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The Ruskin House: Driveway |
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. . . forge ahead . . . |
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One of the first things the owner said was “ . . . we don’t want to have to walk up steps to get into the house & we don’t want an elevator . . .” The house is in a High Velocity Hurricane Zone & with a base flood elevation about 9’ above grade—this presented an interesting challenge.
Here is the solution: |
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14 Nov 06 . . . Ok so here was a typical (maybe a little bit A-typical . . .) but the International is here, huffing it out with the new chevy 350 , the NV 4500 5 speed tranny, the parking brake hub that I had to design & turn out of a 7” diameter solid steel bar & have welded into the driveshaft . . . It’s going pretty well, the clutch I finally got to work after changing it over from the original, mechanical linkage to a hydraulic system from a ‘95 GMC 3500 which is where the transmission came from . . . I had to put a new clutch fork & pivot ball in it & it finally works well so far . . . The one thing left (so far) was a strange noise . . . Very minimal, like a whirr, rarely happened . . . I thought it maybe had something to do with the clutch, but it didn’t seem to stop or change with a depression of the clutch . . . So, I hauled one monster load of concrete—right up there at about 20,000# last Thursday, no problems, the new found torque in the engine I built for it & stuffed in there was very nice, even with my low gears in-operable—the rear end gear changer for the 2 speed rear end is a 6-volt part & I switched everything else over to the 12V system of the Chevy 350 . . . Where was I, even without the low gear I was able to pull the 24,000# load back to the site with no problems. The only thing was that the temporary pvc radiator hose splices warped from the heat & blew off after I shut the engine off with the full load of pavers pushed up into the driveway. I just replaced the pvc links with galvanized steel pipes/tubes & so far that is working well. So, today, Tuesday the 14th I went to get another load of pavers with Sam Cooley |
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So here it is, 16 Nov 06, the International held out for me so far . . . Another roughly 19,000# load of pavers—toted them back from the yard & pushed the whole thing up that driveway without much groaning . . . That two speed, low speed ratio rear-end really works! |
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from up the street, & I get to US41 & there goes that whirr sound again, not knowing what it was I press the clutch, it doesn’t change, so I put it into gear & pull off the side of the road & shut it off . . . Then the radiator is blowing up! So on inspection what I found was that the flex fan I put in, only had like a 1/4” clearance between it and the frame cross member that I had to shave one side of to clear the fan . . . The fan had been hitting the cross-member (the whirring sound) then hit it hard, bent the fan blades, ripped one end of one of them off & threw it into the radiator putting a small hole in one of the cores—great!, so Juan, the stucco guy gave me a tow back to the site with a chain I had in the tool boxes, had to leave the 24’ flatbed trailer on the side of the road, called Elaine who had to come down in the little GMC 1/2 ton with the 2 kids, got the trailer back to the site with the GMC & had to get my brother Dave to come down to take Elaine & the kids home, on top of that Dave had to bring his Hum-V because his wife had to take the car to work . . . Well, the kids really liked riding in the Hum-V & I got the see them all a little, so I suppose that’s the good side of it. I was able to get the radiator to a shop in Gibsonton (about 25 min. north) & they’ll have it ready sometime in the AM while I was able to get a new flex fan & a shorter fan spacer to pull it another 1/2” away from the cross-member—the spacer will be at the parts store in the AM also. So, all being well, I should be back to hauling another load of pavers in the AM . . . Let me think of it a different way maybe, the goal here is to transport concrete pavers from somewhere—a bout 5 miles away—to the site for the driveway. My trailer weighs 5000# empty, safely, I can put very little pavers on the trailer & pull it with a 1/2ton pick up. So, to pull the trailer with pavers for just about 2 bays of the driveway, it stacks up about 3 1/2 layers of nearly 4” thick concrete chunks, the trailer is 8’wide x 24’ long, with stepping the layers in from the sides & in from the ront & rear, & assuming considerable voids between the pavers, that adds up to nearly 20,000# of concrete—now, to buy a vehicle that can safely tow this I am looking at between $27,000—$45,000 for the stripped chassis truck . . . I think I’m doing the right thing here—just want to know that I’m heading in the right direction.—Give it another go tomorrow . . . Tomorrow is a new day.
Anyways, after that radiator ordeal with the truck, it’s back up & running by 8:30am the next morning & ready to get more pavers. The stucco crew . . . Juan Narvaez & crew, pictured here . . . Did a great job w/ the marbled blue/grey color, mixed on the job. |
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Juan Narvaez, second from left, & crew: site mixed Integral color, driveway stucco, Nov. 06. |
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There were, as there always are, minor changes to the driveway layout like the access to the rear of the property. In the model above there is another ramp off the NW side of the circular drive, but during design development it was figured out that it would not work this way because of slopes & heights & the rear access was moved to the south edge of the round drive so the ramp height would be more manageable. Compositionally It worked out much better too. |