Ghetto Barb Wire Unroller

[NorthMan]

Building the house has taken a bit of a back seat to our immediate dreams of having a homestead/farm/ranch.

Part of that has been refencing the 25 acre pasture for our sheep and guard donkey. This spring I'll be hunting for deals on cattle.

I Had 4,000 feet of barbed wire which needed to be completely redone due to what I'd guess is about 30-40 years of neglect. Each spool of wire runs 1360 feet, and weighs about 70 pounds of "touch me and I'll rip you and your clothes to shreds!"

After 5 minutes of humping that roll down the line I came to the conclusion that there was a better way to do this . . . some brief querying showed numerous $$$$ contraptions for ATVs, trucks and tractors . . .I went out the shop and made my own ghetto version . . . for free. If I had more $ and had miles to do I'd invest in a decent unroller but this worked fine for the immediate future.

3026

Don't laugh it works! Went through 2 1/2 spools that way! And it was considerably easier than hauling it by hand . . The 2N gets the job done! What a wonderful machine, built in the 40's, and 70 some years old it starts up right away in the MN cold and will pull a 50 yard row of old 4 strand barbed wire, posts and all, right out of the cold ground!

[rockinlog]

Hey whatever works and free is always good!

[rocklock]

I woulf expect nothing less... keep it up... and get fruit trees and berry bushes in...

[loghousenut]

I thought that was the only way to do it.

Fine looking Ford!

[allen84]

I agree, nice looking ford. Don't do what I did... So apparently the front axle WILL pivot enough to bump the distributor hard enough to knock it out of time :mad: I was tootin right along and the right front tire went up on a small mound, motor sputtered, died and won't even try to hit when you turn it over. The axle made pretty good contact with and is still touching the cap and one plug wire. I guess best case scenario, it only boogered up the plug wire but I think it would at least try to fire if that was the case.

[NorthMan]

I agree, nice looking ford. Don't do what I did... So apparently the front axle WILL pivot enough to bump the distributor hard enough to knock it out of time :mad: I was tootin right along and the right front tire went up on a small mound, motor sputtered, died and won't even try to hit when you turn it over. The axle made pretty good contact with and is still touching the cap and one plug wire. I guess best case scenario, it only boogered up the plug wire but I think it would at least try to fire if that was the case.

Having done a head/valve job on a 9N I feel your pain, timing these things is simple but painful. Drain gas, take hood off, drain radiator, take radiator out, figure out where #1 is at top, make sure you don't 180 out the distributor tang. My Dad used to time them still on the tractor with one guy manually turning the crank via the belt. I take 'em off and put it under a bright light on a workbench ;) Easy to turn that lobe over with nothing hooked up to the back of it.

[allen84]

I think mine is an 8n. I don't have any buildings on the property yet and I'm too lazy to take apart any more than needed anyways haha... First, I think I'll drag it a few feet back to flat land, check the plug wire in question, turn distributor back a little at a time and give it a go. It started easy and ran great before the mishap. I haven't really looked hard at it. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to tell where it was set visually.

[loghousenut]

It is awful easy to bump that front mounted distributor enough to jar the cap . Take the rascal out and time it on the bench and slap it back in there. It'll run.

[NorthMan]

I think mine is an 8n. I don't have any buildings on the property yet and I'm too lazy to take apart any more than needed anyways haha... First, I think I'll drag it a few feet back to flat land, check the plug wire in question, turn distributor back a little at a time and give it a go. It started easy and ran great before the mishap. I haven't really looked hard at it. If I'm lucky, maybe I'll be able to tell where it was set visually.

The 9n and 2n were front mounted, the 8ns IIRC were side mounted . . . a smart move

[loghousenut]

The 9n and 2n were front mounted, the 8ns IIRC were side mounted . . . a smart move

Don't I wish that was carved in stone! They didn't go to the side mount distributor til a couple years after the War. My 8N Has the front mount. We think it is a 1947 model.


It is a pain to work on but after the 5th time it gets doable. I can't imagine how Grandad did it without modern tools. Air ratchet makes it sooooo much easier.

