So I wake up today, bright eyes and bushy-tailed ready to take on the world. I have the day off work and finally, we get some sunshine. I take hold of the day and load up the "old" LT1042 (after scavenging some parts off of it, of course) and take it to the scrap yard. After that, I head home and get the garage winter ready; dethatcher, lawn sweep, disc, tiller, push mower, and other things go out to the shed to make room for vehicles during the winter cause, ya know, they don't need shelter during the summer. Anywho, I get that done and decide it's a great day to tare into the new 1450 and do a little trunion work. I get the fenders off no problem, remove the old snap rings (break them off because they're so brittle) and get things ready for the new parts. I hop in the truck again and off to the hardware store I go. I get some new snap rings, washers for spacers, some tin, and then go aaallllll the way to the other end of town to Farm & Fleet for snap ring pliers because True Value was out of them. I get my first shiny new set of snap ring pliers home and and ready to knock this thing out before the girlfriend gets home from work. Then it starts.
It has 4 assorted ends for different sizes and of course, the only size that fits the snap rings I got are straight and I need the 90° ends. Ok, so I use a set of pliers to make the straight into 90° and riiiggghhhttt as I get them set, SNAP! The stupid nipple on the end breaks off. Doh!!
Ok, keep calm. My next thought is simple drill out the holes on the snap rings 1/1000000th of an inch to make the other snap ring heads fit but oh wait! My drill took a crap on me a couple weeks ago and I haven't gotten a new one yet!
Ok, so maybe I can round the nipples of the pliers a bit to make them fit but oh wait! I don't have anything abrasive to do that either
All this because of a cheap pair of snap ring pliers, my most hated of tools. I've always had bad luck with them, why oh why couldn't they just use something else. So, totally frustrated, I closed the freshly cleaned garage up (which, btw, isn't so clean because I have tools, fenders, and Cub parts laying everywhere
) and went inside. At least the meatloaf I made in the crock pot smells delicious
So that's it, thanks for listening to my rant, carry on everyone!
