MarcIssan

I forgot to respond to the comment about a breather...there isn't one. Are you suggesting that from use the lack of a breather could cause a leak? Does that expand the fluid and gas inside or something? I did have a leak around the seal of the output shaft. It even leaked when it wasn't in use and I chalked it up to bad seals. I bought new ones but I haven't gotten that far on the reassembly.

So you think that one gasket with proper sealer will do? I have all but one, which I forgot to order, but really wondered if I needed to double them up. For me it's worth spending 350 bt to get one premade.

Thanks. I really only drilled fewer than 10 holes with it so far so there is no wear marks on the spline or ring gear. I see where gaskets would change gear meshing but every cover had 2 gaskets even the ones not associated with gear meshing so I think this was just their method. I can order more gaskets...they are 350 bt for a custom order...I was just fishing for information from others with more experience. Thanks for your comments...it will be interesting if others have something to add. Cheers

I bent the output shaft of my earth auger being careless. I backed up over a small shrub which happened to have a stump at the center and the tip of my auger hit it and as I proceeded to back up I bent the shaft, the auger, and cracked the case. Fast forward and I had the shaft straightened, the auger fixed, and the case welded and my question is about assembly. Every cast iron cover that mounts to the main case had a paper or fiber type gasket attached to it with some type of adhesive...not silicone though. The main case also had a gasket attached in the same way and these two parts mated seal to seal. There didn't seem to be any gasket sealer in between them...and yes it leaked before I bent the shaft. I couldn't find matching gaskets so I had custom gaskets made to fit...but I only bought one of each. The gasket material is rubber and 1mm thick. In my old-school auto repair days we used one gasket mating two parts together and applied liberal amount of gasket sealer before torquing the bolts but now I wonder which method is better. Considering this is the one and only time I want to pull this apart, I absolutely want to make sure it seals the first try. I'd kick myself in the <deleted> if it leaked once I get it all together, filled it with 90 weight oil, and began using it again. It's the same concept as any differential housing so I'm asking those with experience what is my best approach here and what type of gasket sealer do you like. I rebuilt my rotary tiller last year and used a silicone sealer from the tractor parts store and it worked on that machine plus it was easy to peel off when I subsequently had to remove the cover plate a few months later. For those interested, Westbound Engineering has a custom gasket service and all you need is a drawing like attached. They do a fast turnaround ...for me it was 2 days. You can visit their website at WWW.Thaiseal.com. Thanks in advance.

You could dissect this several ways. In terms of 'quality'...humm...if it doesn't have impurities in the vaccine then the quality is Ok. It just doesn't work as well as others so more correctly the efficacy is low(er) than others and as a result the 'others' are more desirable. We'll never know the real mortality rate of any of them so we can't judge ChinoVAC that way but if I'm getting 2 jabs of anything, I want the one that works the best...

Upon our return to Udon Thani from Bangkok after 6 weeks in America, the local headman initially required a 2 week home quarantine. The following day we were taken to the university for testing. Showing a negative result, the home quarantine was lifted.

Thai nationals are exempt from the PCR test requirement however the airline may require one in order to board. We just returned to Thailand Aug 5th and not taking any chances both my Thai wife and I were tested and had the proper documentation to prove it.

Water under the bridge really.

Do not use any of the free test sites as they are more for your personal satisfaction. I found they do not issue the proper certificate (that satisfied Thailand) and just showing 'NEGATIVE' from the text you get from the testing site will not work. The day I departed (Aug 5th) 18 people were denied and sent home because all they could show was a text from the testing agency. Also, make sure your document says "RT-PCR" as the test type and nothing else. At the testing center I got an RT-PCR test but their document said "COVID-19" test and I was denied a boarding pass. It wasn't until after the testing site edited my file so I could download a new document with the proper wording would the airline provide my boarding pass and check my luggage. That delay cost me over an hour.

As of April 2021 the Fit to Fly is no longer needed. Check the Thai Embassy website. You do, however, need to apply for the COE at https://coethailand.mfa.go.th/. Read the directions and at the bottom of each document upload preview window, click 'SAVE' or your docs will be discarded when you exit the site.

I am not sure I qualified. See below: Under the new provisions of the VISA EXEMPTION RULE and BILATERAL AGREEMENT effective December 31, 2016, passport holders of 55 countries are entitled to enter Thailand under this rule provided that they meet the following criteria: The visit is strictly for tourism purposes. They must have a confirmed return ticket to show that they are flying out of Thailand within 30 days of entry, as appropriate. Open tickets do not qualify. Traveling overland out of Thailand by train, bus, etc to Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia (including en route to Singapore), Myanmar, etc may be accepted as proof of exiting Thailand. You may be asked to show your flight ticket on entering Thailand. If you do not possess a flight ticket to show you will be exiting Thailand within 30 days of entry you will be most likely refused entry. It will also be necessary to prove that you have funds of at least 10,000 THB per person during your stay in Thailand. The last thing I wanted was to be refused boarding at the gate in Seattle or upon arrival in Bangkok. I would have lost my reservation at the ASQ hotel which would have flushed 66,000 bt down the drain and if Immigration refused my entry into Thailand the aggravation of coming up with a different plan last minute would have been far greater than figuring out the COE process at the first go.

