool box and grab a philips and take the gun apart. Never in my life had I been so happy to broken parts. The gun trigger was busted into about 4 pieces, surly this tiny part cant cost more than $8 I think to myself. Just to be sure I pull the wires off the switch and install a momentary pushbutton i had laying around, viola wire feeding and molten metal pooling! I'll order a switch in the morning I think, better head in for now. Next morning I shoot off a call to Miller tech support to inquire about the part number for a new trigger. To which the gentleman on the other end of the line replies what's your address? I tell him, he says your new trigger assembly should be to your house in the next 4 days... I say, Ok how much do I owe you? His response, well thats a fairly new machine, we'll cover the cost, is there anything else I can help you with. So there you have it, how I got my free welder.

Not exactly "Dumper Diving" but a few years back local "PennySaver" want ad thing that came in mail once a week for free. Had a section for free stuff. I would look through it just for kicks. Managed over a couple years to pick up a few walk behind lawn mowers that about the biggest problems were either water and dirt in carbs or just needing a quick filing of the points to get running. Gave a couple away to friends and family and even sold one to a guy who worked with wife. That was a self propelled one think I got $50! Right now I have two good running walk behinds, had three but gave one to brother for his camp up near the St. Lawrence. First and last walk behind I bought was back in about 1972, gave that one away about 25 years ago when trying to downsize on junk! That only worked for a short time!

Then there are walk behind snowblowers. Have to think, I believe I have five of those! Again only ever bought one new and yea gave that away to dad when his broke down. Nice thing is all the ones I have except one are the same make and just different model years of the same model so many parts are usable across the fleet. Just recalled I did give or sell one to a lady wife worked with, it was a smaller model and did not fit in the fleet so out the door with that one had it running good when it left.

And on a totally different track just the other day had a cheap plug-in digital clock in bathroom that got to the point you could not adjust the minutes, hours were no problem but minutes would not change! Wife wanted to toss it but... Well looked at it and saw that it was assembled with a bunch of small screws. Opened it up and got to the circuit board that had the reset buttons on it. Very simple design, tracks on the bord and little disks that when pushed down made contact to the tracks. Disks actually held in position with Scotch tape! Peeled back tape and used contact cleaner on the disks and tracks of the circuit board. Now I could scroll through the minutes to reset like new!

I could probably go on for a couple pages, like why I'm still using the printer wife was going to toss a few years ago and she is now on her second one since I took over this one! Better stop now!

I'm on both sides of this. I've been known to pick up more free or cheap stuff than I can handle. It get's out of hand. I recently repaired a bunch of stuff around here. I've also been filling the bin with trash every week, plus giving stuff away. When retirement time comes, I don't want to find myself sitting on a mountain of garbage. I am allowing myself one indulgence for now. XS series motorcycles.

Ken's mower story jogged the ol' grey stuff.....
Saw a nice self propelled Craftsman at a yard sale. 5 bucks. Guy sez it's knocking so bad he expects the con rod to let loose any moment. I fire it up and sure enough, it's knockin' to beat all hell. Payed the man, took it home and tightened the blade that was about to fall off. Used it for about 6-8 seasons before I gave it away... still running strong.

I've probably told this story before, but when I worked at the cannery, there was a HUGE old two story barn that was chock-a-block full of 80 years worth of stuff from the business. Plant Manager wanted it cleaned out but couldn't/was to cheap to pay anybody to do it.

I'd been in there 2-3 times a week for years looking for stuff and I pretty much knew what was there. I figured "what the hey" and made him an offer: I'll do it on my own time, and I'll separate the entire contents of that barn into three piles. Stuff We Should Keep, Stuff We Should Shitcan and Stuff I'm Going To Take Home As My Wages. He agreed!

When I got done over a period of 3 or 4 weekends, there was a 43 yard roll-off dumpster full to overflowing, the "We Should Keep It" stuff was stowed neatly by type and I lugged off a Hobart Handler MIG welder, a Miller Dial Arc HF welder (AC/DC and HF-TIG, complete with regulators, TIG torch and consumables and foot control) a battery powered fork lift and a BIG ol' Hossfeld bender.

I eventually sold everything but the Miller, which sits in my shop to this day.

Once upon a time as as a teenager I worked at the small Sears in Atchison, Ks. I would deliver the appliances sold that day with another guy in the evenings. Walked in one day to see a "used" new self propelled mower sitting in the back. Asked to owner what was up with it. He tells me it was brought in because it won't run. Says the "tech" from the mother ship in St Joe, Mo had come in looked at it and said it was a lost cause and to warranty it. Asked if I could have it, he said they were just going to pitch it so sure. Took it home slapped a new plug in it, fired it up and mowed my parents yard. My dad had that mower for 15 years. A couple of years ago my neighbor rolled a Murray push mower out to the curb and left it. I asked what he was doing with, he said it was "broke" and he was tossing it. So I rolled it across the street gave it a tug and rumbled to life. Noticed one of the wheels was wobbly, ran down to the hardware store got 4 new wheels for it and gave it to a buddy who needed a mower. That was 8 years ago and its still not "broke". I love lost cause projects.

