Show us your Arb Diggers please.

[Matthew Storrs]

How many mm play was in your king post to require the line boring- mine is starting to develop a me want to try and get it done before line boring is required...

[Conor Wright]

1 hour ago, Matthew Storrs said:

How many mm play was in your king post to require the line boring- mine is starting to develop a me want to try and get it done before line boring is required...

Not that much,  but it was worn oval, it was causing a lurch in the arm when lifting heavy weights, (Bear in mind that I do use the machine well beyond it's intended scope!) coupled with wear in the slew motor it made for an uncomfortable ride! The outer diameter of the new bush is 3.5 mm over the old one so 1.75 mm taken off all round from centre point.

My plan for the undercarriage is to heat it, pull it back into place and reinforce both sides with a strip of 20×40 solid bar. I'm guessing heating will weaken the steel, so the bar is going to be necessary if I'm to keep it from becoming a recurring issue.

[Matthew Storrs]

18 minutes ago, Conor Wright said:

Not that much,  but it was worn oval, it was causing a lurch in the arm when lifting heavy weights, (Bear in mind that I do use the machine well beyond it's intended scope!) coupled with wear in the slew motor it made for an uncomfortable ride! The outer diameter of the new bush is 3.5 mm over the old one so 1.75 mm taken off all round from centre point.

My plan for the undercarriage is to heat it, pull it back into place and reinforce both sides with a strip of 20×40 solid bar. I'm guessing heating will weaken the steel, so the bar is going to be necessary if I'm to keep it from becoming a recurring issue.

Sounds good, how many hours is she on.

The old TB125 I had was on 5000 hrs and had a very rough life being largely an ex hire machine and the slew was just starting to get rough at 4500 hrs. My newer one is on 2500 but it’s been a really well looked after machine as had it from 1000hrs and it was owner op before that, so will be interesting to see how many hours il get out of it before major works are required like your having.

[doobin]

12 hours ago, Matthew Storrs said:

It will be like new when done- keep t photos coming, funnily enough my undercarriage bit where the idler Slides in had splashed out only an inch or so, but my goodness that took some bending back- think it would be best to heat it up first- I used a Good sized bottle jack and it was pushing the whole machine sideways, and the damn thing still didn’t bend back!

Not to piss on anyones chips but I beg to differ.

 

Skills to do what Connor is doing (if done well) are £40-50 an hour. Equipment is expensive, parts are horrendous. So how much could he make doing the same or even normal arb work? You like to think it will increase the value of the machine, but the reality is it doesn't. Not be any appreciable amount and certainly not by even 25% of the cost to do it all in my experience. Been there go the T shirt.

 

Brand new 2.7t machines that will be reliable backed by warranty are available on 0% finance currently. Especially as Connor admits he uses the machine hard (beyond it's intended scope ?), I'd be going down that route myself. Decent deposit from the TB125, maybe £200 a month over five years.

 

Howver I've been in his shoes, the experience was enjoyable (at the time- a bit like shagging a rotter), and I learnt a lot (again, like shagging a rotter- don't do it again) Plus skills for life (again, like shagging a dirty bird!)

 

I trust most of you can appreciate the anology....

 

[Matthew Storrs]

40 minutes ago, doobin said:

Not to piss on anyones chips but I beg to differ.

 

Skills to do what Connor is doing (if done well) are £40-50 an hour. Equipment is expensive, parts are horrendous. So how much could he make doing the same or even normal arb work? You like to think it will increase the value of the machine, but the reality is it doesn't. Not be any appreciable amount and certainly not by even 25% of the cost to do it all in my experience. Been there go the T shirt.

 

Brand new 2.7t machines that will be reliable backed by warranty are available on 0% finance currently. Especially as Connor admits he uses the machine hard (beyond it's intended scope ?), I'd be going down that route myself. Decent deposit from the TB125, maybe £200 a month over five years.

 

Howver I've been in his shoes, the experience was enjoyable (at the time- a bit like shagging a rotter), and I learnt a lot (again, like shagging a rotter- don't do it again) Plus skills for life (again, like shagging a dirty bird!)

 

I trust most of you can appreciate the anology....

 

 

42 minutes ago, doobin said:

Not to piss on anyones chips but I beg to differ.

 

Skills to do what Connor is doing (if done well) are £40-50 an hour. Equipment is expensive, parts are horrendous. So how much could he make doing the same or even normal arb work? You like to think it will increase the value of the machine, but the reality is it doesn't. Not be any appreciable amount and certainly not by even 25% of the cost to do it all in my experience. Been there go the T shirt.

 

Brand new 2.7t machines that will be reliable backed by warranty are available on 0% finance currently. Especially as Connor admits he uses the machine hard (beyond it's intended scope ?), I'd be going down that route myself. Decent deposit from the TB125, maybe £200 a month over five years.

 

Howver I've been in his shoes, the experience was enjoyable (at the time- a bit like shagging a rotter), and I learnt a lot (again, like shagging a rotter- don't do it again) Plus skills for life (again, like shagging a dirty bird!)

