31 OCTOBER 2025 WorldWide Drilling Resource® by Tim Rasmussen, President and Chairman, Water for Life At last, the SIMCO® 2800 was finished. East West Drilling, under the leadership of Merle Hoover, had done a remarkable job rebuilding the rig to a water well drilling machine from its previous application as a geotechnical drill. The transformation required many changes. Some changes were easy and some were not, but because East West is very experienced in all phases of the industry, they were able to put it together. This rebuild is almost the final aspect of a long search to find and then refurbish the right rig for our use in the jungle highlands of Guatemala. Jon Hansen led the effort to get the right machine - and contributed information for this article. He is a volunteer who has been to our facility many times over the years he and his wife Chris have helped us. The search was to find a rig small enough to navigate the jungle roads (giving them a dignity they do not deserve) yet large enough to drill to 400-plus feet. The rig needed to be old school mechanically so repair parts would be easier to obtain, plus we wanted a noncomputer model truck with low miles and in good all-around condition. A 1991 International truck with about 50,000 miles on it was finally located here in Washington, and the ever-faithful Speedy Gonzales hauled it across the country to East West where the drill would be mounted. Merle, Jon, and Gary communicated back and forth so all our concerns would be addressed. Then Jon flew to Mifflinburg, Pennsylvania, to look over the entire rig and found that Merle and Laverne (the East West wizard of drilling rigs) had everything in order. Jon suggested a few things, then the work would be finished. The next and final aspect of the important project is the shipping of the finished machine to Guatemala. The first part of that journey was to get it from Pennsylvania to Bucky’s yard in Ohio. Speedy and Bucky took off at 5 a.m. on August 27th, to retrieve the machine and take it back to Ohio. It was a six-hour drive from their place to East West’s shop in Mifflinburg. They arrived and, with Merle’s help, began the loading. They soon discovered Speedy’s ramps were a little too short to give sufficient clearance between the underside of the machine and Speedy’s trailer. They had to use cribbing to raise the ramps enough to get the clearance they needed. Once the machine was on the truck, they realized the mast on the rig was too high and would cause a problem with the highway authorities if they were stopped. So they decided to take the front wheels off the machine to get the mast under the legal limit. It was a case of too low and then too high. Finally, they got the drill rig securely chained down. It had taken three hours to get loaded, then it was six hours back to Ohio. Once again, Speedy, and now Bucky, wondered if they were getting too old for this life. The finished drilling machine now sits in Bucky’s yard waiting for the opportunity to head down to Miami to be loaded on a Crowley barge for the trip across the Caribbean to the port in Guatemala. Through the goodness in the hearts of many people, Water for Life will finally have a good, serviceable, modern rotary drilling rig to continue our work of bringing clean, safe water to remote villages in Northeast Guatemala. If you would like to be part of something that is changing the world, if only a little, please consider helping Water for Life in this effort. It may change you, and certainly will be an adventure. If you would like to help, contact Gary Bartholomew at 509-939-1941. Tim Tim Rasmussen may be contacted via e-mail to michele@worldwidedrillingresource.com Bucky, Merle, and Speedy. WTR
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