Dougster

Well, this week's credit card payment cleared, "room" appeared on the card as of this morning... and so the old Dougster™ trotted off to Milton CAT to go bucket shopping for his ULDM. In a totally unexpected twist, we stumbled upon a "new takeoff" digging bucket of the correct type (303/303.5) and size (20") in one of the massive site's bucket yards... complete with dead pins!!! Even better, we also found a slightly used (read: cutting edge paint was scratched) 40" finishing bucket of the correct type albeit without pins. To make a long story short, I left there today with BOTH buckets, complete with two sets of dead pins... at 25% off list. Needless to say, I was pleased as punch with that deal.

But on to the correction: Today, I got a completely different story on the defective bucket tooth issue. Today, I was told that the bolt-on teeth were perfectly fine... and that it was the welded/pinned "top pin" type teeth that were defective. Mama Mia!!! Fortunately, none of the bolt-on teeth or the "top pin" teeth were on any new buckets when we looked today. The teeth on my bucket are the new (old?) side-pinned teeth. For better or for worse, these are the teeth that are coming through on the current production CAT 303 and 303.5 mini-ex machines.

Dougster™

Mickey

Doug, some days you just can't loose. Too bad these days don't come more often.

1970 Bolens 1257 w/tiller
2005 Cub 3204 48" deck
Yanmar Fx24D
5' Howse rotary mower
RSB 1300 Yanmar tiller

Dougster

Amen Brother Mickey Normally, my luck ranges from bad down to worse... and sometimes even worst!!!

It was funny how we discovered these two buckets... we were not there out in the yard to look for them. The salesman was actually trying to locate a used 20" bucket for me to look at that he had found in his computer... when suddenly we stumbled upon this brand new take-off. I don't think it had been put into the computer yet. Believe it or not, I think this is the same bucket I found last week in one of their other yards (this place is massive beyond words). I assumed it was a special order for someone because of the dead pins being present and didn't give it a second thought. Next time, I will be more curious!

Likewise, the ditching bucket was a fluke as well. It was not supposed to be in that particular yard! I was told that none were out there... and yet we found two: a 47" brand new one and the 40" "slightly used" one. At this point, the wheelin' and dealin' began... and the rest is history!

Dougster™