Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[difflock]

1 hour ago, Stephen Blair said:

Monkey business I don’t envy your position!

  No hoses!  Wtf!

Dinny ye ken Stephen, the hottest new thing, wireless hydraulics.

[LGP Eddie]

3 hours ago, Stephen Blair said:

Monkey business I don’t envy your position!

  No hoses!  Wtf!

No hoses is the way that things are normally supplied unless you pay the extra and have a full install.

You simply can’t account for everything on attachments, so the best installs are always made on the machine.

The standard of pipework you see up and down is atrocious, I really wonder if people actually stand back and take a realistic view on installs with regard to working in this type of environment.

 

It’s unreal how much downtime I’ve witnessed from badly setup Shears, Grabs and Flails just in the regard of hoses, when with a little thought most could be eliminated.

 

As for the service issue, I’ve been at this a lot longer than most and I generally know who to use and more importantly who will be there when the s@@t really hits the fan.

No way of getting away from the fact that driving suppliers in the ground for a deal and going elsewhere for a couple of quid saved doesn’t make for the type of long term relationships that can be called upon when you’re up against it.

If there’s no fat left in the deal, there’s generally not much backup either.

 

I’m lucky, only this week I call Wednesday for a specific bracket to be made, quite a task and would be three weeks of a job ringing around getting someone to do it.

It’s now in the back of my van collected direct from the distribution centre this morning and I know the owner of the company was burning the midnight oil on the welder himself for me.

 

Like everything it pays to shop around, but won’t pay if there’s nothing left to go back to.

I won’t buy tyres online for the simple fact I pay a tenner more perhaps at my local tyre place, but the internet won’t help me Saturday morning when yet another tyres blown off the ifor.

 

 

Eddie.

Edited October 5, 2019 by LGP Eddie

[monkeybusiness]

3 hours ago, Stephen Blair said:

Monkey business I don’t envy your position!

  No hoses!  Wtf!

I thought they’d at least offer - at no point was it even mentioned. Seems odd to me but hey ho.

 

[Stephen Blair]

When I bought the flail the company owner/fitter spent over an hour making and fitting the hoses and wrapping them up, it was a work of art!

  Onsite then he tested the machine.  Proper job!

[doobin]

Personally I buy mainly from the internet, on price. This is because I've learnt the hard way that (around me at least) most dealers, fitters, welders, mechanics etc aren't worth a wank, and I can do a better job myself. The trade off is that I have to carry a lot of steel stock, tools and fittings myself- but there's not many Sundays when I can't get myself out of the shit with what I have in stock.

 

Approved wanted £280 for a headstock for my rotator. Having seen the 'standard' of some of their mini digger headstocks (6mm plate on the cheeks!), I think a good morning in my workshop was time well spent. A pound saved is as good as a pound earned. I also got the angle of the holes spot bollock for my particular digger's crowd angles.

 

Here's a tip for anyone doing similar- if you have to do a complicated bolt circle, plot it out in a CAD program and print it at 1:1 with centremarks. Use spray adhesive to stick it to your plate. Centrepunch, remove template and centre drill. Stick it on the mill and bore the holes. On a ten bolt circle with M10 bolts I drilled the holes at 10.5mm for clearance, and it was spot on.

[dig-dug-dan]

59 minutes ago, doobin said:

Personally I buy mainly from the internet, on price. This is because I've learnt the hard way that (around me at least) most dealers, fitters, welders, mechanics etc aren't worth a wank, and I can do a better job myself. The trade off is that I have to carry a lot of steel stock, tools and fittings myself- but there's not many Sundays when I can't get myself out of the shit with what I have in stock.

 

Approved wanted £280 for a headstock for my rotator. Having seen the 'standard' of some of their mini digger headstocks (6mm plate on the cheeks!), I think a good morning in my workshop was time well spent. A pound saved is as good as a pound earned. I also got the angle of the holes spot bollock for my particular digger's crowd angles.

 

Here's a tip for anyone doing similar- if you have to do a complicated bolt circle, plot it out in a CAD program and print it at 1:1 with centremarks. Use spray adhesive to stick it to your plate. Centrepunch, remove template and centre drill. Stick it on the mill and bore the holes. On a ten bolt circle with M10 bolts I drilled the holes at 10.5mm for clearance, and it was spot on.

Sounds good if you have a cad program and know how to use it!

[doobin]

37 minutes ago, dig-dug-dan said:

Sounds good if you have a cad program and know how to use it!

Draftsight is free and the learning curve not too bad for basic stuff like bolt circles ??

[LGP Eddie]

14 hours ago, doobin said:

Personally I buy mainly from the internet, on price. This is because I've learnt the hard way that (around me at least) most dealers, fitters, welders, mechanics etc aren't worth a wank, and I can do a better job myself. The trade off is that I have to carry a lot of steel stock, tools and fittings myself- but there's not many Sundays when I can't get myself out of the shit with what I have in stock.

 

Approved wanted £280 for a headstock for my rotator. Having seen the 'standard' of some of their mini digger headstocks (6mm plate on the cheeks!), I think a good morning in my workshop was time well spent. A pound saved is as good as a pound earned. I also got the angle of the holes spot bollock for my particular digger's crowd angles.

 

Here's a tip for anyone doing similar- if you have to do a complicated bolt circle, plot it out in a CAD program and print it at 1:1 with centremarks. Use spray adhesive to stick it to your plate. Centrepunch, remove template and centre drill. Stick it on the mill and bore the holes. On a ten bolt circle with M10 bolts I drilled the holes at 10.5mm for clearance, and it was spot on.

If you haven’t the kit skills or inclination, best thing is to do what you’re best at and leave others to it.

 

If I send you an order for a 20/13 multi head bracket with dog bone and normal pins, converting down to JCB JZ70 Semi Hitch on a Wednesday in Scotland with no drawings, could you have said item to me Saturday morning in Staffordshire completely finished by Coded Welders, Traceable Steel, full computer design etc and my arse completely covered should the worst ever happen.

 

Go poking about for the Cheapest kit and your pound saved could often be the most costly or expose you to the maximum risk.

It all depends on your applications, facilities and ability.

 

Not everyone out there is shite, some incredibly talented guys all over the country, the hard bit is finding them, and generally when you do they’re flat out with no need to particularly advertise their services.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Eddie.

[LGP Eddie]

Just an example of exactly the same thing installed on the same machine, no names of installers.

You have to remember that the cost of either would be the same, but one installer might be making a bit less than the other due to using up a bit more pipe than the other!?

 

Which one would you want on an Arb machine?

 

There’s quality out there, finding it’s the hard bit, but if you don’t know what you’re looking for in the first place it’s even harder!

 

 

 

 

 

Eddie.

[LGP Eddie]

Had a few messages about running a Flail under a Tiltrotator and can you simply ‘T’ into the lines and run the Flail with the Tilty piggybacking off it?

 

This is my own experience some 10 years ago now and yes I was able to simply ‘T’ into the lines, the SVAB controlled the Flail via a latching button, and the Tilty would work normally by robbing a bit of flow when I activated a roller to manipulate it.

 

Trick was to use small movements and adjust it out of the cut to keep the head fully spinning.

I only did it occasionally, as I never really had much I couldn’t get with the head fixed.

 

With regard to Case Drain, it was simply T’d back into the return on the mower itself, no need to run the pipe any distance, and to protect it come the worst, just install a 5 bar crack off one way valve free to air.

Basically if you ever get up to 5 bar it would allow a tiny bit of oil past to prevent the motor seals blowing.

Pipe it and catch it if you like, but I only run bio oil and in all the time I used it, it never blew off anyway.

 

 

 

 

Eddie.