Hot Rod Farmer: Welcome to YOUR podcast and website. Originally published 7/20/2018
April 17, 2023Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 19:21 — 26.6MB)
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This episode of Idle Chatter aired in the early days of the podcast. The introduction and audio are a little different from what I use today. The information is timeless, foundational, and just as relevant to your success.
Agriculture runs on machinery… but profits on reliability!
Thanks for listening, Ray Bohacz… the Hot Rod Farmer
Success on the farm or ranch is a three-legged stool: agronomy, marketing and equipment. A poor decision in any one of these will be reflected in your farm’s bottom line. Ray Bohacz created the Idle Chatter podcast to help prosper the American farm and ranch; education delivered in an entertaining format.
Ray
Let’s see how far I get with this. First off I spend a fair bit of my spare time hanging out on 2 forums on the web mainly on Yesterday’s Tractors. Then also on New AgTalk, here is a copy of my bio on New AgTalk. ….Grew up on a farm in Kansas, was a mechanic at various businesses there 20 years. Went to school for nondestructive testing/ inspection. Moved to TW cities (MPLS MN) and worked at an oil refinery (19 years ago as of Aug 2020). Hobbies- wife, 2 kids- daughter who is a college grad living at home; one son married with our grandchild, ’57 Chevy 2dr hdtp (basket case for now) and Farmall M, which resides on my mom’s 80 acre farm in KS. (I’ll also add, since you mention things that are special to your listeners are also special to you, I have a homemade garden tractor built by my Grandpa who was a blacksmith in a small KS town, circa late ’50’s early ’60’s).
I recently started listening to your podcast since I am working on a long, overdue job repairing walls in our bathroom that have damaged wallboard, from hard wallpaper removal. Probably 3/4 done with that job.
I am very impressed with the technical accuracy of you podcast’s content. From a theory stand point you have covered a quite a few items that I have never really thought much about or exposed myself to. In my youth, I like you, read a lot of technical/mechanical books including Popular Hot Rodding and Hot Rod, which I still have not looked into your connection there. (I still subscribe to Hot Rod). So I think I have a pretty good mechanical understanding, unlike a buddy of mine who was also a mechanic. His dad had a lawn mower shop but worked on all kinds of things including cars, trucks and tractors. Well, for instance, his dad taught him if a car’s exhaust smelled of rotten eggs than it needed new spark plug wires. There may be some logic to that, but from my knowledge based more on technical books, I knew that was not a tried and true statement.
I have a longer correspondence typed out, but since this is my first time communicating to you I’m not certain where this info goes. I would think that if this was a public comment section I would be made aware of that somehow. I have an issue with one of my cars I would like to run past you.
Thanks for your time!
Rick Holle
Excellent content.
Good morning Ray, we have messaged before. My wife Lisa is from Pittstown, and we live on a small farm Western PA.
My son has a 1971 F250 with an oily 390. Could an adjustable PCV valve help?
Thank you, Andy Lindsay
It is great to hear from you.
I would say that an adjustable PCV will benefit almost any older engine simply due to the fact that there is a 99% chance that the valve you now have is wrong in some way. This is especially true if you are fighting oil leaks.
I would give Gene at M/E Wagner a call and speak with him. They make the valve in PA and he is a straight shooter and Christian man. Just tell him you learned about the valve from my podcast.
Often you will need to readjust the carburetor mixture screws and sometimes even turn down the idle speed. That is all dependent on the current flow rate.
Please know I have “no skin in the game” but I would not run an engine that you can no longer buy the factory calibrated PCV without this adjustable one.
I do not have their phone number handy but look them up, but go to their website, http://mewagner.com. They have a good amount of technical data there.
It is a family business and the son, Matt, is an engineer in the test lab at Penn State in State College. If you go to my website, you can listen to my On the Road podcast with them. They tell the entire story of how the valve came about.
Have a blessed day,
Ray
I’m thinking about buying a 9N Ford from a friend. It runs and looks pretty good. I want to make a complete restoration project with it and convert it to a 12-volt system. He wants $2500.00 for it, do you think that’s a good price? We had an 8N on our farm and that’s what I’d rather get but the 9N might be a good option as well. Thanks.