The ugly bitch who gave birth to the cowardly little monsters SPEAKS

Then maybe you will understand.


In 1974 I was defending my thesis and assisting my lead Professor on a presentation in Canada for a consortium dealing with Iraq, Iran, and deployment of American naval assets at the straights of Hormuz. I am glad you paid attention when Requiem and I had intelligent dialogue on Iranian history, the middle east, and American culpability................. and now can help me a little bit.

Do you think you help this sick old man get the 225 lb rubber track on the Bobcat.......and then we will continue the discussion.....I mean your teaching me about international relations.

I'm a sick old man too (Lymphoma and Melanoma) so not up to helping put a track on a Bobcat. But I admire you for it if you can do it.

Unfortunately I didn't catch the thread you speak of. I learned about Iran inadvertently on my first visit to Chicago in 1976. I've related this in posts before but here it is again.
I was walking down Michigan Ave and came up on a street protest. About a dozen people. I got out my camera to take a picture of it and one of them immediately comes over to me and politely asks that I not take their picture.
He then explained why. He told me if that photo somehow got into the hands of the Shah's secret police, they would be able to identify the protestors and would jail them when they returned to Iran.
And then he explained how our government was helping to keep the Iranian people in bondage and that's why they were here protesting.
Never have forgotten that.

Bob,
Please look at the end of page 4 for a solution of the plumbing issue. When I posted the Bobcat photo it started page 5 and I do not want you paying a plumber when I can see you have all the necessary tools to fix this yourself .

1. Go to the outside city water shut off.....shut the water off.

2. remove the galvanized plug and replace it with a 3" extension which is galvanized. Go to the Hardware store and get a properly threaded shut off valve for your new 3" and make sure they fit in the store. Next put another 3 inch galvanized after the valve. Put a T fitting on the end of that. Plug one side. Finish your project on the other side.

I appreciate the advice, seaoat,  but the water has been shut off at the street since yesterday morning.  If the water was flowing,  it would be gushing out of the ends of those two pipes you see in the photo. That valve on the left pipe you see just cuts off hot water to the dishwasher. Neither the cold nor the hot water supply pipes under the sink have cutoff valves on them.

My problem is the obsolete couplings on the ends of those pipes have to be removed so that modern couplings can be installed to be able to connect the flexible lines leading to the faucet.  I struggled with trying to remove those couplings all morning.  Used a penetrate and heat both and they won't budge.  Time to let a pro take over.

Bob,

That T looks good. So I can better understand, are you saying you cannot remove that valve above the T? If you are because it will not budge, you need to leverage your pipe wrench with four feet of heavy duty 2" Electric Conduit normally used on bring a supply to the meter. Lowes has them and will cut to the size you need in the space you are working. You should easily be able to break the grip of the threads and remove the threaded flange. At that point it is simply following the extensions I posted with new galvanized and threads which match your flexible going to the water heater. Help me understand.

Bob,

I see the pipe coming up from the floor with your ground. I see the pipe with the T. Which one of those pipes are coming from the City supply? Are you telling me that the hot water which leaves your hot water heater goes back down under the concrete?

A hot water heater has one supply from your main line, and has on output flow. I do not understand two supplies, or the hot water being diverted back under the concrete. You can tell me to F off at any time, but this just looks completely doable if you have leverage.

The two (hot and cold) galvanized supply pipes you see coming out of the floor of the cabinet have couplings screwed onto the ends of them.  Those couplings have male flange connectors on the ends of them.  And the original copper tubes going to the faucet had female flange connectors to mate with them.
The hot water one you see on the left has the T coupling on it only to supply hot water to the dishwasher.  And that cut off valve you see only shuts off water to the dishwasher,  not to the faucet.

I went to three different sources attempting to get adapters so I could avoid having to remove the couplings.  No adapters can be had.  One counter guy laughed and said "they haven't used those parts for 30 years".

So the couplings have to be removed and then replaced with modern couplings which will accept the flexible hoses.  

I used penetrating oil,  heat from a torch,  and all the leverage I could get attempting to remove the couplers from the ends of the pipes.  Struggled with it all morning to no avail.  Finally gave up.  But not until hours after the struggle began.

