Blowing Out Irrigation

Up here in Canada we blow out the irrigation lines with air in the fall to prevent lines from breaking during the freezing weather . I have lots of Irrigation knowledge and was asked by the assistant to give him a hand today. At this course we rent a couple of smaller compressors and hook them in locations at the top of the course to push the water out down the hills  . While we are waiting for delivery of the compressor we will go around key areas top & bottom of hills and pull foot valves out of sprinkler , this way gravity will take care of a lot of areas and speeds things up . Will also open the blow out valves . Our pumping station is near the top of the course . It takes a full day to blow out all the holes but we rent them for 2 days to give the greens and tee's and low areas an extra boost of air . Before we start up we shut off blow out valves and replace sprinkler foot valves . When we are all done the blow outs are left halve open same as the section valves . That way when the ground heats up in the spring it won't build up pressure and break things .

I was asked on Wednesday to help out at my old course to blow their irrigation . I'm a good choice since I spent a lot of time there running almost all the approach sprinklers and was pretty much in charge of irrigation and drainage there in the past . I did do up a nice flow manager program also . The Old super and his youngest son (Ben ) and I managed to get the remainder of the course blown out in a day . Went along very smoothly . We sent Ben  ahead of us and put in the blow out coupler we have at the greens,and opening section valves ,  then it was just a matter of hitting each head down the line getting tee's and greens as we went .  I was quit surprised on how well my old Super ( Brian ) knew his course irrigation wise . There are well over 500 heads and I bet you he knew where 98 % of them where . It was great to be in my old stomping grounds for the day .

TX Gator Bent Frame

 Left side bent in at least 2 inches .

 Also bent front frame and bumper in.

 Left front area also bent in .

Had to remove a lot of parts to straighten out . With a combination of heat , pry bars , hammers , bottle jacks I was able to get it back to < .5 inch .between dash and passenger seat . Notice the kink behind the passenger seat . What ever really happened it hit a tree really hard .
 As a new tech do not be surprised at damaged equipment being put away like this with no mention . It use to bother me a lot but now look at it as job security . I do a walk around equipment in the mornings and point out anything like this to the superintendent . It's up to the super to deal with staff, It is our job to get equipment repaired and put back out in service .
  This was a fairly new machine < 200 hrs. Apparently the new staff member panicked after sliding and loosing steering and hit the gas instead of the brake .

Club Car Towing System Repair

 We have had a few of the carts come in off the course like this . I think at our course it is from towing 3 carts to fast down the hill .

 The carts rock back and forth pretty hard if not towed properly and the mount on the spindle breaks off .

 Mounting bracket breaks of cleanly right on the weld .

No need to order a new one , with some basic welding skills you can repair it easily in the shop . They may not be pretty welds but they don't let go again after they have been re-welded .

Accident on course

This happened last season (2010 ) A member was going down a hill on a cart path coming of a tee and caught a large rock hidden under some Plants . The older gentleman suffered some serious injuries and made out ok . It was in an area of the course where the ambulance couldn't get to . I cleaned out the large dump trailer and hooked it up to the tractor and hauled the paramedic's  to the site .Then brought the gentlemen and paramedics back to the ambulance . It was a pretty exciting day seeing a couple of police cars racing up the fairways . Cart made out ok after the roll over . The acid damage is permanent but the cart works ok after topping the batteries up with acid and doing some repairs to the front end .

Relief grinding My PGM on foley system

I like to relief grind all my reels in the off season, because I can . In the summer season I can give them a light spin as needed . With the relief grind it really helps speed things up to get my cut back quickly . We set up for spin grind first then set them up again for relief grinding after wards . This is the time to double or triple check your adjustments before spin grinding . The more accurate you are the quicker the set up . If I get some down time I'll do a more detail pic's etc . for setting reels up on grinder . Here is what relief grinding looks and sounds like .

MDX - Throttle cable block

I riveted some tabs for the cover piece to go on exposed throttle cable .

 Had some scraps from the box build on the truck .

Have you ever seen an MDX going unusually fast . This is because the staff are  pushing on the throttle cable with their foot .

Cushman Rear wheel cylinders

 Cushman  rear brakes . Remove the cotter pin and nut.

 The hub will sometimes come off easy .

 Pick with Wheel cylinder removed . If you have bolts for the new ones and the the ones on the machine are rusted badly just chisel them off .

 And here is a pick if it doesn't come off easy . I leave the nut loosely on the end of the axle just in case it's really stubborn  and I have to give the end of the puller a good smack with a heavy hammer . Leaving the nut on will help keep the axle shaft from spreading open.

 I got a new toy for bleeding brakes . It greats a vacuum so it will draw the air out . Great if your the only one in the shop .

