Whopsie!

 Hello everyone,

Had a minor catastrophe yesterday! Had just finished cutting and splitting the last of the wood already on the ground and had to come in and get cleaned up to run an errand in town. Had the splitter still hooked up to the old gator and pulled in the shop and crunch!! She stopped dead, motor still running but stopped dead! I thought what the hell...... looked down and the front tire leaned all over to the left and got off and the right side bottom of the fork is laying on the ground.

Appears that it’s an old repair from some time ago and not done very well. I’m not exactly as good a welder as “Shop Teacher Bob” is but I thought I could do a better repair than the one that was on it currently.

So, I took it all apart, ground all the old stuff off, found a piece of round stock that I could fit in the tube got it as square as I could and tacked it back together.

Welded it up, not great but good practice with the new welder. Needs a couple of spots filled in yet and started fitting in some gussets to hopefully protect it for future generations to come! LOL!

Didn’t get the last gusset finished last night and kind of took today off for a bunch of errand running. We’re supposed to go for a ride south tomorrow, so I won’t finish up until Friday. As I was disassembling the front end I noticed a lot of worn parts that will need to be repaired or replaced when I try to do the motor swap. Probably next winter. I have some big plans for the old gator if time and money work out.

Well, I think that’s it for now.

Talk to you soon, 

TVI