In 1992, a small village owner became the richest man in the village by owning a car.

Chapter 159: No crane available, and lunch not provided.

Around 11 a.m., the four men had already drained all the oil from the engine and removed the oil pan. Only two or three bolts remained at all the connection points. All that was left was for the crane to lift the engine, and then all the engine parts could be disassembled in the afternoon.

But will it really be that easy? Yu Dawei knows with his own eyes that it definitely won't be that easy.

“I just went to see my apprentice. It was right that we didn’t ask to borrow tools, which would only make things difficult for him. My apprentice received a notice from his superiors this morning that they are cracking down on the lending of tools, and that the fines for lost tools will be doubled.” Master Lü sat on the back of his pickup truck and sneered disdainfully. “They’re obviously targeting us. Anyway, I didn’t let my apprentice come over. It would have been unwise for him to come at this time.”

"I understand." Yu Dawei frowned. "It seems that borrowing a crane won't be that easy. I'll try to find Engineer Xu first."

"By the way, where is lunch?" Master Lü added.

Yu Dawei nodded, then went to the office building and found XCMG, and talked about needing a crane to lift the engine.

Just as Yu Dawei had expected, the other party did not say they would not lend it, but simply made the excuse that both cranes were working at the mine and they could not spare the time at the moment.

When Yu Dawei arrived, he clearly saw a crane drive past him and then into the warehouse on the south side.

"Alright, I'll figure it out myself." Using General Manager Huang to pressure him wouldn't work at all, so after thinking for a moment, he asked again, "Where's the cafeteria?"

"It's on the west side, near the water room." Xu Gongxian gave a clear answer this time, and thoughtfully added, "Our canteen has vegetables, fruits, and meat for lunch. After all, we're all doing heavy physical labor, so we need to make sure we get enough nutrition."

Yu Dawei nodded and left the office. He then led his men to the mine's canteen, but when they were queuing for food, they were refused food because they did not have employee ID cards.

XCMG was also present, and this time he looked even more troubled, saying that the rules couldn't be broken, otherwise anyone could come to eat in the cafeteria in the future.

This action really angered Master Lü and his two companions. Yu Dawei stared at Engineer Xu with a sullen face for a while, then turned around and led his men away in a sorry state.

The four of them have been repairing cars for so long, and there's nowhere to wash their hands. Their faces and hands are still filthy. There's nowhere to eat, not even a bite to eat. There's no crane either... If this were Yu Dawei in his previous life, he would have already started a fight with them.

"Brother, what should we do? I'll listen to you." Axe frowned. Xu Gong, that bastard, looks like a potato. He doesn't even need his brother to lift a finger; he can easily knock him over.

"Didn't Aunt Huang bring us some dry food? Let's eat that to tide us over." Yu Dawei looked at Master Lü with some remorse, "I'm sorry to have troubled you, sir."

"Sigh, let's not talk about that. Actually, we should have expected this." Master Lü said to Yu Dawei with a sigh, as a man emerged from beside the excavator in the distance.

Standing at about 1.6 meters tall and around twenty years old, wearing blue overalls stained with oil, he held his bulging belly in his hands. When he saw Master Lü and the other three approaching the pickup truck, he first looked around and then quickly ran over: "Master, I brought you some food. Hurry up and put it in the truck so no one can see it."

The man pulled his hands out of his bulging belly, holding a bag of six steamed buns, a small bag of pickled vegetables (Old Qingcheng pickled vegetables and dried radish), and a hot dish of stir-fried bamboo shoots.

"Why are you here?" Master Lü glared at the other man, as if blaming his foolish apprentice for risking his life to come here. He then turned to Yu Dawei and introduced him, "This is my little apprentice, Wang Xiaomeng."

"Hello, Master Yu." Wang Xiaomeng greeted Yu Dawei with a smile first, and then explained to his master, "I think they went too far, not even giving you a bite to eat. I usually get along well with that guy in the kitchen, so I stole some things."

Wang Xiaomeng grinned at Master Lü as he said this: "My master doesn't even get lunch when he comes to my place, and I feel really bad about it."

"Alright, I got it, hurry up and go." Master Lü urged them on, showing no joy at having obtained the food.

His young apprentice may only be twenty, but he got married in the countryside when he was seventeen or eighteen. Now he has two daughters to support. If someone sees this and reports it, the pillar of the family will not be able to hold up the beam.

"Okay, I'll be going now." Wang Xiaomeng knew perfectly well that his master was concerned about him. The luckiest thing in his life was meeting his master when he was a bricklayer.

Although he is extremely stingy and likes to take advantage of others, he is genuinely good to his own people and never lets them suffer losses.

"By the way, Master, Xu Gong is a notorious swindler, so you guys be careful. I'm leaving now." After saying that, Wang Xiaomeng turned around and ran back the way he came, around the excavator, and into the garage through the small door.

He really didn't dare to stay any longer. He had run into a colleague from the same maintenance team when he arrived. He had never gotten along with that person, and he didn't know if the colleague had seen him.

