POTD- PROJECT OF THE DAY: What Did You Make In Your Shop Today?

Our other boy:

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He’s a pure though, Greater Swiss Mountain dog. 145 lbs.

But he’s also sort of a rescue.

He was born with a heart defect. long story short, the entire left side of his heart is a total s-show. You name it, he’s got it.

Cardiologist only gave him a year or less (was actually indicating weeks to months). The breeder was a bit stuck: he couldn’t be “fixed” because of his condition (can’t be anesthetized) and she had two breeding females (one was his mother).

Multiple people on the wait list passed him up because of his heart and the only people that wanted to take him wanted to run him or work him, which would have killed him in short order.

The wife and I have had dogs with heart defects before, so we knew what we were getting into. The breeder was happy to just give him to us (and waive her fee) to get him out of her care and into someone’s who would take care of him properly

He just turned 5 last month.

We’ve got him on beta blockers and limit his exercise so as not to over strain his heart. I also make sure he gets lots of touch and interaction each day. Not sure if that helps, but I can’t help but feel it does as I believe he always feels like he belongs and is “special”.

Not one vet can explain how he’s beating the odds and they all want to “monitor” him. Ultrasounds, mri, ekg, etc because his case is so unusual. Both the severity of his defect and the fact he’s lived so long with it.

But I’m not looking a gift horse in the mouth, nor am I subjecting him to the stress of those procedures. They can’t fix him so they really want to use him as a lab rat/learning tool.

I get the “greater good” argument, but I see no need to stress him that way and am more concerned with him just living what life he’s got left and enjoying our time together.

After all, he is “my boy”. Have to protect him.

:)


/hijack
Great story... Glad someone smart about it is giving him a good life.
 
what a handsome dog! 145lb though, that must = alot of inputs and outputs :)
Yup. He gets a meat diet (beef, pork, chicken, turkey, fish, eggs, pumpkin, etc) though so the “outs” are a little smaller than if you gave him that dry “stuff”. But we do throw a half handful of dry in with the meat so he gets a little bit of “crunch” with his food. Just trying to simulate a little bone and tendon.

145 lbs also means that when he hugs you, you know it! Feels great!
 
One of the shaft assemblies was broken where the oil wick resides... since this is not structural, decided to use JB-Weld to recreate it...

Before

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After

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Jack shaft assembly done... 12 speeds instead of 16 since the Delta 932 pulley has a broken step and the pulleys I bought from McMaster were not the right size. At least it is better than nothing...

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Anyone seen @f350ca ? He hasn't been on since June 30th.. I hope he's on vacation.

edit: scratch, that I just looked up his last post, he's heading to the Artic.. glad it's good news.
 
Today was one of those day when you get that call early in the morning that changes all your plans. So a friend call his niva lost the clutch. On a 4x4 that is bad news because the labor is enormous if you need to take the gearbox, transfer box, drive shaft just to change a throwout bearing or clutch disk. But thankfully its problem was caused by a previous mechanic. This Niva had its head gasket replaced recently and the mechanic couldn't be bothered to unbolt the charcoal canister so he just wiggled it till the bracket broke and set it aside. Few week of driving and it bounced on the the front driveshaft which slammed it in the clutch flex hose and broke the hose. Because is so low in the engine bay i decided to take it over my inspection pit, that meant driving it with no clutch in traffic. I had also a dead battery, so i changed it with the one in my niva and charged his when i come at my garage. I changed the hose, bleed the clutch and weld up the bracket for the charcoal canister, install everything and took it back to him.
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Not necessarily machine work, though I do have a jewelers lathe if needed. I do have a clock disease apparently. Not just any clock, but the 400 day clocks made in Germany in the last century. They have to be mechanical, not battery operated. I got these going and wound up in April, they have been running since then. Been trying to get the pendulum balls set since then to get them all to keep time, you can see they are all fairly close now.
My office looks like a ball clock junkyard with the others I have yet to fix. finding spare time to tear into them is hard. To tear one down and clean, lube and replace the torsion spring if needed takes several hours, but we don't dare time our projects, do we?
 

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Not necessarily machine work, though I do have a jewelers lathe if needed. I do have a clock disease apparently. Not just any clock, but the 400 day clocks made in Germany in the last century. They have to be mechanical, not battery operated. I got these going and wound up in April, they have been running since then. Been trying to get the pendulum balls set since then to get them all to keep time, you can see they are all fairly close now.
My office looks like a ball clock junkyard with the others I have yet to fix. finding spare time to tear into them is hard. To tear one down and clean, lube and replace the torsion spring if needed takes several hours, but we don't dare time our projects, do we?
I feel ya! We were given an old 400 day clock by my wife's niece at our wedding. Had the usual abuses a 400 day clock gets over time. I've just about got it rebuilt, I'm just having trouble timing the escapement correctly....
 
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