Colorado 2015 – Page 3 – Not Your Average Engineer

September 19, 2015September 20, 2015

Edgar Experimental Mine 150th Birthday

Edgar Experimental Mine celebrated its 150th birthday this weekend. Several burros were on hand along with some old grizzled miners for the momentous occasion.

Waiting in line for the mine tour. I think the mine didn’t expect so many people to come out. They had a shortage of hardhats!

Getting ready to enter the mine!

Looking down the tunnel.

An old part of the mine held up with wooden timbers.

In the underground machine shop.

Checking out the various generations of drill rigs.

A rail-based drill rig.

The underground classroom complete with wifi but only right-handed desks.

Scale wooden models.

Old compressed air engine.

The little diesel locomotive.

Blasting pattern.

Just like in the cartoons!

Edgar the burro! Blaster the burro was down on campus for the football game.

September 13, 2015September 14, 2015

Swapping an 80 Series Land Cruiser front axle in a driveway

On Friday I heard that there might be a high pinion differential coming available from a guy in the Rising Sun 4×4 Club. I sent Dave K. a message and soon I was on my way to Grand Junction, CO in my buddy Matt’s truck as he headed west to Boise. I rolled into Grand Junction at about 2am and crashed in a rooftop tent that Dave had setup on his truck for me. The next morning I got out of the tent and found an 80 Series Land Cruiser with a broken axle from the previous weekend’s fun in Ouray that needed to be swapped for a freshly built axle that Dave happened to have on hand.

We spent most of the morning disassembling and removing the broken axle from his 80 series in the driveway of one of his friends. Dave lives out in Evergreen near me.

The newly rebuilt axle waiting to go into the truck. Complete with E-locker!

The old broken axle waiting to go into the pickup truck for the ride home to Denver.

It took us a day and a half but we finally got the new axle in and, after battling with an unruly E-locker, we hit the road back to Denver. In a few months once Dave finishes a few more axle swaps between vehicles, I will have a shiny new-to-me high pinion differential for the planned solid axle suspension swap that I have planned for my 4runner this winter.

September 7, 2015September 9, 2015

Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument

We stopped at the Florissant Fossil Beds National Monument on the way home from seeing the Great Sand Dunes. In addition to many insect and other plant fossils, the monument also has redwood stumps.