doublegunshop.com - home Forums General Discussion DoubleGun BBS @ doublegunshop.com OT ....... making lemonade

I've posted many pics on here over the years of my old camo'ed Club Car on dove shoots, etc. In April of '23 I had taken it to shoot sporting clays and, when I returned home, had left it on my trailer (not a good idea in retrospect). A couple weeks later I realized the whole rig had been stolen from behind my farm shop. I had used that old thing hard for over 20 years on the farm checking irrigation systems, shooting sporting clays and doves. It was never recovered but I had farm owner's insurance that paid me $2800 for it and the trailer. Small consolation, but better than nothing I reasoned. I went looking for another one and found that the prices of the things and skyrocketed over the years. I considered a small Polaris Ranger but we were still looking at over $10K and I was just too tight to put that much in one. At the time they weren't even taking orders for the little ones anyway. The big, four door enclosed ones with a/c and heat were selling like hotcakes, at $38K+ a pop. I was beginning to think this deal was going to end up stinging my checkbook badly.

So, I waited, watched classified ads, and hung on to my insurance money. Fast forward to this past June, 14 months later. While in a field doing work I saw a Ranger sitting in an abandoned equipment field on a neighbor's property. I asked him what was wrong with it and he said it had run hot, wouldn't crank, and might even be locked up. I asked if I could take a closer look at at and he said fine. I checked the motor and it wasn't locked up, and had some compression. I bought it from him for $500, knowing I was taking a bit of a gamble. Turned out it needed a head gasket, a fuel pump and a water pump. Tires were worn out on it and the seat was in tatters, but looked pretty fair otherwise. For another $500 we got it running like a top. I found a set of almost new tires and upgraded wheels for $400 and bought them. I put it to work last week checking irrigation systems and doing spraying of food plots and overgrown areas on the farm.

Takeaway is .......... for half of what I received from the insurance claim I'm in a much faster, more powerful, and better riding UTV than any golf cart could ever be. Everything works on it, lights, gauges, speedo, and she runs cool as a cucumber. Still got the other $1400 to find a seat and seat back, and a trailer. Some days you get the bear, and some days the bear gets you. I got the bear this time.

I''ve always loved to try to make lemonade out of a lemon. Not a Cadillac, but a big step up from the old Club Car.

A very nice outcome Stan. It often times pays to have some patience.

Happy ending. I’ve seen those behemoth UTVs at NSCA shoots as I push my little cart around with my gear. I don’t see how people do it, or why they would invest that much in a thing like that. Different strokes for different folks. I saw a guy last year in some sort of Polaris with state license tags. It was street legal.

This Ozark farm boy says … 👍👍

It pays to keep a good relationship with your neighbors, you help each other.
Mike,

Find one for me!

I always wanted one of those. There is a place down the road from me that has great pizza. It would sure save a walk having one. You did good, Stan!!

In GA they re street legal without a tag. They come with front and rear lights. I was once stopped by a GA State Trooper on my old golf cart, on the rural county highway I live on, while going to check on an irrigation system one afternoon. My Yellow Lab was riding in the seat by me. He actually "put the blue lights on me". He told me I had to get that thing off the highway. I found out later that all that is necessary in GA to ride a golf cart legally on a highway is the put an orange, triangular Slow Moving Vehicle (SMV) emblem on the back.

This farming county where I live is covered up with UTVs.

They surely have their place. I have been casually looking at the little Japanese imported (& used!) cab-over pickups with the motorcycle motors. Called "Kei" trucks, they would be almost perfect for my hunting applications in the Great White North. Easy on gas, 4x4, great utility, all-weather (all seasons), & fairly inexpensive...I'm sorely tempted. They're only street legal is a few states but I suspect that their day is coming.

https://www.hagerty.com/media/news/...er-what-to-do-with-these-tiny-trucklets/

Nice save Stan. It continually amazes me that so many people scrap or discard vehicles or machinery that only needs relatively simple and minor repairs. My first Massey Ferguson 65 tractor had a Continental gas engine, and I got it cheap because it was hard to start and ran like crap. Turned out that two of the plug wires were in the wrong position on the distributor cap. Total cost was $0.00 and a couple minutes to look up the firing order. My current Massey Ferguson 65 is a diesel, and also was running poorly, losing power under load as if starved for fuel, and not charging the battery. All it needed was new fuel filters, sediment bowl cleaned out, and I had to rewire it. Total cost less than $30.00. I've never bought a new lawnmower because people throw them away due to cheap and simple to fix problems like a bad spark plug or a carburetor bowl and needle valve gummed up with old ethanol gas.

A production worker recently asked me if I could look at his 18 Volt DeWalt battery drill. He was going to buy another one because he thought the gears were stripped out. He brought it to work and showed me how the drill ran, but the bit would stall while trying to drill a hole in a nearby pallet. I took it and turned my back to him, and simply turned the torque limiting adjustment, which I saw was on the lowest setting. I gave it back in seconds, and told him it was fixed. Skeptical, he tried again and drilled a clean hole in the oak runner and was amazed that I "fixed" it in seconds. He bought me a coffee for saving him the cost of a new battery drill.

Same thing happens with guns too. Many gun owners will dump a gun dirt cheap simply because they don't have a clue how to diagnose or fix relatively simple problems. Now you only have to hope your neighbor doesn't think he sold the Polaris Ranger too cheap, and has hard feelings about it. Chances are it would have rotted away, or ended up hauled to the scrap yard if you hadn't seen the potential.