When it rains it pours

Well the other night the Barngoddess1 and I decided to put hay out for the little horses and little cows.

So hook up the bale spear to the loader of our favorite little deere and away we go.
BUT WAIT....
I fear the loader is not on the tractor straight, and where is that diesel fuel coming from.......
Oh no, oh yes problems.......

So we quickly put out the hay bales and back to the barn.

So Friday after work, we decide to take the loader off the tractor and figure out what is going on. The daughter and my noble assistant and I remove the loader from the deere, really easy actually, and the load sits out there by itself all alone now.



Then the deere to the Lee's Ford Garage and after spreading a bag of cat litter on the floor to soak up all the diesel fuel that poured out, we got down to figuring out what is leaking.

NO problem, we find that the fuel leak is just a overflow line popped off the tank.

But in the process I found that the front support, a major part of the frame is cracked completely through on the right side.
This is the cause of the loader not being level.
So off comes the gas tank, off comes the radiator, off comes the hydraulic tank,
and then




It's a phone call to the Bus
"Hey whatcha doing?" Sound familiar? all Lee boys are the same
"Nothing, what's up"
"Can I borrow your power washer?" Now the farm's power washer is still missing parts that I haven't quite got around to ordering. We have a lot of 'ROUND 2 ITS' here.
"Meet at Republic?"
"Fine, see ya"

To the kitchen sink and remove about twenty pounds of grease and grime and it's off to meet the Bus.

Back home, power washing helps and soon it is so dark I can't tell grease and grime from clean and neat, so quit for the night.

This morning was spent removing the power steering pump, pulling the front end off, and presto we have the cracked part ready for the power washer.
Bus the part is to the left (front of tractor) in this picture.



So now the Deere is sitting in the Lee's Ford Garage....... Jeep it's ok, it is a tractor not a car.....
minus the front axle and steering assembly, the cracked part is in the back of the dually to go to the welders tomorrow to see if they can fix.... if not.........
so here's a pic of the crack



backup plans hurt for this one part.....
John Deere has one new old stock left in the great USA, it's in Wisconsin somewhere and it is relatively cheap at $3,500.00. Yes 3500 dollars.

Cooks tractor in Clinton MO has been contacted to see if they have the part..
Ebay has been searched
Craigslist has been searched

We learn more tomorrow.

But wait it gets better.........

My little mule, F250 super duty, driver's window goes down today and refuses to go back up....
After disassembling the door, unable to tell if switch bad, or motor bad, try to put connectors for passenger window to driver's window and fried the circuit board...
So now, after moving everything in the Lee's Ford Garage back to the side with the Deere, the Little Mule is parked inside with the driver's window still down........



When it rains it pours.........

But at least we know how to fix things that are broke.......

"JEEP WHERE ARE YOU???????????????????"

Oh well, celebrate life.