The great Roadgrader anti-climax

Well, for once things went smoothly. TC (my neighbor) got the grader started and pulled it up off the side of Mt. Everest where it's been sitting for the past four years. The guy we bought it from had parked it on the side of this ungodly steep hill so he could roll it off whenever he needed to use it. Problem is he never used it again after parking it. In the meantime he's built a lake at the foot of the hill. Needless to say, there was great potential for disaster, but TC stuck a hot battery on it, squirted a little ether and she fired right up. It actually fired right up last Saturday too, that's how we found out the governor was stuck. Anyhow, after pouring ten gallons of water and five gallons of hydraulic fluid into various orifices, we were ready to go. The master cylinder leaks pretty bad and four of the six tires were low, so we decided to take it to my place first and air up the tires. TC drove it over to the barn with me driving in front and KH (one of TC's truck driver buddies) following.

We made it to my barn without incident, aired up the tires and took a couple of passes down the cowpath I use for a road below my barn. Everything seemed to be in working order (other than a stuck injector, it was only running on three cylinders) So we took it on down to TC's place, where he has a shop and tools (and much more mechanical know-how than I do) so that he could get all of the little things fixed on it, plus use it on some pasture he's trying to get cleaned up.

Once I get a little better at figuring out this software, I will try to post some pictures of the great orange beast.