so there will be some random in here. I'm working pretty hard getting stuff ready to go, so part of tonight was fixing my trailer winch - after all, not all of my cars can drive onto a trailer....
so last summer when the uninsured person hit me, it broke the ring gear on my winch. The bright side in this is my trailer winch needed a controller - since I use mostly smittybilt winches - interchange is possible
even reused the synthetic winch cable as a cable extension
then onto struggling through with the a/c system. Of course, it doesn't hold vacuum the first time.
not to mention that this system had never been converted to 134a - so I had to find adapters
and their wrong, so Chuck to the rescue with the right fittings
waiting on new clamps - two problems with the vacuum issue - first, I didn't have the right, thick washer for the connection to the pump (and had the same exact issue with the 90 truck), also why the used a 5/8 ring clamp on a 5/16 hose is a question for the ages... so waiting on new clamps.
so I went back to continue tig welding the corners
got both 'ends' done before my welder said 'enough' for tonight.... for those who don't know. duty cycle on a welder tells you how long a welder can weld at various heat ranges in 10 minute intervals. Thus a 40% duty cycle means you can weld 4 minutes of every 10.
eventually you get heat saturation - in this case after the 3rd 4 minute cycle
and that's where I stopped tonight. I could go out and weld more - but I want the skid plate to fully cool before I pour more heat into it. It shouldn't warp but when you have time, take it and save yourself the headache
and for those playing along with "what welder is Aaron using" .... a Miller 220. I want a 255 but 6k isn't something I'm willing to invest right now.... and even if I could, I'd probably have 2 machines instead of just one (or even 3, a big mig, a squarewave tig, and my 220). This machine really is perfect for the heavy use hobbyist but I could use a bit more heat but the problem with that is I should have more dedicated machines - for heavy and for light duty work. My old Tig machine would have laughed at what I was doing today - but that's 1000# of copper and a cooled torch (which, incidentally I still have)