Now that I know how it all goes, if I were to do it again it would be much easier. I have all the docs saved to my MacBook and I know what to ask from my Medicare company and what to upload to the COE website. But the added cost of the ASQ hotel is a big put off for me as well as the $250/person PCR test so I doubt I'm going to travel again until the quarantine is cancelled.

I landed in the LOS Aug 5th.

I just went through all of that and travel to the USA was easy but the paperwork coming back was a huge issue for me. So let me explain. For the return, my qualification was my marriage to a Thai national. When applying for the COE I needed to upload a copy of my marriage certificate (which I never thought to bring), copies of both our U.S. passports plus my wife's Thai passport and her Thai ID card, Covid insurance valid through the end-date of my visa (for me that was 10 months) or a letter from my insurance provider stating specific covid coverage, and a 'written' PCR test within 72 hours of my departure, our ASQ hotel reservation confirmation, and a copy of our return flight reservation. A rapid test is not acceptable nor is a picture/text of a negative test on my telephone...it must be a printed document with specific information. 18 people were sent home at the check-in counter because they did a Rapid Test and only had a text showing 'negative' which is not acceptable. All the free Covid tests, including the PCR tests, are not suggested for travel since no printable document is produced, the test results text does not conform to Thailand standards, and there is no guarantee the results will arrive by the departure date. A Fit to Fly is no longer required as of April 2021. I also uploaded our Covid vaccine cards. The challenges I ran into included: 1-Asking my neighbor to enter my house in Thailand and search for our marriage certificate then send a photo for reproduction. Fortunately we gave him a key in case of emergencies. 2-Getting Blue Cross Medicare Advantage insurance company to write a letter of coverage that specifically stated "Unlimited Covid 19 benefits" internationally. They were content copying and pasting vague and generic language from the handbook which was denied by the Thai Embassy in Los Angeles. He said "we don't what to think...we don't want to guess.. so the letter must say what we require or you cannot return to Thailand." I requested the letter of coverage my first week in America and it took nearly 5 weeks to get what I needed. They only reply by physical mail and that takes 10-14 days to arrive. In my case it took 2 requests which spanned 4+ weeks to receive a letter accepted by the Embassy. I thought about buying covid travel insurance but at my age it was around 120,000 bt for a full year, they required payment in full, and no refunds upon early cancellation. 3-I booked our ASQ hotel on Agoda for 88,000 bt. I called the hotel to learn about any documents they need and if they had a vegetarian menu. They said DO NOT BOOK on Agoda since there are many documents to send in advance of receiving my paid-in-full reservation confirmation (which is also needed for the COE) and Agoda doesn't have the system in place to request them and they suggested I cancel with Agoda and rebook with them. When I cancelled with Agoda, they stated I would get a ZERO refund! ZERO!! Really...<deleted>!! Upon checking with Agoda customer service (email request), they said it is up to the hotel and since the hotel offered zero refund they cannot do otherwise. I called the hotel and they assured me they have not yet received my funds and this was all on Agoda. Another call to Agoda..this time they said to call my bank to stop the charge. I called the bank who said they cannot stop a charge that I authorized just because I changed my mind. Checking on the Agoda site there is no customer service telephone number listed anywhere and many of the complaint/request options link back to the same online request form or the FAQ. So I Googled Agoda and found their HQ is in Singapore so I called them and to my relief they (eventually) gave me a full refund (after a full investigation) and I must say their service 'eventually' was pleasant and satisfying. However I may not book again with them considering the trouble and the run-around I received early on. Agoda is part of Hotels.com which also owns Kayak and a few others. 4-The COE website is pretty good but I had an issue that took a bit to sort out. In the areas to upload documents there are certain limits applied. For example, the number of documents allowed might be 5 and if I uploaded 6, one of them will not be saved. The site will accept all 6 and show them in the preview window but when I actually saved them, only 5 got saved and the 6th was not. Then I got denied due to the lack of THAT document. I uploaded it again time and again but it was never saved because it was always #6 and the site doesn't pop up an alert of any kind. Once I figured it out, my solution was to remove and re-arranged my uploads through the edit/update my information. It was my fault but I would think the validation would be on the 'upload' telling me I am over my limit. So my advice is to upload your docs, exit the system, then log in to view/edit your file to assure all the necessary uploads were saved. 5-More COE website issues. I was required to enter my originating flight number departing America and my flight number entering Thailand if they were different. My carrier was Japan Airlines. My ticket showed a flight number of 707 so entered it. I was denied for invalid flight number or something (no further explanation was given). Then I edited it to include JAL707. It was denied again. I Googled Japan Airlines and found the ATA ticket designator is JL..so I changed my flights to JL707 ect and all was well. The website doesn't validate the ATA ticket designators against a table of values so when I entered it incorrectly and it was accepted, I thought all was well. Since it takes 2-4 days for the Embassy to view my file each time I updated it, the days clicked by after every error I made. It was only 1-2 days before we were set to depart that I finally got the COE and I started a full 2 weeks ahead of our departure. The COE is very specific and they want what they want and when I called the embassy for certain exceptions (lack or marriage license) they were clear that "I may not qualify to return to Thailand" unless I provide exactly what they need. They have no room for exceptions and they really didn't care if I returned or not!! I hope that helps. I vow not to travel to the USA again until all the covid restrictions and COE requirements subside. The return to Thailand was costly, it wasted 2 weeks of my time, and the documents they require leave no room for exceptions or errors. I'll pass up the hassle. One more thing...the PCR test that we both got was the correct test however the certificate stated "Covid 19" test. At the gate, they rejected the form since it did not specifically state RT-PCR. I had to sort this out with the testing agency. It took an hour for the check-in agent to arrive at that conclusion after saying a telephone call from them would do, then changed it to text from them would do, and lastly said only the proper written document would do. Ok so I called the testing agency and they edited my file to say RT-PCR. That took 30+ minutes! Time is running out. I logged into my account, downloaded the updated document, showed it to the check-in agent and they finally checked me in. Then I went to the business office to get a printed copy since both JAL and Thailand immigration require only a printed document. I arrived 4 hours early and was first in line so the 90+ minute delay this caused me didn't disrupt my return flight. BUT if I arrived 3 hours ahead I would have been 30th in line or so. At the rate of check-in, it would have been 90+ minutes in queue and this 90+ minute delay would have certainly caused me to miss the flight. As it was we were at the gate with only 10-15 minutes to spare!

