Still that sounds steep. At least it might have been done right. Those pumps are pretty easy to fix. They get junk stuck in the valves now and then, so you need to know how to take out the valves. There are 6 of them. The pistons don’t actually slide in cylinders, they just intrude into a volume of space and displace water. So crud can go through them without harm. Most of the pump issues are leaks around the rods (you can tighten the packing gland or add packing), valve junk, and freezing and breaking. The last one pretty much ruins the whole works.
They do suffer from cracked frames. I have strengthened my frame a bunch while fixing the cracks. Sad to see my Vermeer is on the auction block at RB right across the street from me. Full box of almost new rod. I have 4 other ditch witch drills so I am selling this one. We all like the Vermeer more than the DW as far as the two controls vs one. From: Steve Jones Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2022 4:17 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: Re: [AFMUG] Ot: my adventure 21 year old drill, old parts, some frame cracks, water pump issues, etc. Labor wasnt that bad. I figure future repairs will be me, but to get this thing out the door and making money, I had vermeer do everything. On Sat, May 21, 2022, 4:45 PM Chuck McCown via AF <af@af.afmug.com> wrote: What cost the $12K? I do all the work on my drills, and I became quite an expert on the Vermeer we had. I quit using strike finders. They break down all the freaking time. I just have a ground stake that I sometime use. Should use it all the time but if you get out around a bunch of drillers, they frequently don’t ground either. That drill rod is a pretty good ground. But if you hit primary all bets are off. If you hit secondary you will probably not get fried. With or without strike finders and ground stakes. From: Steve Jones Sent: Saturday, May 21, 2022 3:22 PM To: AnimalFarm Microwave Users Group Subject: [AFMUG] Ot: my adventure So for the last three months I've been creating my company, getting all that stuff in order, spending a shit ton of money (for me). But the last pieces are falling in place on monday. I pick my drill back up from vermeer (12,300 dollar repair quote, but they managed to fix my strike alert and saved me 3000 bucks). Probably not a good business decision to put that much into an old drill when the drill is worth less than the repair, but it gets me in a drill. I have a contract that's local for around 2 years work, fairly low rate per foot compared to what's out there, but its local and all I can eat when I want to eat it, so I can keep my fulltime job while I transition. I figure spend this year and maybe next building experience with my son, then chase the bigger dough. The underground industry seems a whole lot like the wisp industry, where theres a whole bunch of strangers willing to help strangers succeed with good advice. Theres some assholes, but same here. Once I get operational and have the toolset refined with some experience I'll be heavily pimping to the wisp degenerates turning fisp, I think theres a good number that a guy can operate at to be affordable to small outfits and still get a little money in the wallet. My kid operated a mini ex for the first time, the video games actually paid off, he got the feather concept of the controls down, so he may leave me to go do that after some experience, dont blame him a bit if he does, equipment operators get the best cushions in the seats and the best paychecks. Just need to hand over the workmans comp certificate when I have the drill back in hand and I start making the millions. God is good, even if I'm not. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- -- AF mailing list AF@af.afmug.com http://af.afmug.com/mailman/listinfo/af_af.afmug.com
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