Tractor Seats

I spent some time in my empty garage doing another project...turning a pair of tractor seats into stools. As is typical, the tractor seats waited in my shed for many months!

It was pretty simple - I just made a couple of adapter plates and welded them onto a piece of scrap pipe:

An old Jeep 4.0l flywheel made a good, heavy base. I installed some rubber feet from Amazon into the six tapped holes for the pressure plate:

I kind of guessed at the height - it's comfortable for me:

The seat seems to be a new, cast iron, reproduction from Mexico based on it's markings on the back.

Then I made a second stool that is about 4" taller.

This one seems to be an original, older, cast iron tractor seat.

Next Steps:

1) Fab and weld on a foot support - it is especially needed for the taller stool.

2) Clean and paint all the rusty parts. I'm probably going with a subtle paint color - maybe Black, Silver, Gray, Copper, Brass tones. These will not be a John Deere Green/Yellow!

3) If I can find some cheap threaded shafts and nuts, then I would love to make them height adjustable. But I probably won't go to that much trouble.

4) Or I may extend the height of the short stool, if I like the tall one better. (I would just cut the existing pipe and sleeve it taller with another piece of pipe in the right diameter.)

Hail Repair

Most of the hail repair is done or in process. The new roof and gutters should be done this week. I had contractors install a new fence last week too:

I also took my F150 into the body shop this week. That didn't go as planned. Progressive estimated the damage at only $9k - a total low-ball amount. The body shop went up to about $20k, and decided it was likely totaled. Progressive needs to go inspect it, but I'm guessing it will be totaled. I'm not surprised.

So I've been looking around at trucks. Something with enough capacity to tow my car hauler/Jeep.

Probably a used 2021 or 2022 F150. But I've been in an F150 for almost the past 15 years. So possibly a Gladiator.

Any thoughts on the Gladiator? I found this truck with "Max Tow", which will (barely) tow what I need.

Game Camera

Back during the summer drought, I set up a water pan and small solar fountain in my backyard for the wildlife. Not long after the water pan, I bought a game camera to see what was going on back there.

It was a big hit with the birds, cats, squirrels, raccoons, possums, neighborhood cats, etc.

I spy two squirrels!

There were a lot of typical neighborhood birds, but also many less-common species that I didn't recognize. (not these two - I recognize them, of course)

It was crowded at times:

I've also, surprisingly, had a fox back there on several occasions.

Jeepster

No Jeepster content yet! But the fox was cool!