I started my COE when I arrive in the USA on June 22. I actually did the online thing 4 weeks later since some of my docs were hard to gather up. when their response took longer than 3-4 days I emailed the Consular to ask why and that day or the next I got a reply. You might try that approach.

I guess the price negotiation begins at the door then!

Sad for responsible people but a necessity for the others who despite the risks keep spreading the virus to friends and family. Even asymptomatic people can infect others so besides a lock up how do you keep these in place until the transmission period had ended?

You know, I ordered a new Maserati the other day too. I emailed the local dealership and instructed them to set aside a new red one and assured them the money is 'no problem'. Then I called the BMW dealer and ordered a new 630 AMG for my wife. I'm not surprised neither of them sent press releases. Do you think either of them will actually do anything until the green shows up? Naw...same as all the Covid jabs this government has been bragging about for months and months.

Yeah my wife used to get that way at times but only in the car as we headed out for a few days away. One time as we approached Korat I calmly asked her to find GPS directions to the nearest bus station and responded to her inquiry as to "Why?" and said that she obviously didn't like where I was going or how I was driving so my plan is to drop her off at the bus station with 500 bt and she can continue the 4 days on her own while I do the same. I said we can meet up again back at our house in 5 days ...or not...depends on if she decides to return. That ended that!

Me thinks TAT has become part of some medical marijuana study that looks at the subjects reality both before and after a huge bong hit!!

They should start a home delivery service. Rub and tug mobile!

Yup. I went to America to get jabbed and have 2 Pfizers protecting me at the moment. We are in our final week of quarantine and will be free soon. The shots were free but the cost to get them was considerable and at the time of our departure the situation here looked pretty gloomy for Expats getting a decent vaccination. Along the way we made a vacation out of it and visited friends and family and had a day at Fisherman's Wharf in San Fran.

A few weeks ago there was a big deal about the '1.5 million' doses donate by America and now the number had been exaggerated up to '2.5 million'. It makes me wonder if the 32.5 million doses is also largely exaggerated.

I don't agree. The rated efficacy of each vaccine is the % reduction in the rate of infection after the required number of doses. The vaccine prevents infection by a certain tested percentage AND it prevents serious consequences in those who do get infected. Also, it is more difficult for Covid to morph into another variant in a person who has been vaccinated than it is in an easy target of one who has not been vaccinated. If 100% of the population were vaccinated, the theory is Covid will stop morphing and will weaken to become one of the Covid variants similar to the ones that cause the common cold. Yes we will never be rid of Covid 19 but if we protect the people from serious illness and cause a weakening of the disease..we win.

Patience?? They have a lifetime of being told what to do by the varying powers that control the country. Freedom of speech hasn't really been exercised here and organized protests have been quashed whenever it grows to a point of concern. All most do is murmur discontent within small groups and are aware they could 'disappear' if their voices get too loud.