[allen84]

Ya, mine is front mount also... I took a quick look at it when I was out there today. Pretty sure I can tell right where I need to turn it back to. Fingers crossed cause Ford is kicking my butt today. The explorer fouled another coil pack on my way home. Thankfully, it runs decent on 7 cylinders. This is the 3rd or 4th time it's fouled the same coil (#8 cylinder). It has a slight head gasket leak but only seeps a little coolant out at the #8 plug, enough to ruin a coil pack about every 6 months.

[loghousenut]

Y Fingers crossed cause Ford is kicking my butt today. The explorer fouled another coil pack on my way home. Thankfully, it runs decent on 7 cylinders. This is the 3rd or 4th time it's fouled the same coil (#8 cylinder). It has a slight head gasket leak but only seeps a little coolant out at the #8 plug, enough to ruin a coil pack about every 6 months.

I can hear my Dad's words coming up outa the grave. He is screaming at the top of his lungs "Tell him he only has to fix it once and it'll stay fixed!".

[allen84]

I know, I know... I already told my wife that I refuse to do another driveway head gasket job. It's too big of an undertaking with no roof overhead and no concrete below. The last one I did, I spent over an hour looking for a bolt I dropped in the grass. My friend came over and found it in 5 seconds (If anyone could find a needle in a haystack, Squirrel, YES, Squirrel is the man!)

Bout time to trade it in anyways. Lots of other quirky things it's starting to do every once in a while and I don't care to learn what they are... One of the things sounds almost like a cat meow under the dash board. Rarely happens but becoming more frequent. Must not be a cat or it'd be starved by now, been in there a while.

[NorthMan]

I know, I know... I already told my wife that I refuse to do another driveway head gasket job. It's too big of an undertaking with no roof overhead and no concrete below. The last one I did, I spent over an hour looking for a bolt I dropped in the grass. My friend came over and found it in 5 seconds (If anyone could find a needle in a haystack, Squirrel, YES, Squirrel is the man!)

Bout time to trade it in anyways. Lots of other quirky things it's starting to do every once in a while and I don't care to learn what they are... One of the things sounds almost like a cat meow under the dash board. Rarely happens but becoming more frequent. Must not be a cat or it'd be starved by now, been in there a while.

Oh come on! Gravel garage head gasket jobs are the BEST! :p

Lots of plywood and/or those horse stall mats help with that kinda stuff . . .oh and zip lock bags and permanent markers . . . .label EVERYTHING, lots of photos and a video camera

[allen84]

labels, pictures, video? Really? Who needs all that with a photographic memory? Ha, I'll never forget the first "FULL"-refurb we did on a crane at the shop where I used to work. We were supposed to rebuild/replace EVERYTHING. So I started by removing every hydraulic hose on the machine (those did get color coded, all 88 of them I believe). The boss looked really concerned when he saw my big pile of parts and hoses haha

[loghousenut]

Once had a Corvair van that spent two days under floodwater near Crescent City, CA. Rented a house with a carport and tore down every nut, bolt, line, and screw. I tried to keep parts from different areas together in different piles. Couldn't break into the speedometer so it always showed mudmarks that indicated the angle of lean as the water retreated. Surprisingly, that speedo remained accurate til I sold the thing 4 years later.

Only real problem I had was thinking I could save the front upholstery by letting it slowly dry on the seat frame. Apparently some long dead squirrel had stored some long dead dog chow in the seat back and I didn't know about it til the sun warmed up all them maggots. That happened the day after I had bolted the seat back into the van. There was flybabies everywhere.

Anyway that was before modern photography and video. Plastic bags were around but it was a simple rig that was easy to figure out. Lucky for me, it was built before Detroit tried that metric experiment. I think those maggots were the only metric parts on that old Corvair and I was able to finally get rid of them altogether.

[rreidnauer]

How many of those nuts and bolts did you take off of the front end before you figured out the motor wasn't there? ;-)

[loghousenut]

How many of those nuts and bolts did you take off of the front end before you figured out the motor wasn't there? ;-)
More truth to that than you know. There was 3"-5" of silt throughout the van. Lifted the engine hatch and saw the outline of the fan belt and a hint of the outline of the air cleaners. Otherwise was filled flat with solid mud.

Of course I couldn't lift the engine hatch til I had shoveled down to it.