The now 29 year old white Ford pickup is now not kept licnenced or insured. For years now. It collects household garbage sacks. Every 4-6-8 weeks I illegally road-use haul these three miles to our north county rural transfer station. $12.00-$15.00 for a whole pickup bed load. NO road side garbage service down out last 1/4 mile lane.
Ha! So keeps the battery re-charged. No matter the annual 50 cents+ state annual road taxed per gallon on the gasoline used. It stores nearly 30 gallons of needs-musts back up gasoline safely on board.
The 2017 stripped features GMC 4500 cutaway box van I chose to be gasoline. Back to that WA State now 50 cents a gallon “road” (actually a carbon) tax. Plus annual base license. PLUS a gross capable tonnage annual road-use-tax fee.
A diesel rig here pays over 70 cents a gallon in state carbons tax. Plus Federal roads-use fuel tax. Makes it an ongoing +$1.00 a gallon more. plus a higher annual Tonnage excise tax.
The three moving trips up here needing long flat trailer beds hauling I cashed in family/friends-favors and hired out. Gave them $100.00 cash USD per trip. They were happy. I was happy not having to directly support a now Washington State vilified over-taxed diesel rig.
The modern EV drivers here now pay an annual added excise tax on their licnencing.
My State has now experimented with volenetreer control groups with just using an annual milage roads-use taxes.
Someday; someday-soon, this will happen. Once more non-interconnected non-talking
vehicles are replaced out with fully modern featured vehicles.
Now here is the tricky thing about road-useage taxes. HERE: again and again, they get jacked up and used for many things but roads improvements and maintences.
Carbon taxing IC engines unaffordable, is just the latest social “Value Added” pursuit.
The big yellow truck now going un-relicened. Un-insured as of the end of this month. Saving over $200.00 a month annually.
Ha! Wife wants to sell it now. Me??
I drive the regular little blue Toyota Camry all now that I can. The least taxed; least to insure overall.
S.U.
It looks like it is around 50k for a Ford E-Transit van around here. That is like 11-12 years and the thing is free just from fuel and tax savings. Provided your electric is free if not, you need to add a few years.
Here, is here too Mr Steve. If our roadtax would be used for the roads we would have golden guardrails. Politics, squeeze them out as much as possible, slaves forever. it just will never change.
No no, not electric, only Tesla produces an EV that is usable every day. No electric vans available for normal use. MB called me a few years ago, I was surfing their website, cookies Next day I get a phone call after one year no contact, coincidence? Not. Yes , we have an electric Vito, Nice! 1 ton load! Wow, nice again! Range? 180 km. Huh? Where do you want to bring that ton to? The neighbours? And a towhitch? No, not available, sorry. And you put that star on the hood? Not worthy a MB, goodbye, my last contact with MB four years ago. Tesla shows where to go, what the minimum level is. As a competetor you should do bether I think, but that doesnt apply to the automotive. Other manufacturs just stay behind and especially the electric vans. New laws overhere, next year is the last year you can buy a kind of tax free van. 2025 you pay taxes like a passenger car. We have special taxes for that too , price of the car almost doubles from the factory. Unless it is electric of course. Just the other week had the suspension of my Vito done and a new distribution chain (good word?), not planning to buy a new car and this one is not finished yet. Instead of a stimulanse you get a penalty if you dont buy electric. Government will have people drive electric. I like it, the only thing that bothers me, it opens discussion for nuclear power.
The BrightDrop EV600 step delivery van has a range of 250 miles for like 80k. Someone is converted one into a camper. I think it was in california, but house rent is so insane there, they are probably just living out of it. They could probably save enough money in apartment rent in a year to pay for it, and have the same amount of space.
In Gasa, or the Ukraine, it is more like SHTF with war all around you. Joni knows all about it and what happens to your DOW vehicle. At least he could repair it. And got his vehicle back on the road with the all damage that was done to it.
My friend Roy found a few wood stoves and heating units. I ended up with two of them. Both run with out electrical help. I started with the heating unit it is a Estate HeatRola wood coal stove unit for heating.
The cooking stove is a Monarch Malleble. Needs some work but it is in good shape. I will start a thread on rebuilding it for both.
Because the house is all electrical heating, water heater, and stove. I thought a outdoor kitchen would be nice on the back deck of the house just off the kitchen and dinning room.
I was going to say melt them, but they look a bit high in zinc.
You can try to sell them on ebay… Im not sure these are the same ‘model’ and I don’t know how many this guy sells but they might be worth 1-2 bucks a piece.
Got another good score today. One of the truck drivers told me about some heavy gauge square tubing they use to brace trailers. Looks like 1.25" or 1.5" tube, 8 foot long, 1/8" wall. I grabbed 7 of the tubes, they didn’t want me to grab all of them and I didn’t really want to get all of what looked like 20.
Only downside is it’s galvanized but I can just grind parts off and weld totally outdoors with a fan blowing across me.
Might be able to use this to frame a flatbed for the GMC.
Edit: finally got around to measuring, they’re 8’ by 1.5" square by 1/8" thickness. I got 7 of them, one I already took to my shop to measure.
This is a ZMZ-403 engine and a 315A DC welding generator. 15 years ago, it was still used for its intended purpose. And he looked like this in his youth, like this:
I need to disconnect the welding generator and return it to its owner. The engine remains at our house - I earned it in early spring, when I unloaded 4 tons of grain from a truck into a barn.
And this is a three-phase asynchronous electric motor with 18.5 kW and 3000 rpm, which I will convert into a 22kW synchronous generator. Aluminum from the rotor is etched with caustic soda, rings and brushes can be turned out, or you can buy ready-made ones.
The drive from the engine to the generator will be belt driven. It would be possible with a variator, but it is unlikely that such complexity will be justified by the night operation of the motor and generator at idle.
Fuel for the engine, of course, will be firewood. Heat for heating and combustible gas for cooking will be produced by a wood gas generator. There are very ambitious plans to make electricity in the house cheaper than from the grid! This requires free fuel, increased engine life and the entire installation and its own engine oil.
It remains to be seen how easy it will be to do it. But there is no doubt that it will be very interesting!
Sounds like a very interesting project, though it would take me at leiste 2 years, and i am retired. GOOD LUCK getting all the right stuff lined up for your project. I was thinking of building in that manner too, at leiste too use the waist heat in winter, while generator running, maybe some solar panels and a decent battery bank for when genset not running. OR we would be chunking a lot of wood,if it was only heat source.
The other day a customer at work asked: do you know if it’s ok to dump an old propane bottle at our local recycling central?
I answered: i don’t know, but leave it here instead, ill happily take it!
So he did, and now it’s at my place, but…
It’s half full! No cutting in this for a while, but i can’t complain
Same customer bring in his “classic” Volvo for yearly service, he wanted a lot of stuff replaced for the sake of it.
I could have the used stuff he said
it just will never change.
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