Gold Rush, S03E12, The Merger

 

 

 

Audible Review

THE MERGER

 

The mining crews are 106 days into the 150 day mining season, and up at Quartz Creek in the Klondike, the mine site is at a stand still, since Todd Hoffman shut down his trommel. Todd calls an emergency meeting of both the Indian River and Quartz Creek crew. He breaks the news to the entire Hoffman crew, that he's going to shut down Quartz Creek for good, Todd also states that the failure could be blamed on this and that, but in the end it's his fault that Quartz Creek didn't pay off. Quartz Creek has only produced 7 ounces of gold worth about $11,000, meanwhile over at Indian River, Dave Turin has pulled 223 ounces worth over $350,000. Disappointed in Todd's performance at Quartz, their investor Jason threatened to pull the plug unless Todd cut costs. Todd Hoffman states that they all have to work together under one plan, that being Indian River, he also says that if they have to get from 500 to 1000 ounces out Indian River, they have to open up alot more ground, and for that they need every single crew member. Dave Turin says that this could just make everything collapse around them, but also believes that they can pull it off. Todd states that if they don't get their goal, they're not going to come back, if would simply be the end for them. Nobody is ready to go home just yet, so they're all pumped up to go, they all believe that if they stick together they can pull it off. Todd says that he's done the math, and that it is possible to get to 1000 ounces, he wants to get to 1000 ounces. With two excavators, two rock trucks and a dozer, Todd's crew makes the two mile journey from Quartz Creek to Indian River. They now have double the manpower and machines, the once rival crews have to put aside their differences and work together on the common goal of 1000 ounces.

In Southeast Alaska, at Porcupine Creek, the Dakota Boys are digging the grey material out of the glory hole, river washed rocks are a sign that they're on the gold. After a season of breakdowns, last week Fred finally brought in new equipment, and right away they saw results in the form of a $20,000 cleanup. With the plant processing their best dirt yet, they're certain that the next cleanup will be really great. Larger sized rocks have begun to show out of the dirt and Fred wants them run through their D-Rocker washplant, Dustin is a little bit concerned that the D-Rocker can't handle these huge rocks. As Dustin drops the huge rock into the D-Rocker, is completely rips off the deck on the machine, pushing it through the washplant, landing on the ground at the end, exposing the wheels beneath, they quickly shut down the machine to inspect the damage done. The D-Rocker washes the rocks on a moving deck, rocking the dirt back and forth by three pairs of truck wheels, a series of welds holds the top of the deck in place, the massive boulder has snapped the welds, causing the 10,000 pound deck to crash to the ground. It's a disaster since when the machines are down they can't run.

Across the creek, at the Big Nugget Mine, Parker Schnabel is waiting for the results of a 4 day run of Emerson Trench dirt. Parker has run 2,000 yards of dirt to find out weather Emerson Trench will pay off, Parker needs 5 ounces of gold, just to cover his $8,000 four day running costs. The cleanup is disappointing, it's only 2.3 ounces, half of what he needed to cover his costs, Parker leaves the room immediately after learning the result. Parker's worst fears has come true, Emerson Trench is a bust. Parker states that they really need to find some better dirt, since their running costs a day is at $2,000 and that they need 190 ounces just to break even for the season. He turns to Gary a six year Big Nugget veteran for advice, asking him weather he knowns of any easily accessible ground. Gary does know of a claim, known as the Discovery claim, but it isn't easily accessible, he suggests that Parker should try to work out a lease deal. The Discovery claim is two miles up a hill from Big Nugget, back in 1898, miners using a basic wooden sluice box produced around 100 ounces a day from the claim, which at todays prices are worth around $160,000. Parker heads up the hill to check out the claim, and notices river gravels right of the batch as he arrives. Parker heads up to the claim owner by himself, without the cameras, since the claim owner doesn't want to be a part of it.

