The trusses are every four feet, so I’m wondering if I could move the beast over a foot or two to position it under a truss, thereby avoiding the need for a cross brace. I’ll have to go check this out.
96 GMC K2500 Suburban Restoration (with a couple of mods)
- Thread starter South VA
- Start date
Disclaimer: Links on this page pointing to Amazon, eBay and other sites may include affiliate code. If you click them and make a purchase, we may earn a small commission.
The trusses are every four feet, so I’m wondering if I could move the beast over a foot or two to position it under a truss, thereby avoiding the need for a cross brace. I’ll have to go check this out.
Thanks. Not having done it before, it looks to be more difficult than it will actually turn out to be. If you say it’s a 20 minute job for the second one, it’ll probably take me an hour!
But at least the door won’t be hanging open in the weather!
And I already have the weatherstripping from LMC, plus a door spring tool, so we’re good to go there.
Keeper
I'm Awesome
Make sure door is open when doing the positioning. Line up the open door, not the truck. Truck will be at an angle.
Makes sense. Thanks!Make sure door is open when doing the positioning. Line up the open door, not the truck. Truck will be at an angle.
It works just fine on grass as well.
You must be registered for see images attach
xc_hide_links_from_guests_guests_error_hide_media
The weather isn’t cooperating. I’m champing at the bit to get the Subdivision, loaded with construction tools, back up to the house I’m working on, aka “Hilltop.” But, as noted earlier, it’s parked in the garage, and the yard outside of the garage is way too wet to drive across without tearing it up. So there it sits.
For the time being, tool-hauling duties are once again relegated to my trusty HHR. Which actually does a pretty good job of it, except for having less cargo space and much less ground clearance.
So I was less than pleased to see that, in addition to further saturating the already sodden ground, the rainstorm two days ago washed out the driveway entrance to Hilltop, thereby making it inaccessible to the HHR.
The Subdivision, of course, would have no difficulty getting through this.
The good news is that VDOT is going come and put down some more rock to fix it; hopefully sooner than later.
I can‘t help but think that the culvert is undersized, however. I’ll see what they have to say about it.
Speaking of driveways, the last third of the driveway on the farm crosses a broad, shallow depression called a Carolina Bay. It has no natural outlet, so the water stays until it soaks in or evaporates. They’re pretty common around here. All this rain has resulted in a lake forming on both sides of the driveway. It’s been a couple of years since this happened. The water is now within a few inches of the driveway surface.
It’s supposed to rain hard again tomorrow. I expect that our ‘lake’ will be here for at least another month; probably longer.
For the time being, tool-hauling duties are once again relegated to my trusty HHR. Which actually does a pretty good job of it, except for having less cargo space and much less ground clearance.
So I was less than pleased to see that, in addition to further saturating the already sodden ground, the rainstorm two days ago washed out the driveway entrance to Hilltop, thereby making it inaccessible to the HHR.
The Subdivision, of course, would have no difficulty getting through this.
You must be registered for see images attach
You must be registered for see images attach
The good news is that VDOT is going come and put down some more rock to fix it; hopefully sooner than later.
I can‘t help but think that the culvert is undersized, however. I’ll see what they have to say about it.
Speaking of driveways, the last third of the driveway on the farm crosses a broad, shallow depression called a Carolina Bay. It has no natural outlet, so the water stays until it soaks in or evaporates. They’re pretty common around here. All this rain has resulted in a lake forming on both sides of the driveway. It’s been a couple of years since this happened. The water is now within a few inches of the driveway surface.
You must be registered for see images attach
It’s supposed to rain hard again tomorrow. I expect that our ‘lake’ will be here for at least another month; probably longer.
OutlawDrifter
Long Roof K2500 Driver
Nothing like having your own personal moat!
Water went over that tube for one of two reasons...it's undersized or something was impeding the flow. When we get super heavy rains, occasionally the road ditches will silt in and make my driveway tube less effective. Scoop out the bottoms with the loader and its back to flowing proper.
Water went over that tube for one of two reasons...it's undersized or something was impeding the flow. When we get super heavy rains, occasionally the road ditches will silt in and make my driveway tube less effective. Scoop out the bottoms with the loader and its back to flowing proper.
