You can go home again

My dad has never been one to pass up a deal on a cool tool or machine. A few years back, a friend of his offered up an old Miller Dial Arc, complete with a TIG setup and a pump for water to keep the torch cooled. It’s a big, heavy machine, but we had it running like a top before too long.

Dad hadn’t TIG welded in three decades, but he jumped back into it like it was second nature. It must be in the blood. We even had to do the ol’ clothes hanger trick, because he didn’t have any filler rod yet.

As time passed, the machine just took up too much space for the work he did. I was planning on giving him my Dynasty 200 to use, but that was stolen. I’d still like to get him a little inverter machine at some point.

Now, it’s not like I have a bunch of extra space. In fact, the shop I’m in now leaves me with a very small footprint, and I still have tools, steel, a car, a box truck, and a bunch of parts that are spread across storage units in the metro Detroit area. But the Dial Arc is rad, it runs great, and it has that perfect faded Miller blue patina with the old-school logo intact. I figured that worst-case scenario, I could stash it in the loft as a conversation piece, although I don’t think Darla was super stoked on that idea. No matter, I was grabbing it, along with a sandblaster and a paint compressor.

My Ram R/T has moved plenty of metal for me in the day, but its fiberglass Tonneau cover wouldn’t squeeze over the Miller. Besides, I’ve wanted to drive the Ram Rebel for some time now, and this felt like the perfect opportunity for a road trip to the westside of Michigan, where I grew up, in the new truck.

The 2019 Rebel looks the part of a 4x4 that would be right at home off-road or as a farm truck. I remember my grandpa and uncle always having work trucks around grandpa’s beef farm. He raised cattle and grew feed crops, so that meant many acres of corn and soybean fields to maintain. The trucks always played a vital role in checking on irrigation ponds and equipment, going to and from industrial tractors and combines with fuel and tools, or even just when it was easier to leave the tractor in the field and commute from the field to the house or town for lunch or dinner. There were quads and other little ATVs around, but this was before side-by-side days. Two tracks would get flooded and rutted and there were miles of off-road paths bordering and intersecting the fields, so you needed a pretty heavy-duty four-wheel drive setup to get work done.

Grandpa Habegger passed away recently. He’d sold off the farm, the land, and almost all of his equipment years ago, but there’s still a lot of farming done in the Middleville area. My brother-in-law Brian has a beautiful farmhouse, barns, and a bunch of acres right down the road from my mom and dad’s place. Earlier in the summer, we took a Gator back through his land on the same types of unkempt two-tracks I spent so much time on as a kid. It really took me back.

Even around Detroit, sitting in the Ram you feel like there’s no obstacle too formidable. Around our place there’s a bunch of construction work and road closures; let’s just say that the Rebel allowed for various shortcuts through the mess! But even in slightly flooded worksites, it’s still the city, and the thing I was truly looking forward to was getting the truck in a little bit of mud and dirt out in the country. After the 2 ½-hour drive and dinner with Mom, Dad, and my sister Melody, Dad and I drove over to the farmhouse; Brian was more than happy to accompany us back into the woods and fields he owns. The only bummer was that my nephew Arlo had just gone to bed! Guess I’ll have to bring back another awesome truck next time.

There’s a bit of everything in those field trails that snake back 2 ½ miles from the house and barn—mud, rocks, sand, a handful of inclines and declines, rutted trails, flooded trails, fallen trees, and so on. I’m not sure what it is about playing in dirt that’s so primal and so much freaking fun. There was one stretch where the irrigation rig had soaked part of the trail, so I raised up the suspension, clicked the Rebel into 4WD, and gave her hell. I slid it just a little sideways and tried to kick up as much mud as possible while going back and forth a half dozen times. It took a lot of quarters to wash off that dirt. Brian said if I give him a head’s up next time, he’ll make sure there’s even more mud.

Then, there were some narrow tracks skirting the fields on one side and bordering woods on the other. To make the transition from field to forest you almost had to know where the “secret entrance” was and just have faith the hidden door would open as you plowed into it. From the wide-open spaces of rows and rows of soybeans to thick brush and timber it’s like two completely different worlds existing on the same plane.

The tracks in the woods were harder to recognize, and made up of more difficult terrain, so I put the truck in 4-low and took it slow. The Rebel’s “hill descent” mode was neat, too; you could set it up so that the truck basically drove itself down the steep grades, but I still preferred doing it myself. On one of the climbs we went back and did it twice. Once, I crawled up, and the next time, I took it with speed. There was never a time in any terrain that I felt like I came close to maxing out the truck’s potential.

As day turned into dusk we were treated to a magnificent sunset, the kind only found in farmland. The sky turned rose and red and purple. As the sun sank, Brian pointed out a tree line in the distance, which marked a hill by the log house my dad built when I was a kid. All the visuals smoothed out as details became hidden in shadows. We came across a few different groups of deer, including a crew of bucks leaping through the beanstalks that laid before us, as we headed back towards the farm. I asked Brian how often he made it back on these trails. “Probably on average at least once a week. It’s not that I even have to; it’s just relaxing.” My sister does it too, taking the Gator and the kids on joy rides. It’s definitely part of the country lifestyle I’m jealous of.

Saturday morning I slept in a bit then enjoyed some bacon and eggs my dad cooked up. Then we headed out to the garage to load the equipment into the Rebel’s bed. At first glance, we weren’t sure the cherry-picker would lift the welding machine high enough to clear the height needed, but the adjustable air-suspension had slipped my mind. The 3 in. we were able to drop the truck gave us plenty of room. The machine and the rest of the heavy metal fit into the short bed with ease.

Heading home, you’d never have known that we were hauling 600 or 700 pounds. The bed had slick rails with adjustable tie down loops. Once everything was secured, I never had to think twice about it. For the first part of the Middleville to Detroit run, I always like taking the back roads, in no small part because Moo-ville Dairy is on the route. The line for cones and shakes was almost out the door, so I settled for a chocolate chip ice cream sandwich for the road and a block of cheddar cheese and chunk of cinnamon butter for home.

I mentioned the need to be cognizant of my shop’s footprint, so when I unloaded the machine, I decided to modify my Arc-Station fab table to fit over it. The machine came on a heavy plate with heavy duty casters, and the outside dimensions matched up with the table’s perfectly. The table’s legs were just tall enough to clear the Dial Arc, so putting them together was a no-brainer. I cleaned up the base a bit, dropped on the welder, re-assembled the table over the top, and called it a day. I already have my Dynasty 280DX to handle the heavy lifting, but I have a hard time telling a welding machine I don’t want it.

The justification to put a ‘19 Rebel to work, and the excuse to go home again, were just icing on the cake. Like my dad doesn’t pass up deals on tools, I can’t pass up the chance to drive cool vehicles. Or eat ice cream.

All images courtesy of Josh Welton, Brown Dog Welding.

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