Barn find Yamaha! Old dirtbike buried behind a bunch of junk

So quite a while ago my brother told me his neighbor had an old bike stuffed in the back of a barn. I managed to sneak a peak at it at one point, but wasn't sure I wanted to pick it up.

It festered in the back of my mind for a whole year. They were in and out of town, our paths just never seemed to be able to cross, until... FINALLY... I was able to go back and make a deal! Hauled it home on the hitch carrier, and after a few basic checks, gave it the old boot. What do you think? Not bad for a barn find!? Check out my new shirts!!! https://www.teepublic.com/user/rusty-phoenix-motors Connect with me here! https://www.youtube.com/c/RustyPhoenixMotors https://www.facebook.com/rustyphoenixmotors https://www.instagram.com/dorkpunch_rustyphoenixmotors/?hl=en https://www.instructables.com/member/Rusty%20Phoenix%20Motors/ https://rusytphoenixmotors.blogspot.com/

Operation: Spring Break 2016 #3

Got a few more things crossed off the lists... Remember the old dump truck I borrowed to do the roof last fall? Well... It sat. And the brakes drained out. and the battery went dead. And I've been busy with this that and the other. Had my pa help me get the brakes bled, and we FINALLY got the shingles and carpet hauled to the dump. Yay! glad that parts over with.



High on the list is getting to the floor. Its got some really loose spots- not really creaky, the boards just have a lot of flex. Picked up some shims and started wiggling them in.



Shims:



Floor feels 100% more solid. Its going to have to be, because I just picked THIS up:



And it will be sitting right about in that spot. Eventually. When its cleaned up. Which may not happen for a long, long time... *sigh*

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Operation Spring Break 2016!

SPRING BREAK! The time teachers use to catch up on everything they fall behind on around the house during the school year... Of course we wake up to an inch of snow on the ground after some really nice weather.



It melted off quick though. Got Operation: Spring Break 2016, task one finished up. We are *officially* done moving all of our crap over here. Cleaned out the last of the storage shed.

Got grandpas truck drug over,



And all of the heavy crap was moved with this ooolllllddddd cart. Worked great.



Storage shed empty!

This Old House #11: Thanksgiving and Dining Rooms.

What, y'all thought I gave up? Spent a portion of Thanksgiving break sucking up leaves...



Then the snow hit, and it got COLD.











Then we had a poop-load of people over for Thanksgiving dinner...







And the day after Thanksgiving, my wife decided to enlist everyone that stuck around in ripping the dining room to shreds. Something along these lines:



That left me to the simple task of peeling the wallpaper strip off the ceiling, cause, you know, I'm the tall one.







I scraped, I rolled, I sprayed, I sanded, I tired everything under the sun and that stuff DID NOT want to come off... Finally what ended up working sorta okay was the iron- yup, I spent the first three hours trying things out, and the last 2 hours holding that iron over my head while standing on a ladder, heating the strip up and scraping it off an inch at a time. Barf.

Moving on. Starting to look pretty good! One problem- never ask an "artist" to help you "paint".





Alas, it was in an awkward spot and had that green showing from behind so it got painted over.

Some of the help.

This Old House #5: Labour Day and Wood Floors.

Labour day and we be labourin. Here's the front room- our first project.  Some before pics:







The trim, while it looks really cool, is NOT actually a wood grain. It was all hand painted with a roller to look like wood grain. I like it a lot, but after some discussion it needs to go. The trim will be white to brighten in up a bit and add some contrast to the wood floors under the carpet. We'll keep the yellow for now. Spent the day sanding and painting. Still have to tape and paint all the little edges everywhere, but its starting to look good.



Peeled back some more of the carpet. We had pulled a little corner back and were excited by what we saw- floor looked to be in pretty good shape. Of course, you KNOW it couldn't be that simple... Right!?





Yeah, the wire there by the door... Not too impressed with that.

  Haven't talked with Mrs. Punch yet, but the carpet will probably get rolled back in place while we finish the painting in here and then redo the dining room. The floor is definitely salvageable, but its going to take some elbow grease. I think it would be best to get the dining room done and any other room downstairs that we plan on having as a wood floor, so we can rip all the carpet out at the same time and sand / seal / stain / whatever we decide on the floors all at once.

Suggestions?

This Old House #4: Deep, Dark, Dungeons!

Okey Dokey.Believe it or not, this one of my favourite parts of this house.  Creepy things are behind this door...



Don't mind the mess in the kitchen. We haven't really unpacked as the plan is to (hopefully) have all new cabinets installed in the next couple of months. Anyways, lets head downstairs.



Yup. Thats dirt. Kinda neat how you can see the different layers as it goes down,



And if you look close you can even see the grass / roots from what is probably the virgin desert sod.



Apparently there used to be a boiler in the second floor as well as the basement- well, here's the remains of the boiler that used to be in the basement. This was not its original location. Not sure why it's partially cut up- but my guess is someone attempted to get it out of the basement, got it partially cut up, ran out of steam and just dragged the rest of the shell into this corner.



Remnants of knob and tube wiring. None of it's currently hooked up. Don' think there's even any wire left, just a few of the knobs.



Crawlspace under the front living room. Bricks are holding up a pipe that is supporting the floor joists. I believe this was an attempt at making the floors less saggy / creaky, and a successful one at that. Home inspector was impressed with how "solid" feeling the floors were.  If I remember correctly, Bishop Adams helped put this and a few others up.  Fitting- he sure put up a lot of support to everyone around him in his life, and I'm proud to have a reminder of him here.



Here's the utility room. Not too big. I was thinking it would be a great spot to set up an indoor pistol shooting range shooting into the dirt, but wife wasn't too keen on that idea.



The brick mixed in with the lava block is the base of a currently extinct chimney. Don't know how far up this one goes.

Some interesting wiring here.



The only ventilation in the basement comes from this window.



Furnace isn't too old, and the water softener is maybe 2? years old.



I just love the lava block foundation.



Rough cut floor joists and underside of the wood flooring. I believe its Red Pine?



Old plumbing that may have gone to an extra sink when it was an appartment? Also another chimney base in the foundation. This one goes all the way out, and the pot bellied stove in the upstairs library is connected to it. Going to give that one a try this winter.



Fun fun! Need to start researching vapor barriers. Soooo many things to do.

This Old House #3: Hidden Treasure.

So on top of this wicked awesome house, the people we bought it from left us some "hidden" treasures. I'll be throwing them in randomly to help keep this going a bit, especially as I start school tomorrow.

Here's the first hidden treasure. This giant armoire(?). No info, no markings, have no idea when it was brought in to the house, just that it looks fairly old but not ancient. I say that because I doubt a *really* old armoire would have had any type of glass, let alone a mirror this size...





There was some serious head scratching about how to move it... We wanted to put it in a different room. I noticed it was kinda shaky- when you open the door the whole thing shifts to the side. I got to looking an it turns out the whole thing breaks down into much smaller pieces rather easily. Loosen a couple of "nuts" on the top, and a couple more on the bottom, and viola.

The whole top pops off.





The sides could easily come off too, but this made it short enough to fit through the doorways.



Has some pretty cool carvings,



And dovetail fittings.



Has a wooden "lock box" inside behind the door, and then the drawers on the front. The lock box looks like it was added later but still has working skeleton key locks.

Any ideas on age or manufacturer?