New here, Diesel, Cars, Oilfield..

Hey guys. Been using this place a long time. I thought I had registered a few years ago, but I'm not a particularly vocal person, so I don't exactly chat on forums a lot these days, except to ask questions.

I'm in my late/mid twenties, I'm a professional heavy equipment and diesel mechanic, and I work on cars and flip maybe 5-8 of them a year. I usually have a project or two through out the year, and I pick up small broken down cars for selling or giving to friends/family here and there. Recently, a 2000 ******, 1999 Audi A8 (bad trans), and a 1999 montana van (accident damage, intake gaskets). Just stuff to pass the time. The ****** I have yet to open up but pretty sure it has dropped a valve seat. Shall find out this week.

That may sound like a total blast to you, but I also own a 1991 Isuzu Impulse RS, in white, that is a recently started ongoing project. Its pretty well hammered, so I'm just keeping it drivable and having fun with it as I please. I also own a 2005 Mazda-speed Miata with a Flyin Miata garret turbo setup. I could have been more original as some on here have been, I believe one of your members here has one of the quickest MX-5s around a track i've ever heard of, however, the turbo setup i run does the trick, and requires little maintenance... I like it. Toys other than that, I don't have a ton.

I'm working out in Dickinson, ND at the moment. I've been doing the Heavy equipment stuff for a few years in western ND, starting in the town of Williston, which some may actually recognize as the largest boom town in western ND right now. Got a bit fed up with the situation there so I came down south some where its ever so slightly less busy. It works to my advantage, as I took a raise and better rotational schedule with the move. I work on over the road Semi tractors, and trailers with deck mounted engines, pumps, and other various machines. Primarily all the stuff is designed to move water, acid, or cement, via either a transmission, driveshaft, and reduction system, or hydraulic pumps. Some small pneumatic systems. We are also tasked with all the road drivetrain maintenance, which is probably about 30% of our work. Our peterbuilt/cummins units are still new enough that DPF, SCR, DEF, and a few other things are warranty work, but we are starting to have EGR, EGR cooler, turbo, and other related annoying failures that take up our time.

I'll see if I can get some shots of a lot of our stuff tomorrow for you guys. A lot of this stuff is large. The good news is, a 24" adjustable, or 24/36in pipe wrench will cover a lot of your annoying stuff. If nobody is familiar with hammer unions and hammer wrenches, we use those a good bit too. Most of us carry the basic sockets from 5mm to about 36mm and 1/4in to 2in, in 1/4 to 3/4 drive, with a few 1" sockets, and a lot of other stuff. Needless to say, tools get large, and expensive. I buy a lot of stuff from Harborfreight, amazon, ebay, Craigslist, and pawnshops just to manage my costs, but I have a few tooltruck tools in spots as well.

I recently picked up a Montezuma Toolbox as well, per the suggestions from this site, which were extremely helpful. I have a 72x30 Montezuma Elite in blue. I quite like it. Not perfect, but for the price, such a great solution. I've had a few small issues with it thus far that I think are slight defects, but to be fair I haven't called back yet to ask so I won't mention them yet. What is cool, i was able to pull the lock out of the spare drawer and put it into my road box, and now I have keyed alike boxes. I'm going to try and do this with all my boxes so I only need one set of keys, not 4... hah.

As per usual, I get long winded on stuff like this. Hope you guys can wade through it. Glad to be here amongst like minded people.

Just to be nice, here are some photos, linked from my facebook/google.

my 05 MSM, sporting 949 racing wheels/hankook rs3s
http://sphotos.**.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/522686_10151812513535478_563239422_n.jpg
My beat up 1991 impulse rs, *its awd, 1.6l turbo, 5 speed, lotus messed with the shocks..
https://lh6.googleusercontent.com/-.../AAAAAAAAADE/0C7rfXisMZY/w497-h373/2012-04-17
more impulse.
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-.../AAAAAAAAABw/x2LUsoV2Zgc/w497-h373/2012-04-17
one of the first days I got my new Montezuma Elite box. far from done at this point
http://sphotos.**.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/252788_10151794252525478_793348046_n.jpg
Just unloaded it and set it. Note the 5 figure grey matco box. pure coincidence...
http://sphotos.**.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/547545_10151789658640478_738996056_n.jpg
my road box looks tiny in comparison.
http://sphotos.**.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/535999_10151794251125478_1065690550_n.jpg
four foot 850ft lb tq wrench, and me
http://sphotos.**.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/313868_10150823029015478_1645421746_n.jpg
we pulled the radiator that would be in the right side out already. Started on the left.
http://sphotos.**.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/535501_10151526063375478_621934182_n.jpg
equipment we work on.
http://sphotos.**.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash4/389765_10151730128850478_1417507185_n.jpg

Welcome. I also work in the patch. I see you work for the guys in the big new shop north of town. I pass through on a regular basis headed for RC. That is some nice looking facility they have built.

Oddly enough its mostly parts and drill bit storage. Over half of it. I find it sortta silly. Much better than the old one though. What's RC? Richardton? Are you a mechanic too or long haul driver?

Rapid City. Dickinson i half way for me. Four hours either way. I do a few different things here from Well Site Supervisor to surface drilling rentals. I used to own some wireline trucks and dabbled in a few other things.

Sounds like your in the big money. Good buisness out here for sure. I have dabbled in a few things, ran a small buisness servicing rig site barracks doing cleaning and such, and sold rvs out here for a while as well. There's just so much need out here its incredible.

We've even got a few pipelines (other than the xl) that are going up right now. One is a natural gas line to colorado, the other is a smaller oil line headed to texas. Where their respective refineries are at.

Right now I'm trying to come up with a way to set up some sort of housing rentals in my area since there is clearly profit to be made on any property you obtain. There's a ton of people in need of homes.

I'm pretty happy with my day job though at the moment. Had to dial it back a year ago because I was burning up with so much going on. But I quite enjoy the buisness education this place has given me.

Yes finding people is so difficult. Thats what I like about what I am doing now. We have "dumb iron" for the most part so very little maintenance and repairs and my main partner is great at handling the day to day ops. The supervision is a laptop,truck, some prerequisite safety courses and the experience I got along the way.

We may have to go for a beer someday and start the next big thing.

Haha. I'm always here bud, and getting better every day. Nice scenery here to if you ever want to go for a drop top cruise.