Miracle Tap Story
Brother Freedom tells the story in his own words. Click the play button to listen and also check out the photos below and/or read the manuscript version.
Well basically that year was 1977 and I had been praying a long, long time and some things started happening that year. And this must have been about May ’77, and a customer of mine had borrowed a 9UD6 and they had lost a head gasket on the 9U.
So I came down. He had 17As, his machines, and he had one 3T and a couple 17As (Caterpillar® dozers) which were SEVENS (D7s), but 9Us (9UD6s) was a smaller machine, and it was a six cylinder engine. Those SEVENS (D7s) were four cylinder. But, they were a lot bigger bore and they was,… the SIX (9UD6) was only a four and a half inch bore. And the SEVENS were five and three quarters, so a lot of difference in the bore and stroke of the two engines.
So he told me he wanted to do an in-frame on it (overhaul the engine without taking it out of the dozer). So I put pistons and liners and went through the whole…main bearings and oil pump and all the extras you do on them. But when I started to put the head on it, I remember one of the center stud, which is a half inch stud, pulled itself out of the block. I said, “Oh my goodness!” And so I thought…I seen this happen before so I thought well, “I’ll tap it out. I’ll still have to pull the head back off.” But I pulled the head off.“And I’ll tap it out and then I’ll put another stud. Get a new stud that will make sure the threads are perfect on it where it will run it down in there. Put Loctite® on it and hold it in there.” That was my intentions.
And this tap that I had, I had previously welded an extension on it. Taps are made of real hard substance, and the extension I put on it was like a Cat® bolt, up so high, which made an extension, but the two different metals had to be welded in with 7018, which is low hydrogen rod. Well, I didn’t think about that weld breaking. So I run that tap in and it broke off. And this is down below, because that engine, the threads go way down in about a couple, three or four inches below the top of the block. Most engines they are always right up to the block, but on it, it wasn’t. It was done in, way down below, and I don’t know whether that’s the way Cat® did it.
So I found myself breaking off that tap. And I was, oh I was just about crying because I was wanting to go to a men’s retreat in about three days in Sebastopol, California, Mount Gilead. And, oh, I tell you I was just wanting, I was so full of the Spirit, and I was just wanting to go down there so much. I just had my heart set on going to that, cause God was going to bless me in a wonderful way. I just knew HE (God) was, and I was just wanting to go so… I just wanted to really to go down there. I wanted to be around some men that loved the Lord. And I knew that there was some there that I knew that really loved the Lord.
And so I broke that off and so the nephew of the man that owned it came in. His name was Greg, and Greg says, “I’m going to leave you alone.” He said, “I’ll let you…”because he knew what I was going to do. I was just going to go out and pray.
I said, “Lord,” I says, “What am I going to do?” I said, you know I said, “You’re not supposed to do what I did. You are not supposed to weld on a tap and then break it off down in that engine, because there is no way of reaching down. You can’t cut it out. You can’t break it out. It is just wrong!” And I said, “I can’t get to it to weld it. I can’t do, I just am…”
The Spirit of the Lord just spoke so clearly. HE says, “I’ll show you how to get it out.“
Then I started getting afraid. I said, “Lord, what if I mess up?” And the Lord took me to HIM right then and HE says, “You know what? If you got that in your mind, and you might as well just stop ALL what I’ve got planned for you!“ HE said, “If you have got that in your heart, from this day on you can’t never have that. You’ve got to believe that with ME all things are possible. That’s the only way I can use you!“
And I said, “Oh, my goodness!” I said…cause I already told HIM. I said well, “If that breaks off and my company I work for, they’ll fire me, and my wife will get rid of me, and I’ll…” I was running down…I was really so below…
The Lord says, “Get that out of your heart! If that is in your heart we will just stop right now. This program I’ve got set for you, just forget about it! Just go out and do like everybody else.“
I says, “Lord, I repent. Whatever YOU tell me to do I’ll do.”
The Lord says, “Will you???“
I says, “YES, I will.” I says, “Whatever comes I will do.”
So the Lord spoke to my heart. HE says, “Go take a half inch, three eighths drive socket.“ The Spirit of God says, “You are going to have to grind off a little bit because it is going to be too full to go down that hole, because you are going to do this with no sight. You’re just going to drive it down there with a punch.“ And then HE says, “You know, if you was in the natural what would happen, well they would say, ‘You really compounded it now, because…’BUT YOU CAN’T THINK THESE THINGS!!“
The natural man would think, oh, if I drive that down there, that’s going to make it worse and then when my boss finds out he’ll say, “You dummy! You should have stopped there putting the tap in it, then you go down and drive something in on top of it! You know, you’ve got to be fired!”
The Spirit of God said I had to erase that and not think any of that. I said, “No, I’m more than conqueror through God which loved us. HE will take me through it.”
So I drove it down there and drove it in. And I heard the Lord tell me, HE says, “STOP!”
