Isuzu NPR box truck NOW AN NRR/W5!

[normzone]

Please keep up on this tale, and never stop posting. Those of us who only commute in the big city live vicariously through you 

[Tom]

Yeah , but don't you "Islanders" get really cheap fish ? 

 Dusty

Uh...NO!  Misconception.  Everything cost more out here.  So what we do get is maybe a better quality or more of it.  The prices aren't better.  Any commodity is priced for profit.  Most times if bought on distribution chain, a product will cost less if sold out of state.

Maui Gold Pineapples sold through Costco and other warehouse chains are less than whats available in Hawaii.  I purchased said pineapple in Moscow, ID for $1 less a lb. and larger by about 1lb.

Fresh fish availability is better and so is the local grass fed beef.  Fuel cost more than other states.  Equipment cost more than other states.  Wages are to the U.S. minimum standards with a local interpretation.  Fishermen unless they own their own boats and are don't have employees are "feast or famine" providers.  Very few of those.  Same situation as farmers in OK.

[rodekyll]

Fish is mostly free to me.  If I can, I chase them down myself.  I get big kings (salmon) off the beach with trout gear, because it's fun and literally no-cost.  When I don't do it by myself, I'm driving the boat for the 'crew'.  I'm too busted up to fight fish from a boat anymore, but I can keep them in the bite and they'll catch it for me.  When I don't do it at all, I have a lot of ex-customers (I'm retired -- remember?) who pay a bill with fish or drop some off just 'because'. 

Deer and berries are the same way.  That's the part about losing everything up here that hurts the most.

[Tom]

Totally understand.  I don't fish or hunt.  Lousy at that.  The time involved and coming up empty handed wasn't worth.  I accepted the fact that I "sucked" as a procurer.    BUT as a processor of information, I get fish provided by the procurers.  So it works out.    Kind of a barter.  Most of the time,  I pay but I know the supply line.  I buy from the fishermen pulling their boats out of the water.  They need gas money and will sell whole fish below wholesale/market prices.

[rodekyll]

OK -- so I went to the "Junk Trunk" and found a $10 DC motor with brushes I could carve a little for fit.  Hydraulics work good now.  Control lever not so good.  Needs springs reattached somewhere, but not sure how.

Did a test run with a wheelbarrow full of old iron stuff.  Lifted fine, but the angle of the platform went way down to the rear and the wheelbarrow tipped over and off.  I don't think it's supposed to work that way.  So I examined the linkage and found all the hinge pins to be either badly notched (over halfway through 1" steel dowel -- look like the interlock of Lincoln logs) or they've already been replaced with iron plumbing pipe (WTF???).  I've made and installed 4 of the 6 necessary pins so far and the platform is approaching level.  I'm home to safety-wire-drill and chamfer the two remaining pins, and then I think I'm ready for business.

Cost of the repairs so far $18.  $10 for brushes and 8 for 30" of 1" cold rolled steel dowel.  I might be able to afford fuel if this keeps up.

My bumper sticker will be:  YES, IT'S MY TRUCK, YES I'LL HELP YOU MOVE.  I'LL DRIVE.

[delrod]

Since prices of goods were are being compared, you paid 8 dollars for 1"steel round stock. My price locally for 5/8 was quoted at 11 dollars for 36  inches.

[rodekyll]

It needed to be descaled before I could use it, so I think I got a break.

The lowest two pins, the ones that pivot the part the hydraulic post pushes, are so tweaked that the pins cannot be driven out.  I'm going to have to cut them.  The problem is that I can't tell when the pins are unloaded, and I'm worried about where the apparatus will go when the pins are cut.  I have visions of split rims (do they still have those?) dancing through my head . . .