Up north in the Klondike, Todd Hoffman has shut down Quartz Creek, and they're joining forces with Dave Turin's crew at Indian River. Dave points out that the sluice box should not shut down, it has to run at all times, he needs truck drivers, and dozer operators, which he knows that the crew from Quartz can. All season "Big Red" has lead the way in gold recovery of the Hoffman Crew, it's been chewing through a total of 38,000 yards of pay dirt from their first cut, last week Dave raced to open up the cut on the upper bench, as cut number were about to run out of pay dirt, he indeed managed to open up the upper bench cut, right as cut one ran out of pay dirt. Now to keep their dream of 1000 ounces alive, the combined crew has to open up twice the ground and run double the amount of pay dirt through the washplant. With the washplant eating through 140 yards an hour, Andy, Mitch and Walt get busy ripping and stripping new ground. Suddenly, the feed con weigher grinds to a halt, forcing them to shut down the entire washplant. Dave suspects they've blown a seal in the hydraulic pump, which makes the belt go. Untill they can get a replacement part, the entire Hoffman operation is shut down.

Back at the Big Nugget Mine, Parker is out of ground, but he has persuaded the owner of the neighboring Discovery claim, to lease him some promising land. Parker has signed a contract with the claim owner, which gets him 10 acres for a 10% fee. He thinks bedrock is close, and he believes that the pay dirt is good, 50 yards back. Getting the pay dirt is not a problem, but getting it to the plant is, Parker is concerned about the road going down, the width of the road is only leaving a feet extra for the dumb truck. With Big Nugget dead in the water, Parker has no choice but to test the dirt road in a dumb truck, to see if it's possible. If Parker makes a mistake, it could cause the massive rock truck to fall 100's of feet down to the river below, there's no room for error. The rock truck can't make a tight turn up the road, for Parker to make serious money of the Discovery claim he'd have to do 100's of loads down the road, which obviously is too dangerous. 

At Porcupine Creek, less than a mile from Big Nugget. Dakota Fred and his team have suffered another major breakdown. A massive boulder has broken off the deck on the D-Rocker washplant. Fred plans to lift the 10,000 pound deck above the D-Rocker with the 340 excavator, while Melody pulls the other end of it in the loader, once in place Fred will attempt the weld the top back on. Dustin hooks up the loader to the end of the deck, and moves clear of the machines, where he can guide both Fred and Melody. Dustin, slow and steadily guides Melody in pulling back the deck, while Fred holds it up in the air, they successfully managed to get the deck back into the right position on the D-Rocker for Fred to weld in back into place. They turn the machine back on and it seems to work just fine, but the only way to test the fix, is to hit it with more boulders, to test weather it can take the hits. It can take the hits, and they've managed to fix the machine in the same day as it broke.

Back up at Indian River, the washplant is still not running, since the seal in the hydraulic pump has blown out, which stopped the feed con weigher from moving. Mitch has already ordered a new part for it, but it's anywhere from 3 days to 3 weeks out, and that they can't wait for, Mitch though has an idea which might work. He plans to use the hydraulic system from Jack's beloved 400 excavator, Jack's had the excavator since their first mining season, it's his pride and joy. Mitch plans to connect the hydraulic hoses from the 400 to the washplant, he drives the excavator from Quartz Creek over to Indian River, placing it beside the washplant. He then connects the hoses to the washplant, but for it to work he has to get the hydraulic pressure just right, the washplant uses 2000 pounds per square inch, but the excavator is capable of up to 3200 pounds per square inch, if the washplant gets too much pressure, it could blow the system on the feeder, setting them back weeks. Mitch slowly fine tunes the pressure to just get the right amount, and eventually he gets the feed con weigher to run smoothly again. Indian River is running good pay dirt once again, Mitch's ingenuity has kept their dream of 1000 ounces alive.

