report from Colemans today w maddawg

Met up with Mike today at Colemans. The scrapper has been busy since my last visit over 6 months ago. Lots of stuff getting cut up and alot of stuff is gone. Had the mule out there running for 2 hours before Mike came. About 500 feet into Mikes first ride it quit and would not start. David warned me that the points he cleaned up in the NOS magneto at Aberdeen would need attention and he is in the process of rebuilding my old magneto to send it back to me and I was to send the NOS one back to him so he can properly burnish the points. my orebuild one is still in transit so I guess I will need to wait a few more days till David gets caught up on his orders. Good thing I brought a come along cause we used it to put the sick pup back into the truck for the ride home. Nothing worse than trying to push one of those beasts up a set of ramps by hand! Great to see you again Mike we will meet up again at Gilbert in September and don't forget to post the pictures.

Ah yes! The joys of towing a "cranky" mule. When we were doing amphibious assaults in Vietnam as part of the Special Landing Force it was understood that mules did not do well in the surf. So anytime one was on a landing craft it was hooked to another vehicle and towed to the beach. We drug a few that way with the Ontos, I don't think the shore party people (that owned these particular mules) really enjoyed the ride through the surf.

Woah! Stop! glug, blurp .. Let me off ... gurgle ...

Great seeing you up there nickd! Sorry my fat a$$ broke the mules back....

Got a few pics. Man, since I was there with Pinky in February, a lot of scrapping has been done. With steel going to $290 a ton, I can't blame a lot of these dealers for selling the steel instead of keeping it all together. As a result, the good stuff is getting put in trailers, the rusted up junk is getting melted down, and the rest is bulldozed flat. There's a lot of good stuff there still, just have to look in the nooks and crannies, in the weeds, and tucked away out of sight.

Items I saw that need saving by Steel Soldiers: M170 flatbed trailers, Pioneer tool trailers, M101 and M105 trailers, some gullwing bed boxes of unknown type, and lots of odds and ends.

Sorry to all those I looked for parts for - I asked Tom, the vehicle and genset guy there. All he had in stock that someone here wanted were radiators for the deuce, but they were holey and needed recores.

Here's the pics I took - sorry theres not many. Not much to take pics of anymore.

Here's what I managed to save in the little time I had. Hope you enjoy - some of this I will be selling on eGay or here on SS to interested folks. There is more there, so get what you can, or let me know what you want and I'll pick it up.

The photo taken at Roman's Surplus of the "big green construction looking thing" - 000_1869.JPG is a proof roller. You fill it up with rock for weight, pull it behind a dozer slowly, and look to see if the ground shifts any (pumps) under the wheels. If so, then the soil or aggregate (depending on which layer of the you are testing) needs some more work (compaction, undercut and use an extra layer of compacted stone, etc...) before you add the next layer of material.

I've got pictures of them in use somewhere...

Back to Colemans: Spot any decent kitchen trailers, or are they all gone?

There are a couple MKT kitchen trailers there, he wants $1000 a piece for them, no titles. It's a fair price, since the ones he has are nice condition and are worth that in aluminum scrap, really.