 

I trust most of you can appreciate the anology....

 

I don’t disagree with you at all-But I quite admire Connor for being so tenacious with a machine, it’s not a route I would go down myself as I’m not really a fan of wasting time and money fixing things- it would be interesting to know how much he has spent all in on parts never mind the labour? But even a shagged (to continue the analogy!) TB125 will fetch quite good money at the mo. All the machines I’ve ever had I’ve been happy changing tracks and a few bushes/sprockets here and there- as soon as it gets into major component failure things start getting expensive rapidly and the best place for it is eBay. That said my TB125 is a low houred minter and I’m half tempered to stick it on eBay for a ridiculous price and see if anyone bites!

[dumper]

48 minutes ago, doobin said:

Not to piss on anyones chips but I beg to differ.

 

Skills to do what Connor is doing (if done well) are £40-50 an hour. Equipment is expensive, parts are horrendous. So how much could he make doing the same or even normal arb work? You like to think it will increase the value of the machine, but the reality is it doesn't. Not be any appreciable amount and certainly not by even 25% of the cost to do it all in my experience. Been there go the T shirt.

 

Brand new 2.7t machines that will be reliable backed by warranty are available on 0% finance currently. Especially as Connor admits he uses the machine hard (beyond it's intended scope ?), I'd be going down that route myself. Decent deposit from the TB125, maybe £200 a month over five years.

 

Howver I've been in his shoes, the experience was enjoyable (at the time- a bit like shagging a rotter), and I learnt a lot (again, like shagging a rotter- don't do it again) Plus skills for life (again, like shagging a dirty bird!)

 

I trust most of you can appreciate the anology....

 

But it’s your machine and you have done the work a great sense of satisfaction,

and benefit if you intend to keep the machine new machines with adblue sensors and computers just won’t last I can see where he is coming from

[doobin]

On 13/09/2020 at 11:35, dumper said:

But it’s your machine and you have done the work a great sense of satisfaction,

and benefit if you intend to keep the machine new machines with adblue sensors and computers just won’t last I can see where he is coming from

That's where a five year warranty comes in, and the residulas are high enough to mean the next brand new machine is peanuts.

 

I just sold my first new machine five years later for 9k- cost me 14k to buy. New machine is 16k. So it's cost me 7k over five years when taking into account higher new machine prices (which most people don't do). Add in some servicing to make it 10k. So that's £2k a year for a brand new machine to the spec I want, or £166 per month to have it sitting there, ready for all my complex attachments (can't do that with a hire machine) Anything goes wrong, the dealer sorts it.

 

Hmm, do I want to pay a days labour a month to have a machine sat there almost risk free 24/7 that can do the work of ten men? Let me just think about that ?

 

That said, I wouldn't be suggesting this if Conor hadn't said he worked the machine hard. Even with new components at horrendous cost, there's still a lot more potential for downtime in a machine of that age (in my hard won experience)

 

 

[dumper]

1 hour ago, doobin said:

That's where a five year warranty comes in, and the residulas are high enough to mean the next brand new machine is peanuts.

 

I just sold my first new machine five years later for 9k- cost me 14k to buy. New machine is 16k. So it's cost me 7k over five years when taking into account higher new machine prices (which most people don't do). Add in some servicing to make it 10k. So that's £2k a year for a brand new machine to the spec I want, or £166 per month to have it sitting there, ready for all my complex attachments (can't do that with a hire machine) Anything goes wrong, the dealer sorts it.

 

Hmm, do I want to pay a days labour a month to have a machine sat there almost risk free 24/7 that can do the work of ten men? Let me just think about that ?

 

That said, I wouldn't be suggesting this if Conor hadn't said he worked the machine hard. Even with new components at horrendous cost, there's still a lot more potential for downtime in a machine of that age (in my hard won experience)

 

 

Every thing you say is correct but to be reliant on a dealers fitter they don’t always turn up and usually can’t fix in one visit, warranty mmmmmm! Bad experiences there!

new machines equal plastic and electrics neither are durable 

I think that the correct course is whatever works for you 

[doobin]

1 hour ago, dumper said:

Every thing you say is correct but to be reliant on a dealers fitter they don’t always turn up and usually can’t fix in one visit, warranty mmmmmm! Bad experiences there!

new machines equal plastic and electrics neither are durable 

I think that the correct course is whatever works for you 

Yup, dealers usually leave a lot to be desired, however for me I always find a new machine to be more reliable than an old one. 
 

although the issue with dealers is not that they drag a warranty repair out- they are usually on a fixed price for a certain repair. Usually it’s that I know more than the mechanic. 

Edited September 15, 2020 by doobin

[openspaceman]

49 minutes ago, doobin said:

Yup, dealers usually leave a lot to be desired, however for me I always find a new machine to be more reliable than an old one. 

I've not bought any new big equipment other than cars but can affirm if you are unlucky enough to require warranty work it tends to be begrudging and shite.

 

Being non specialised in which tree work I did I tended to need a variety of equipment that could sit idle for months, finance on new stuff did not fit well with this.