Bringing out the stories, cool!
Pre internet days, went to an auction, bought a phone system for my business, a printing company was doing a big upgrade of "everything". It was too big but used it for a decade with lots of spare parts, Um I digress. I tend to avoid auctions cuz, well you guys know why.
Phone system lot was near end of the day, next lot was a printing system with a huge collection of fonts, I KNOW NOTHING about printing, but there was Zero Interest in it, think I got for a couple hundred bux. No idea what I dragged home, it filled a pick up truck. Started asking around, advertised it in a printing magazine, skidded it up and shipped it LTL to Texas, netted a quick 4 grand. Life was GOOD!

Driving a car that I got for free or for a few hundred bucks is my MO, even today.

Well for one more story.
Years ago brother-in-law was working running a farm for a guy who inherited his money from his dad, well actually he inherited a large trucking company RedStar Express. The farm was a beef cattle operation that I would describe as a hobby where he also engaged in his love of old horse drawn carriages.

Anyhow one of the smaller farms they bought up over the years had a well worn tractor I'm thinking it might Massey or maybe Allis. Brother-in-law thought it would be a good tractor for light work on farm and asked me to take a look. Well I looked at it a bit and it was to me beyond fixing. Now sure if it was a treasured tractor from your dear old dad it might have had enough sentimental value to justify the time and money but to just have a working tractor one could buy a good used just about anything for half the money this one needed.

After giving the news to them brother-in-law asked how much do we owe you? I said forget about it I really did not do that much. He then says any chance you would want an air compressor? See how I got back to the first post there? They had a 220 volt stand up IR compressor that did run but everytime they needed to use air it took too long to build up the pressure. They decided to just replace it with one similar to the one Gary got.

I said sure I'll take it, see I did work on the bigger 3 cylinder IR compressors at work so figured I might be able to get this one workable for a few bucks. Now that I'm writing this I forget if I did anything to it, possibly replaced a discharge check valve at the most. I really think the problem they had with it was the connections for the air leaked off all the pressure when they shut it down so every start up was from zero psi in a rather large tank. I have it in my garage and it is always turned on and as there is only one air hose connected to it I have eliminated almost all possible leaks. I have been using it since about 1985. I figure I have got a years use out of that compressor for every minute I spent looking at that old tractor and I have not doubts that it will out live me!

One of my compressors is a Campbell Hausfeld 1 1/2 hp I bought brand new in about 1975. Lots of shop work, painting, three big house projects and coming up on 50 years later it's still chugging along. It's been left plugged in most of those years. Maintenance? One new pressure switch 3? oil changes, welded shut rust holes in the tank a few times, tightened the regulator diaphragm screws, and finally a belt a few years ago.
Oh I thought this new one should replace it but I gotta keep going with the C-H, think it's going to outlive me!

gggGary said:

One of my compressors is a Campbell Hausfeld 1 1/2 hp I bought brand new in about 1975. Lots of shop work, painting, three big house projects and coming up on 50 years later it's still chugging along. It's been left plugged in most of those years. Maintenance? One new pressure switch 3? oil changes, welded shut rust holes in the tank a few times, tightened the regulator diaphragm screws, and finally a belt a few years ago.
Oh I thought this new one should replace it but I gotta keep going with the C-H, think it's going to outlive me!

Click to expand...

My 5hp 60gal standup is coming up on 25yrs now. 1 motor, 1 check valve, 1 pressure switch and 3 or 4 drain valves. Generic, reconditioned... out the door at $299.

Well the guy we dealt with at work for compressor parts came up with an idea to let me be able to let compressor get up to pressure fast if needed to air up a tire or such but still have the large tank capacity for say when I wanted to do sand blasting.

His plan was to install a second air tank with a pressure switch in it, say a small tank of a truck about a five gallon size. and connect it teed into the line to the main tank but with a pair of valves to separate the two tanks. Then if I wanted a low volume of air to fill a tire on the bike. I could open valve to small tank and close the valve to the large tank and get pressure fast. Then if I desired the larger volume of air for a different project just reverse the valves and now it would run off the main tank.

He even gave me a brand new pressure valve for the project and I have the small air tank I "liberated" from work, just never got around to doing the job! Found that once I fixed a couple slow leaks in the lines on the compressor It would hold pressure for days if not weeks at a time so decided the little bit of electricity it may use to keep up to full pressure is not that big a deal and when or if the pressure switch on the compressor does fail I have a new one sitting on the self!