Original problem was under the floor pan the debris builds up and rots the brake line going to the rear wheel . You can splice in a new piece to the master cylinder or replace the whole line . I had a real good time trying to free up the bleeders to get the air out after wards . I managed to get them loose with out snapping them off , The bleeders were pretty badly chewed up . I had to get new ones later .

PGM's

 Made a little stand to hold things in place .

 Removed cover , chains, check guides etc .( Left side )There is a small collar with a pin through it on the reel shaft against the bearing . 

 I put a couple of screw drivers in drums so I can get the nut off the drum .Your going to need a long deep socket or make one up by cutting a socket in half and weld a piece of tubing in between . I think they where 1- 1/8 or 1- 1/16 Th .

 Some times the bearings need a little help getting removed . I put a bolt in the end of the shaft and give it a few taps to get it up enough to put the puller on . Should clean and buff off shaft before you even start .

 Here is My homemade jig in place holding the frame up . Right  side , 4 bolts , reel nut , drum nut , reel frame support bar and front roller and the handle clip/spring .I do it from this side because there are less parts to remove .

The bearing in the gear case side was worn , If you have it all apart like this it's wise to replace both ends including races and seals . 

 I made this tool to help tap the bearing in over the shaft . They are a tight fit . I also use it for seals . Just a piece of pipe with very large washers welded on .



Starting with #2 because the reel has some end play . I serviced the engine first , plugs, air filter , oil change , fuel stabilizer , oil in cylinder and leave at TDC or BDC so valves are closed clean fuel bowl and run carb dry after shutting valve off . .  Spent the rest of the day taking the cutting unit apart . The other 3 units will get regular service and will pull gear case side to check chain and guide wear .

Play Time

Last season we rented a full size excavator .  When they where finished using it I had the opportunity to have some play time with it and cleared a bigger compost area < a half acre . I'm quit comfortable using a backhoe/ small excavator and once I found the controls to switch it from excavator to back hoe I caught on very quickly . The power was awesome and couldn't believe how easy it was to dig up and move material . The grappling attachment came in very handy .

Electric Club Car President Trick

Since we started using electric carts we have a problem of staff driving off forgetting to unplug the chargers .Usually I wind up repairing the wiring on 3 or 4 a season . This year I seen a tip and tried it out . By training the staff to wire them through the steering wheel then to the plug in .  Didn't cost us a cent to do this either . After the season we have had zero episodes .

Chain Saw area

Last winter I made an area to keep all the saws in one place . I also marked each shelf / drilled holes for spare files and handles / also wrote information for chain size , file size . Keeps it a little more organized and helps the guys from using the wrong file sometimes .

My Biggest Build

The problem : loader bucket wider than carts .

The fix : Build a hopper that the loader dumps into to narrow it down for the carts saving on over spills into the yard .

This was not and original idea of mine . I made one after seeing this reducing hopper on a Golf technicians site . His was made totally from steel . I made the frame from steel and used marine plywood for hopper and coated it with a water base clear coat product many times . My plan was to replace it with steel later on when it needed replacing . Over 2 seasons later still holding up . A few picks of the original design and my version of the build .

Fairway Viewer for blind spot

Super had this idea and asked if it was possible to make and it had to be adjustable . We have a blind hill at one off the holes at the Old Course . We tried the greens sentry for a number of years but found it troublesome at times especially on week - ends if the battery died . I came up with this design and it has worked well for the past 3 seasons . Basically you view in the mirror before teeing off to see if the group is past the up to 250 yrd  marker .

Roll Top

This table was here when I started in this shop . Made by the previous Tech I think . Works great when it's grinding time . I can drive them up , disassemble , throw one on the grinder . Repeat the procedure for the other 3 and leave them on the big bench in the background until they are ready to grind . I can easily move them from bench to roll top and the grinder has a small mechanical lift . 

Selling Used Equipment on kijijji

We have been very fortunate in getting new equipment for the past few years . We have a couple of pieces kept for back up if need . The gear left over we decided to sell . They where still usable for some one else or another course . The year previous we sold off the Jac 3810's fairway units . This year I asked the super if we could get rid of some of the gear that we would never need again .  We decided on pricing/equipment and I took the pictures and wrote up descriptions and hrs.and advertised them on kijiji  for each machine . The super took care of the rest as calls/or e-mails came in . This past season  we managed to reclaim around $10,000.00 . Some pic's off gear . I'm a firm believer of get rid of equipment that was taking up valuable space in the storage building and I was happy that we  were able to do it .

 

Last machine sold just before the holidays . Just waiting for new gear to come in and we will have some old units to sell again soon .