Back down at the Big Nugget Mine, in Southeast Alaska. Parker has called in his father Roger, to help widen the road up to his new Discovery claim. Before they can start widening the old dirt road, they have to chop down some sixty foot trees. Roger gets to work on chopping down the trees, but he has some concern about some of them being rotten within, that might make them fall differently from what he wants. After chopping down the necessary amount of trees, Parker can finally get to digging into the mountain side, to widen the dirt road up to the Discovery claim. Parker makes it to the top, widening the entire stretch up there, he then heads on down to Big Nugget once again, to try to go up the road in a rock truck, testing weather he can get up there as the road is now more wide than before. Parker reaches the tight corner that stopped him in his first attempt in the rock truck, it's wider now but still sketchy, if his back tires slips it's a 300 foot drop down to Porcupine Creek. Parker manages to get around the corner and finally reaches the top in his rock truck, he finally has access to good quality pay dirt. Parker believes that this pay dirt will push them over their break even point, which is 190 ounces of gold.  

Back up at Indian River, Jack has found out that his 400 excavator which is his pride and joy, are missing from Quartz Creek, he eventually finds it at Indian River, where he discovers it besides the washplant. Mitch explains the situation to Jack.

Back down at Porcupine Creek in Alaska, the Dakota Boys and Melody has now run the rich grey material for about 25 hours, they start a full cleanup of the sluice boxes. As they clean the bottom sluice box, Fred and Dustin discover decent sized flakes at the end, which never should make it down there, suggesting that they might blow gold right out the end of their sluice box. Riffles are designed to trap the gold as it washes down the sluice box, but since the grey material is so fine, it has filled up the riffles, which hardens like concrete, the gold then just washes over the riffles and Fred and Dustin may have lost thousand of dollars in gold out of the end of their sluice box. Fred's running costs for the season are $150,000 or 93 ounces of gold, he only have 75 ounces so far, Fred needs a massive 18 ounces from this cleanup to break even for the season. Fred weighs the gold by himself inside the cabin, and heads outside to break the cleanup total to Dustin and Melody, they've pulled 28.4 ounces of gold out of the ground in just 25 hours, the cleanup total is also their biggest one yet. Fred has covered his costs for the season, and confidently rings the bell on the cabin, which signals that they've reached 100 ounces, they now have 104 ounces of gold for the season, which is worth $166,400. The rest of the gold they get, is profit straight into their own pockets.

    

Back up in the Klondike at the Indian River gold claim, the crew lost two days of sluicing due to the breakdown of the feed con weigher, but due to Mitch's ingenious fix, they've still managed to run 4,000 yards of pay dirt through the washplant this week. It's time for their first cleanout, since Todd combined the Quartz Creek and Indian River crews. Everybody from the team is hoping for a good cleanup. They finish up and Jack weighs the gold by himself, and returns to break the cleanup total to the entire Hoffman crew, Jack is presently surprised. In one week, even with a major breakdown, Todd and Dave has pulled 46 ounces worth $73,600 out of the ground at Indian River together. The Hoffman crew gold tally is now at total of 276 ounces worth over $440,000.

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Gold Rush, S03E11, Pink Slip

 

Audible Review

PINK SLIP

 

At Quartz Creek up in the Klondike, Todd's turbo trommel seems to be working perfectly, after about 3 months at a stand still. It appears to be washing the paydirt as it should, so Todd Hoffman hopes that he can keep his promise towards his investor. Three weeks ago, Jason which is Todd's investor, gave Todd an ultimatum, he wants to see a total 350 ounces of gold from the Hoffman Crew, when he returns in three weeks, Todd promised that they'd get 250 ounces from Indian River and that Quartz Creek would produce the remaining 100 ounces. Todd orders a clean up of the turbo trommel, which for the first time has been running without any problems, since it was fixed last week. Team Todd is positive that they'll see 100 ounces from the trommel this week, as their investor will arrive on site next week. And so they start by cleaning the sluice on the trommel, it's Todd and Jack's first cleanup of the season. Jack Hoffman cleans up the concentrated dirt in the gold recovery room by himself, while the rest to Team Todd predicts that they'll get atleast 15 ounces out of this cleanup. As Jack returns from the gold room, he breaks the cleanup total to the crew, which is a very disappointing cleanup, a total of 7.34 ounces, worth less than $12,000 is all they got out of the turbo trommel. They're 93 ounces short from the 100 ounces they need, to keep their investor off their back, as Jack Hoffman states, for the average person it would be a decent cleanup, but for them it's not even enough to buy them fuel. With their investor coming in just six days, Todd is 93 ounces short, he knowns something is wrong with the trommel, because the dirt he puts through it is good paydirt.