I’m pretty sure it’s undersized. I saw no evidence of even a partial blockage.
The original culvert was put in during the 70s. The bottom had rusted out, and water was eroding beneath the driveway, so we had to replace it.
VDOT normally doesn’t replace driveway culverts; but I asked, and they agreed to do the install if we purchased the replacement culvert. We were more than happy to do that. They said to buy the same size.
The volume of runoff through this ditch and culvert has to be higher than it was in the 70s, because of houses subsequently being built upstream and the accompanying removal of vegetation and increase in impermeable surface area. I’m guessing that VDOT didn’t have their engineers run new runoff calculations before deciding to use the same size of culvert.
This will almost certainly happen again.
At the risk of further derailing my own thread, I’m happy to report that just a few days later VDOT put some road base down, and we’re now able to get into and out of the driveway.
Here it is from the outlet side:
After noticing that the culvert wasn’t completely draining, I determined that (contrary to my earlier assertion) it is, in fact, at least partially blocked. I’m still not convinced that the culvert is large enough, but I’m also not going to ask VDOT to dig it up and replace it just yet.
Two factors contribute to the partial blockage: 1) When VDOT added some rip rap a few months ago (at my request) so that I could build a rock wall at each end of the culvert, they raised the bottom of the ditch in relation to the culvert.
Here’s the outlet, with a grubbing hoe for scale. It’s about half full; water is backing up because the ditch at the outlet is higher than the culvert.
2) Looking at the inlet side, I discovered that in addition to the bottom of the ditch being higher than the inlet, some of the rip rap had found its way into the inlet.
I’m not sure if this happened when they added the road base, or if the torrential rain washed the rip rap into the culvert; but it has to be fixed. The end of the culvert is also deformed, further contributing to the reduced effective diameter.
The mission, then, is to remove the offending rip rap from the inlet, and lower the ditch level at both ends of the culvert. Simple.
However, lowering the ditch level is going to take some sustained grunt work on my part, since I don’t have access to a machine to help me. I’ll take my time, and do some stretching before each session of rock therapy. If I’m careful, it will help me get into better shape.
I’ll also use this opportunity to build the aforementioned dry stack walls around the inlet and outfall, to keep the road base where it belongs.
A bit of progress on the outlet end:
Good times.
You must be registered for see images attach
Here it is from the outlet side:
You must be registered for see images attach
After noticing that the culvert wasn’t completely draining, I determined that (contrary to my earlier assertion) it is, in fact, at least partially blocked. I’m still not convinced that the culvert is large enough, but I’m also not going to ask VDOT to dig it up and replace it just yet.
Two factors contribute to the partial blockage: 1) When VDOT added some rip rap a few months ago (at my request) so that I could build a rock wall at each end of the culvert, they raised the bottom of the ditch in relation to the culvert.
Here’s the outlet, with a grubbing hoe for scale. It’s about half full; water is backing up because the ditch at the outlet is higher than the culvert.
You must be registered for see images attach
2) Looking at the inlet side, I discovered that in addition to the bottom of the ditch being higher than the inlet, some of the rip rap had found its way into the inlet.
I’m not sure if this happened when they added the road base, or if the torrential rain washed the rip rap into the culvert; but it has to be fixed. The end of the culvert is also deformed, further contributing to the reduced effective diameter.
You must be registered for see images attach
The mission, then, is to remove the offending rip rap from the inlet, and lower the ditch level at both ends of the culvert. Simple.
However, lowering the ditch level is going to take some sustained grunt work on my part, since I don’t have access to a machine to help me. I’ll take my time, and do some stretching before each session of rock therapy. If I’m careful, it will help me get into better shape.
I’ll also use this opportunity to build the aforementioned dry stack walls around the inlet and outfall, to keep the road base where it belongs.
A bit of progress on the outlet end:
You must be registered for see images attach
Good times.
OutlawDrifter
Long Roof K2500 Driver
I bet VDOT would bring a backhoe out and scratch that ditch a bit deeper. I would venture to say that part of the road ditch technically belongs to them per right-of-way.
Edit: Bottle jack and a some cribbing might help reshape your inlet.
Edit: Bottle jack and a some cribbing might help reshape your inlet.
