There will be at least a full day of loading, unloading, checking parts against lists, restocking trucks, and other tasks that all have to happen before we can roll. And if a job lasts more than a week, this work before even heading back to the job will typically happen every week.
Case in point-this past Monday, we headed north and east to a location at the base of Arizona Snow Bowl, were we are right now. I’ll get into the job itself a bit later.
This install is for a very small and simple system. Yet the preparation required is substantial. Over the course of four days, we began loading the two trucks and trailers, and a full 8 hours of labor was required Sunday to wrap it all up. The parts had all been ordered months ago and were mostly in our shop ready to load.
Thursday after a full day in the office, I went down to our shop area and unloaded the skiddy and scissor lift off of our equipment trailer, and then loaded the excavator, auger drive, auger bits, three buckets and rock hammer onto two trailers.
I worked on that till it was dark out and called it a day.
Friday I would spend several hours chaining all of the equipment and attachments down, and preparing the trailers for travel.
Saturday, I would spend a couple hours doing some modifications to one of our auger drive adapters to make them work with the ground screws we use because the manufacturer decided to change how they build some of the screws and it was causing issues.
Here is a threaded coupling from some oil field pipe that I originally tried to machine into an adapter spacer.
I knew I was pushing my luck machining the pipe that was still in the coupler to such a large O.D., but I did it anyway. And I was almost done when the boring bar snagged the pipe thread and then somehow wrapped it around itself. This required a cut off wheel to free the tool, and junked the part as well. Oops. 🙄
So I ended up welding up the adapter instead and machining the shoulder making it permanent instead of a sleeve.
Here it is test fitted into one of the screws.
Here’s a couple of the screws. They are 5 feet long.
While I was playing wanna be machinist, Denise had enlisted Amy’s help and they carefully went over a detailed 5 page parts list to make sure that every electrical part needed for the job was accounted for and loaded in the back of the Freightshaker. Thanks girls!!❤️❤️
Sunday morning was the real rodeo to get ready, and Denise and I both spent the first half of the day double checking everything, loading up last minute stuff, and packing. Denise rounded up all the food and clothing we would need, while I connected both trucks to their trailers and got them all lined out and ready to roll.
I wish pictures did justice to just how much crap is packed into these trucks and on the trailers. Oh-that trailer that’s two-thirds empty? Yeah, there’s a reason why. You’ll see. 🙄
We show up loaded to the gills with tools, equipment and parts.