Down at the Big Nugget Mine, in South-East Alaska, Parker Schnabel has been digging towards bedrock on Emerson Trench for two weeks, and finally his seeing a change in the dirt. Glen, Parker's fine gold specialist gathers a test bucket of dirt from 20 feet down and processes it, but he has no good news for Parker as he shows him the test result, the material which is 20 feet deep near the bedrock, appears to be worse than the overburden above which got Big Nugget Mine 12 ounces last week. Parker decides that they keep digging the last 6 feet to bedrock, because he hopes that there's good gold down there.

Back up in the Klondike, at the Indian River claim, Team Turin is about to run out of paydirt from their first digsite, their washplant "Big Red" is chewing through the final 5000 yards fast, Greg Remsburg predicts that within five days, they'll be out of paydirt and if Dave Turin hasn't opened up their second digsite, then the washplant has to shot down, which would loose them time and money. Dave is currently half way with clearing the permafrost from the second cut, and he needs to clear the remaining 6 feet of melting permafrost before they run out of cut one paydirt. The permafrost is melting fast is the hot summer sun, making conditions tough, Dave plays it safe by only stripping a 200 foot area. Dave struggles with keep traction on the muddy deck and soon gets the D9 dozer stuck in the muck, on the upper bench. Dave radios Greg Remsburg for help, and Greg now has to climb a steep hill in the 460 excavator to reach the upper bench where Dave Turin is stuck with the dozer. Eventually he manages to get the excavator up in the bench, before the dozer slips over the ledge down 30 feet, he also manages to pull the dozer out of the melted permafrost. 

Down at Porcupine Creek in Alaska, the 270 excavator is still broken, the frame holding the idler wheel, which broke for the first time six weeks ago, where back then Fred Hurt made a new one from scrap metal, failed to hold. Dustin says that they've re-welded is several times, and that it wasn't meant to be a permanent fix, only a temporary one. Dustin tells Fred that they're spend about the same on repairing the frame, as it would've cost to just rent a brand new machine, Fred though has no money and decides to once again just to re-weld it. As they finish the fix, they put the frame back in and installs the 300 pound idler wheel onto the frame. With the 270 excavator back up and running again, the Dakota Boys rush back into the glory hole to make up for lost time, but just six hours after the fix, the frame breaks once again, at the same time, Dustin hears from Melody that their loader is spilling fluid, she suspects that it's transmission fluid. Dustin arrives to take a look, and indeed finds out that it's transmission fluid which is leaking, he states that they'd have to take the entire machine apart to fix it, which would be the end of the season for the broken loader. Fred arrives to discover the loader being broken, and eventually has to make a call that he's been avoiding. Fred calls for more credit on a loan. 

Across the creek from the Dakota Boys, at the Big Nugget Mine. Rick believes that they're moving close to 2000 yards a day out of the Emerson Trench digsite. In a race to get down to bedrock, Parker is running his washplant to the max, but running so much dirt in the washplant, has caused the tailing to back up into the machine, if the build up stops the trommel the motor on the washplant could burn out. At the time Glen was responsible for keeping an eye on the plant, so Parker confronts him with it, then Glen and Parker starts a fight about the issue. Parker apologizes to Glen moments later, for being so rough and aggressive towards him.

Back at Porcupine Creek, the Dakota Boys are dead in the water, both their 220 loader and the 270 excavator are still both broken down. But Fred has comes through, he's gotten more credit and comes back to the claim with two new rental machines, a loader and a brand new 340 excavator to replace the 20 year-old 270 which broke down. Both Dustin and Melody is happy about the new equipment. They can finally get back to chasing their 160 ounce goal for the season, with brand new equipment. Fred unloads the 340 excavator off the trailer and waste no time putting it to use back in the glory hole. The Dakota Boys finally have the right equipment and their washplant is processing good material, they're back in the hunt for the 160 ounces of glory hole gold.