Some of you out there you may not believe these things, but this is the way God done with me.
And so I drove it down, and the Lord spoke to my heart, says “STOP, don’t go no farther. It’s right, exactly. I know where it’s at.“
I can’t even see it. It is clear down in the hole. And I took a flat punch and drove it down there. And I thought, “Oh my goodness, this…” because it was pretty tight, and I knew it self it would be hard to bring that, because I was going to have to bring the tap up, plus this socket that I drove down on it. It is going to be drove as when I pull it out. It’s going to come up through the top too. It’s all going to have to come out, and I couldn’t make it too thin because then it could break off. So I had to make it real full, and I just ground a little bit and then the Lord spoke to cut, and tell me how to do it.
And so finally I started my welder up, and I waited sure for…and I was praying, I’m praying in the Spirit, I just prayed, “Lord, just help me in a supernatural way. Lord I’d just pray that YOU would set me free in anyway.”
The Lord said, “Don’t have no doubt, no fear, just do it!!“
So I cranked her up and put the ground up there, and covered up the whole top of that block. The Lord said, “There’s not going to be any sparks anyway.“
And I put that welding rod down through there, and the Lord says, “STOP!“
I stopped. I don’t know how long it even welded! I don’t…I just was obedient. I think HE must have an angel there, took over and did it. I really have…I believe it. Or, HE had supernaturally some way of doing it, because it was unbelievable, me as a mechanic, it couldn’t be done! But God says, “It can be done!” HE says, “There’s no problem!”
Look at the miracle weld that was maybe four inches from Brother Freedom’s view!
So which way is old little stupid fellow like me going?? I’m going to go God’s way, because I already went too far. I’ve went off in the deep and everybody in town was talking about me every way, anyway, so, might as well just go in, GO ALL THE WAY! OH, God says, “Go out in the deep,” there in Ezekiel [Chapter 47] he went out a little deeper, getting to his waist and then a little bit farther where he had to swim. Well that’s the way the Lord says HE wants you to get out where, “You got to totally trust ME.“
I says, “Okay,” and I got a three eighths drive. And I knew that I was even in my mind I thought, and the Lord says, “Yea, you are worried about that three eighths drive socket. But remember I’M here. All this is, is just for you realizing I’M going to do it. Nothing is really in right dimensions. That tap breaking off would probably take a half inch drive and a half inch drive is too big to go down the hole!“
But God knew a supernatural way that HE…, somehow it was going to come out. And I remember starting to take it out and the Lord says, “NO! You tighten it up.“
So I says, “How much?”
HE says, “That’s enough. Now hold it.“
Something happening there. Somehow it was, God welded it somehow because,…and then HE says, “Start taking it out.“
And I started turning. And I says, “Oh, thank YOU Jesus!”
HE said, “You were in unbelief, weren’t you?“
And I said, “No, I knew YOU was…”
HE says, “Well, you know you feel a lot better now than you did when you was in the process just a few seconds ago, aren’t you?“ He says, “You should be in the same way when you started, you are right now. You should know that you have just as much faith in ME now as you did before it ever started, because I was going to do it. You need that much expression of more, that I wished you to have THAT!“
And I have had to learn to go beyond that point, that I have THAT before it happens. That is why I can pray for the sick. That is why I can see God doing great and mighty things. That is not the only thing. But, I’ve stayed out on the limb, and God has never cut that limb off for me. And when I backed that tap out, I have it here as, you can take a picture of it. But it came out.
And God showed me how to put a new stud in there that worked a lot better. That is what they all should have been done. He told me to go down and buy a five eighths stud, which is a lot heavier and a lot bigger than a half inch, about over twice the strength. Half inch studs don’t have too much power. But, five eighths has lots of power. It’s just more meat. It’s more, multiplied. It’s stronger. And like that half inch about 80 pounds is pull, 85 pounds,…well in THAT engine even more than that, about 50-70 pounds is as much torque as those little studs can handle. But the five eighths can go 150, a lot more. Now also there is more pressure when it pulls down. So it was a lot better.
But anyway the Lord spoke to my heart, “Take it to, order another, five eighths, one of the regular studs, the big studs and take it to a machine shop and have that, everything cut back down from the five eighths spot, like a spindle, dress it off to a half inch, where it will… And screw that piece and drill out where that stud goes in,..“ where I could do the top of the block there, and that is what I did. It was running the top of the block there and drilled that out and worked perfect. Put Loctite® in it.
And that head, that would never, never, never, ever, ever give up. I don’t know why they didn’t do it from the first place. And I run it down even a little below the surface where no one could even see it. But it was better. God had it. But, God let me know how to do it. And it all worked perfect. And I had that Cat® run that night, and I made that retreat real easy.
God be for you who can be against you [See Romans 8:31]. And that machine never did ever give any trouble. And those little studs always give trouble. But that stud never give no more trouble, and that is the way the things of God, HE helps us to set us free. And we have to put our trust in the Lord!