Tuesday February 12, 2008
534 HOURS
Today I finished up two projects on Dilbert. The first was to build a shed around him. The framework was salvaged from the steel tubing salvaged from one of those canvas covered car ports that got blown down in the wind. I cut down the damaged tubing and replaced the canvas with plywood. One side I bolted to the shipping container on the side and the other side I used the existing “feet” from the carport. I set the feet on top of some re-bar to keep them in place and then put down some of those mobile home screw anchors to hold it down. All I could salvage was enough materials to make a 7x8 foot shed, but that is plenty roomy and gives me room to work around Dilbert.
I left some space at the bottom and the top of one wall for air circulation to keep it from getting too hot in there. Mainly it is just to keep the rain off. Where it is located between the two containers, there is plenty of shelter from wind so any rain comes straight down. I still have to paper and shingle the roof yet, but I got a coat of asphalt based sealer on the roof. It rained last night and when I checked in the middle of it, none was coming in so the roof is tight
My other project was to move the 10 gallon fuel tank into the shed and to change all the filters including the main and secondary fuel filters and the air filter. Everything went fine till I started him up and he wouldn't run worth a crap. After some head scratching and bleeding the fuel lines again and finding no air, I realized I had not opened the fuel valve on the fuel tank. It had sucked fuel out of the lines and fuel filters so when I opened the fuel valve the fuel shot through the clear plastic fuel line like a bullet. After that he ran excellent as usual.