Back up at Quartz Creek, Team Todd tries to determine what lead to their disappointing cleanup of 7 ounces. They fire up the turbo trommel and Todd had Jim Thurber panning the tailings that the trommel dicards. Mitch their team mechanic spots something hanging down within the trommel. As Thurber finishes panning the tailings, he sees gold in the pan, which means that they're loosing gold out the back of the trommel, there's 14 visible colors in the pan. They shut down the trommel to inspect what Mitch discovered hanging down from the trommel, right off as Mitch enters the trommel, he sees daylight through coming in, between the spiral and the drum, he also finds the object which was hanging down. It appears to be urethane, which seals between the spiral and the drum, it's come loose which allows fine gold to slip down into the tailings. Mitch says that he can weld it instead of replacing the urethane, but it has to be grinding smooth, he estimates that it would take over 400 feet of welding and that it would take about two weeks to do it. Todd decides to call it quits on the trommel costing hundreds of thousands of dollars, shutting it down for the rest of the season. Without a washplant, it is game over for Quartz Creek. The team is clearly frustrated and Todd admits that he failed this summer with Quartz Creek.

Less than two miles from Quartz Creek, over at Indian River, Dave Turin is racing to get down to pay gravel in the second digsite, their washplant is getting through their stockpiled dirt fast. If Dave can't get down to paydirt and soon, they'll have to shut off their washplant for the time being, costing them over $10,000 a day in lost gold. As they're one bucket away from finishing their stockpiled paydirt, Dave hits paydirt in cut number two.

Back in Alaska at the Big Nugget Mine, Parker is nearing the end of a two week dig down to bedrock at Emerson Trench and they shortly hit bedrock down in the pit. Parker has Glen test the bedrock dirt, but the results are disappointing, the test shows no gold in the pan. 3 weeks, $30,000 and over 700 man hours, digging down at Emerson Trench, just to find nothing.

Across the creek from Big Nugget, at the Porcupine creek claim, the Dakota Boys have been running their washplant for 3 straight days. Fred shuts down the washplant, but to have any chance at hitting their 160 ounce goal for the season, they need atleast 2 ounces per day, or 6 ounces total from the last 3 days of running. They pan the concentrate from the cleanup and heads inside to weigh the gold. After running the plant for 20 hours over 3 days, they pull in 14 ounces or $22,400, which is more than double the amount they needed to stay on track towards their 160 ounce goal, the Dakota Boys are now at a total of 75 ounces for the season.

At Indian River, back up in the Klondike. The con weigher belt which discards the tailing has stopped moving, Dave Turin acts fast and has Chris cut the power to the washplant, as the belt is moving it creates heat and shuts of the electrical safeguard. They reset it the safegaurd and fixes the problem quickly. They start their final cut one cleanup and right of the batch they find their first Indian River nugget. They take all the miners moss which traps the gold over to the gold recovery tent at Quartz Creek, as Jack extracts the gold from the concentrate. He weighs the last Indian River cut one gold, and heads over to Idian River, to break the cleanup total to Team Turin, which is 53.78 ounces worth a staggering $86,400. Which brings Indian River's total gold tally so far up to 223 ounces, worth about $356,800, they're almost only responsible for all the Hoffman gold so far this season. With 6 weeks to go they're well on their way to hit their 501 ounce goal for the season.

Back over at Quartz Creek, things are far more different, with only 7.34 ounces worth less than $12,000. Todd has pulled the plug on his hightech trommel, and investor Jason is about to shown up at Quartz Creek, where Todd Hoffman is way short of his 350 ounce promise to Jason. Todd breaks the bad news about the shutdown of the trommel to Jason. Jason is not happy for Todd to miss his promise and pulls Todd over to the side. Jason suggests that Todd lets go of some people, if he can't keep production up and costs down. Todd doesn't want to send anybody home as the blame for the failure of Quartz Creek falls on him.

