So after being "verbally" chastised, I went out hunting in Belfield to see if I can get some welding done. I walked down into the very small town to the only shop I could see:

That's a Cenex gas station just to the left there. I asked the lady behind the counter if there was a welder in town. She asked one of the other customers and they both agreed that Tony Krebs is the only one available. The guy suggested I call first to make sure he was in his shop. Directions is to go back out to 85, make a right. At the other end of town is a railroad bridge. Walk over that and go east on the road just past the bridge. About a mile and a half beyond that is Tony.

It looks like it's back just beyond the left trees there. Right near that big white thing, whatever that is. I headed back to my motel to get the parts and to call Tony to make sure he was there. Sure enough someone was in the shop and they can handle aluminum welding. I said great and headed on out. I used up some suntan lotion as it was going to be a walk :)

It's not as far away as it looks here.

All the cows are looking at me. The white bits are all cow faces. "What's he doing _walking_? What's he taste like? Shhh, only California cows are happy." Pretty creepy.

Looking at this pic, the trees to the right of center with the thin white line over them. That's the Krebs.

I got down to the shop and Tony said he could certainly do it. We discussed the problem and how it fits together. He got a steel rod and inserted it in the opening. Since welding is melting aluminum, he wanted a blank in place to keep it from collapsing. Steel has a higher melting point so it's the best material for this. This is after Tony got the blank in and was setting it in the vice to do the welding.

A metal shop. Wow. I know Rita won't let me set this up in the garage :D

A quick shot of the vice and lever with the blank. It's a bit blurry. Not much you can do about that.

We chatted for a little bit and then he got melting while we chatted. He said he's gone musket hunting in Colorado and with all the people needing welding help, he's about ready to bring a little 110 along with him and make a few bucks :D

Close up of the welding process.

He had a couple of dogs, one of which was very friendly and of course the requisite Shop Cat! They're required for the mice and such. He was also very friendly.

He used the drill press to center punch the opening and then a shaper to remove some excess aluminum and then cut out the groove in the center.

Tony was quite amazed when I told him I'd walked from town. It's two miles! :) I said it wasn't that bit a deal and that I liked the walk. Heck, I didn't even get that dusty during the walk. Anyway, he had his friend, who was looking for something to get done give me a lift back to town (after accepting the $20 charge from me :) ). He even told his friend that I'd walked from town. Either it's unusual for them to walk with trucks and ATVs or he was amazed a non-farmer type like me (we talked about computers) was willing to actually take the walk. Hard to tell.

Anyway, I had to break out my file to get the gap wide enough to accept the pin. Once that was fine tuned, I was able to assemble the clutch lever and I'm ready to go again. I'll still wait on the package as it's good to have a spare but now I have something new to talk about :)

Thanks to black_hills on STN for the abuse :D