OK there is ONE big problem…

If the tech industry doesn't learn consent real fucking fast I swear to God I'm going to fucking teach it to them

It was a little harrowing because I’ve never done this before, but I successfully split the tractor. And there is a sticker on the clutch plate that reveals the last time it was rebuilt! That plate was made in December 1996 😮

You'll just have to get used to it, stomping on your testicles with a big metal boot is here to stay.

It’s starting to look less like a tractor all the time. “Splitting” a tractor means separating the engine from the transmission, and that’s what I’m going to do this week. That’s necessary so I can put the engine on a stand and remove the oil pan, which is a structural component on this tractor.

Mmmmmm, delicious. This fluid is both for the transmission and the hydraulic system! Good thing I’m in the middle of replacing literally everything.

Feeling pretty disheartened tonight. I managed to break off two more studs trying to get them out of the engine block, so now there are THREE broken studs to deal with. I’ve never dealt with threads this hard to get out 😔 Over a week of repeated Kroil soaking and a couple days of heat cycling and it’s just not working. I have two intact studs left, too. Gonna take a break and stop for now.

Man it’s too early for this. I haven’t even had my first cup of Brākleen yet!

We finally have a working fireplace. Oh my god it’s so cozy 🥰 I am extremely content.

I will just keep heat cycling and spraying them, and I’ll use a stud extractor (more $, waugh!) in my impact driver instead of the “two nuts squeezed together and a wrench” method I’ve been trying to get leverage on them.

I am long past wanting to save these studs to reuse them, I will bite the bullet and buy more. I just want to get them out D: The problem seems to be that the stud holes go all the way into the water jacket, so they have many years of mineral deposit and rust down at the bottom edge and that is really hard to break.

The studs in the tractor engine block are absolutely not budging. They’ve been soaked with penetrating oil for almost four days with frequent reapplication. I actually bought one of those inductive bolt heaters off Amazon and got them glowing red hot and doused with more penetrating oil a few times, and finally managed to get ONE out, after about half an hour. Oof.

Also, while I use AI as a scapegoat here, the real reason is much deeper. It's enshittification, of which AI is only a part. The tech industry has been getting worse for a long time, AI is just the latest thing and what finally pushed me over the edge. Nothing works right anymore, everything gets worse in the next generation, and now more expensive, too. They're pissing on me and calling it rain and I'm just so tired. It's microaggressions all the way down.

I really do need to talk to a therapist about how the software industry's hyperfocus on pushing AI has been so bad for my mental health that it RETROACTIVELY killed my nostalgia for vintage computers. It's like it went back in time and ruined my childhood memories. Even thinking about my old Commodore 64 makes me internally say "Wow, what a sad waste of time that was".

The fallout from the increasingly bleak computer security landscape SHOULD be: Fewer things connected to the Internet. That would be The Good Ending. No TVs, no thermostats, no god damn refrigerators. These things should never have been on the Internet in the first place.

Free T-shirt idea:

MY BODY IS A MACHINE
THAT TURNS CITRATE INTO SUCCINATE
AND BACK AGAIN
TO GENERATE ENERGY
VIA THE KREBS CYCLE

The only good thing about being Gen-X is that we get to basically sit out all intergenerational nonsense because nobody remembers we exist. That is fully on brand, and I’m completely satisfied with this arrangement.

Well, I did it. I pulled the head on the tractor engine. I think I'm going to do a full rebuild, I've come this far I might as well continue, and then I'll have a tractor to use next spring. And you know... for a nearly 80 year old engine, it doesn't seem that bad?

The tractor carburetor cleaned up very nicely! I also got a rebuild kit for it, so I’ll try putting it back together tomorrow.

The tractor drove under its own power tonight for the first time. Golly gee this thing is fun!