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Gold Rush, S03E10, Dozer Wars

  

Audible review

DOZER WARS

At Quartz Creek, Team Hoffman are finally ready to start processing paydirt with their turbo trommel, which has been sitting dock for two weeks, since it's arrival at Quartz Creek. Last week, the inventor of the turbo trommel installed a new motor, which is able to handle the pressure. Team Hoffman fires up the turbo trommel, and starts processing their first paydirt of the season. Two hours into the run, Todd Hoffman decides to shut down, to make sure that the trommel is producing gold, Todd doesn't want to process his stock piled paydirt, unless he's absolutely 100% sure that the trommel will catch every single grain of gold. Right off the batch, they start off by finding a few decent size nuggets, and as Todd says, that's the biggest nugget they've ever found in any of their mining seasons.

At Indian River, Team Turin is beginning to see bedrock in their first digsite, last week Todd Hoffman secured the upper bench of Indian River, from claim owner Greg McNiel, since it is shallow, parmafrost will not flood the pit as it begins to melt in the summer sun. Over the last 2 months, Team Turin has moved about 75,000 yards of dirt from cut one, and has dug up 170 ounces of gold, worth about $272,000 by themselves. Dave Turin has stock piled the remaining dirt from cut number one, and predicts that it takes about 12 days, before he runs out of paydirt from the stockpile. Dave Turin fires up the D10 dozer, and gets to work on clearing the overgrowth on the upper bench, but quickly find out that there's something wrong with the dozer's blade. The blade can't maintain height by ifself, suggesting that it can't maintain pressure in the hydralics. Dave doesn't have another dozer on site, because his second dozer also is broken, and it has been waiting on parts for 6 weeks. Without a working dozer, Team Turin can't open up a second digsite at Indian River.

At Porcupine Creek in South-East Alaska. 'Dakota' Fred Hurt is struggling to pull paydirt out of their 70 foot hole, because the 270 excavator's bucket can't break up the material, the bucket is scraping against the rock in the hole. The Porcupine crew have a secret weapon though, which they call a bedrock shark, the bucket can be equipped to their 270 excavator, and it has 3 rippers instead of teeth, which a normal bucket has. They make quick work, and equip the bedrock shark quickly, and Fred drives back in the hole to put it to the test, after he has shoveled out a few buckets, something breaks and the new bedrock shark is dangling from the arm of the excavator.

Over at the Big Nugget Mine, Parker Schnabel has to dig down 26 feet to reach what he believe is a paystreak of right, sitting right ontop of the bedrock. Parker and Rick, starts to excavate the overburden and Parker decides to just dump the overburden at the edge of his claim, Glenn which is Parker's fine gold expert, believes that the dirt Parker is dumping, hold valuable gold, so he decides to run a test on it. Glenn is right and Parker might be throwing thousands of dollars away, he shows Parker his discovery and they almost start a fight over it, but Parker doesn't want to run the dirt through their washplant, because he thinks that it's a waste of time.

Back at Quartz Creek Todd's turbo trommel has been running for two days and has been chewing through alot of material. Before the trommel arrived, Todd spent the time on stockpiling 17,000 yards of paydirt, the trommel processes 200 yards an hour and Jack predicts that they'll be through the entire stockpile in about a week. Team Todd, now has to survey the land and find some new ground to mine, Ray the turbo trommel designer comes up with a place which possibly holds alot of gold, he suspects that there's virgin ground below the old dredge tailings on Quartz Creek. In the first half of the 20th century, dredges mined the area on Quartz Creek, but they often couldn't reach the narrow strips of land at the sides of the valley, these strips are known as 'side pay' by miners, and could hold alot of gold. To get to the virgin ground beneath the tailings, Team Todd has to remove 6 feet of tailings the size of a football field, to get to the ground, and for that he needs a dozer.