Won't be around for awhile.  I'm headed to Planet Fitness to take a shower (and use the toilet).  lol

Bob,
As the cancer has weakened me, I could no longer use brute strength. I have been using leverage with extenders on my tools for two years. I have triple the strength of when I was young and strong by using my head with leverage. I guarantee you that you can easily remove those couplings with proper extensions on your pipe wrench because those galvanized pipes are well supported in the concrete, and then it is a simple matter of putting a new coupling and extensions which match up with your water heater.....but I understand you are tired and just want to let somebody else deal with this, so I will send you some photos of me completing the Bobcat tracks, where I have no options.......it needs to get done today.

Long day.......got the track on.....too old and weak to do this, and peg leg did her best, but dead man walking and peg leg got her done. Where the rags are sticking out of the side of the lower carriage unit and where we insert a grease zert and start pumping grease which tightens the front idler which allows the bearings and drive to move the tracks and the bobcat......I will NEVER do this again in what is left of my life.....never.

I have to get my 39th monthly shots at Northwestern Friday morning. I will stop at work afterwards and spend a couple hours catching up from being out of the office, and then I will finish my causeway dirt work and will post the fixed Bobcat working the dirt. During this entire time, I did not lose a moment today worrying about terrorists or that our folks will prosecute the bastards when they do their criminal acts......I am not worried about going to Chicago and being attacked by criminals.....it is the most beautiful city in America, and I am not going to curl up in a fetal ball and worry about what I cannot control.....I am going to fight for every moment of life and accept the cards as they are dealt. A mother lost her son, and may lose both of them....her views are wrong, and her sons were wrong, but Bob your judgment is skewed by prejudice and fear, and is very hateful.....but good luck Friday morning getting your water back.

Just to get the secondary stuff out of the way, seaoat, about this...

"those galvanized pipes are well supported in the concrete"

It's an off-grade house, no slab. It was built in 1954. It's in North Lakeview which borders on East Hill which you may have heard of.
My house represents a transition in local residential architecure. It's brick veneer which crosses the later period, but off-grade which is the earlier period.

The supply pipes coming through the floor are not supported at all. They're each coming through large holes in the cabinet bottom and it appears the only support is the pipe they're connected to below. In other words they flop around like a limp dick.

I now want to reflect on the other things you wrote.

I am talking about where the galvanized pipe comes out of the concrete. With a pipe extender you can put sufficient pressure on that coupler to remove it. I know you could do it with that two inch four foot electrical supply on the end of the pipe wrench. In regard to any flopping around where the pipes come through your floor, simple cut a treated 2 x 4 between your floor supports and screw them into the supports. Stop at Lowes and get steel strapping, and strap the galvanized to the 2 x4s and tighten it with a simple portable battery drill with screw bit. Double up your supports on both holes coming through the floor. Use the stiffer galvanized all the way up which will not flop once strapped and put your conversions at the end. You will get deflection with flexible pipe to the water heater, so if you know how to solder, bring copper up through the floor, and put a support from the wall using a base plate where you screw into a wall two by four and cut a piece of copper after soldering threads which fit in the base plate and catch both pipe and solder them to the support. Your flexible pipe make it easy to change out the water heater and you get rigidity in your plumbing support.

2seaoat wrote:I am talking about where the galvanized pipe comes out of the concrete.  

It's an off grade foundation (wooden foundation). There is no concrete slab.

Could you show a finished photo of the job. Thanks.

I think I am in trouble. I have a summertime cold or allergy which is filling my lungs. I clearly went beyond what I was capable yesterday. It is four in the morning and I am having night sweats again. I cannot breath, and when I get most over the counter cold treatments they warn people with liver disease that they should consult their doctor to use the over the counter. Tussin is the least harmful reading the warnings, but it has done nothing. I am going to take a slug of nightqill and just try to sleep through this today. I have to wait six weeks for more tests, but I am running out of rope. I usually feel like crap after shots which I had Friday morning, but I cannot get my strength up. That rubber track may have broke me.