"What do you mean?" Master Lü looked at Yu Dawei, knowing that his own apprentice would never lie to him.

If what he said is true, then if the crane can't be brought in this afternoon, there's no point in continuing the work.

The entire engine, including the flywheel and fan, weighs at least 1,500 pounds. It's a pipe dream for these few people to build it by hand.

Even disassembling it in the car wouldn't work. Some of the disassembled parts could be taken out, but the weight of some individual parts was not to be underestimated. "Let's go eat in the car first, and talk while we eat." Yu Dawei led the three of them into the pickup truck.

First, he wiped his hands with a clean cloth, then took out the food and water that Huang Ma had brought. Then everyone ate steamed buns with pickled vegetables.

Master Lü is a wise man. No matter where he goes to repair cars, he always carries a full bottle of tea, which is nearly a liter and a half, so he never has to worry about not having water to drink.

"Right now, there's no crane available. Even if we could disassemble the engine completely, getting it out would still be a problem," Master Lü said, succinctly pointing out the difficulty while eating.

“Yes, I mentioned the crane to XCMG before, but they clearly didn’t want to lend it.” Yu Dawei thought for a moment, then turned to look at Master Lü. “Before going to the office building, I noticed that the Atlas Copco next door still had its keys on the truck. Now it’s just missing the slings and the lifting rings.”

Master Lü's eyes lit up: "You mean..."

Then his expression turned troubled again, and he pondered with some hesitation: "It's not easy. Putting aside the lack of slings and lifting rings, just using an excavator as a crane is quite dangerous. Without a highly skilled excavator driver, it would be absolutely difficult to control."

“Who said there isn’t one? Isn’t this ready-made?” Yu Dawei raised his head and looked at Yao Jinfu, who was eating a steamed bun.

Yao Jinfu looked up blankly: "Lifting an engine? I've never done that before, bro. Isn't it dangerous?"

"Even if the engine is in danger, you won't be in danger, so don't worry," Yu Dawei said calmly.

He had done this many times in his past life. He went to a farm to repair a high-powered crane, but the surrounding area was all fields, and he couldn't find a crane for a while. He had no choice but to use an excavator as a crane.

Hook the slings onto the teeth of the bucket, then pull the bucket back and lift the boom and forearm upwards.

Theoretically speaking, an excavator with a hydraulic system should be able to lift an engine weighing several hundred kilograms without any problem. Although this Deutz engine is heavy, the Atlas excavator itself is not small either.

There's absolutely no problem with suspending the parts from your own body.

The only problem now is the slings and lifting rings. XCMG manages its tools so strictly these days that they have no chance at all.

Master Lü felt Yu Dawei's gaze and hurriedly declined, saying, "There's no shop sign. Don't you dare try anything with my apprentice. Absolutely not."

Yu Dawei sighed, he really had no other choice: "Then we can only dismantle it little by little from top to bottom, and carry down whatever we can. When we get back, we'll talk to General Manager Huang about this."

As for why we don't say it now, it's because distant water can't quench immediate thirst.

"Master! I'm here!" Just as the group was about to continue disassembling the engine, Wang Xiaomeng ran over from a distance, dragging a toolbox in his hand.

"What brings you here?" Master Lü asked curiously as he walked over.

"Sigh, some bastard in my class found out and is trying to blackmail me with this." Wang Xiaomeng's face showed a sneer. "Who do you think I am? I won't put up with this! He wants to sue me? Let him sue me, I'll come and help him!"

"Damn it, I already felt bad seeing you guys all alone and helpless, but now I don't have to think about it anymore. I'm going to fight them to the death! I've been annoyed with that bastard Lao Xu for a long time." Wang Xiaomeng saw his master's worry and quickly comforted him again, "Master, you don't have to worry. General Manager Huang came yesterday and specifically came to the maintenance team to tell me to help you guys when I'm free."

"It's just that everyone is intimidated by Lao Xu's power, so no one dares to step forward. And that lousy deputy factory director, Four-Eyes, is even more hateful than Lao Xu." Wang Xiaomeng talked a lot like beans spilling from a bamboo tube, mostly in Sichuan dialect, but Yu Dawei and Yao Jinfu could still understand the gist of it.

"Sigh, since this is your choice, then help me dismantle the car properly." Seeing that his apprentice was determined to join them, Master Lü could only pat him on the shoulder to comfort him. "By the way, do you have any slings in your toolbox? We forgot to bring them when we left today."

Wang Xiaomeng: "..."

Master, could you please stop worrying about me while simultaneously asking me for things?

"Yes. We have steel wire rope!" Wang Xiaomeng opened the pulley toolbox he had dragged over from behind, and took out a four-meter-long steel wire rope and four lifting rings.

When Yu Dawei and Master Lü looked at these two items, it was as if a 30-year-old single man had seen someone else's young wife in her pajamas.

"Yes, I'll take it." Master Lü nodded, indicating that it was good.

(End of this chapter)