At Indian River, both the D9 and the D10 dozers are sitting still, both are broken. Mitch the team mechanic, has been waiting for bolts, so he can replace the broken idler wheel which holds the D9 dozer's track in place. First Mitch has to remove the old boths from the wheel and in the process, one of the bolts break inside of the wheel. There's now a quater of the bolt still stuck inside, and Mitch struggles with it, but eventually manages to get it out.

Back up at Porcupine Creek the linkage on the 270 excavator has broken into two pieces, rendering it unfixable. Fred Hurt calls in Danny, a local mechanic to check out the damage, and he states that they probably just should go get a new excavator, Fred though comes up with a plan to make a new linkage for the excavator out of scrap metal, they load up some old grizzly bars which they had laying around and heads into town, where they have more tools.

Bback over at the Big Nugget Mine, in South-East Alaska, Parker has dumped over 5000 tons of overburden, in a scramble to get down to the paystreak, which he believes is sitting right above bedrock on Emerson Trench. Glenn still believes that they're throwing away a lot of money, so he talks with the entire crew. Ultimately Rick and Gary confront Parker with their concerns and Parker decides to start running the overburden, Parker says that he wants to keep the support of both Rick and Gary, since he believe that they played a big part in what they've achieved this season.

At Indian River, Mitch is finally putting the D9 dozer back together, he succesfully puts the track back onto the dozer. The entire Hoffman operation now has one working dozer, but both Todd and Dave needs it to open up a new digsite. Todd pulls rank on Dave, and makes it clear he needs the dozer to open up the digsite before Dave. Dave doesn't seem to like that idea, which is understandable, but Todd has set made it very clear, that they need to have both washplants running to make their 1000 ounce goal. The next morning, Dave gets up early and commandeers the only dozer they have, and he starts working on opening up his second digsite, Todd comes to get the dozer and discovers Dave in it. Dave states that Todd does have auhority, but he also states that Todd isn't his boss.

At Porcupine Creek, Fred is returning with the custom linkage for their 270 excavator, which he build himself. They quickly installs it along with the original bucket on the excavator. He drives down the hole and tests the new custom linkage, and it is rock solid, it holds together and Fred are now back on track down towards glory hole gold. Only two hours in Fred's luck runs out, once again, this time it's the pin holding the idler wheel on the excavator, which Fred fixed a month ago, by also creating a custom one. Dustin confronts Fred, telling him that if he had listened to him and ordered a new one instead of keep fixing it, they could've avoided it completely, but Fred didn't have the money for it a month ago.

Back up at Quartz Creek in the Klondike, Todd still has a problem with the dozer, since Dave keeps the only working one for himself, luckily Mitch the crew mechanic is close to fixing the D10 dozer. Mitch replaces the piston inside the hydralic system on the dozers blade and the dozer is good to go. Todd wastes no time putting Andy onto clearing the tailings on Quartz Creek, so they can get down to what miners call 'side pay' at the edge of the valley. Andy plans to work through the night on clearing the tailings, so he quickly can get some dirt for Todd to run through the trommel, as it is chewing through the stockpiled dirt and break neck speed.

Back at the Big Nugget Mine, Parker Schnabel has been running the overburden from Emerson Trench through his washplant for 3 days. If it has to pay off, they have to cover costs of $6,000 for fuel and labor, they need 4 ounces to break even on their running costs for clearing the overburden, but instead of 4 ounces they pulled out 12 which is worth almost $20,000 dollars, so the decision to run the overburden payed off and cleared them $14,000 in profit.

Back at Quartz Creek, Andy has worked through the night and has cleared all the tailings, exposing a large field. Todd is positive that this is the ground that will get them to their 1000 ounce goal, so he calls in local driller Henry to test out the field. Meanwhile claim owner Greg McNiel arrives and informs them that the ground they think is 'side pay' was dredged and Henry's drilling results confirms that. So there's now a huge useless field, with no gold in the ground.

  

 

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