Jonny69

On 11/09/2022 at 22:14, Stephen Blair said:

Going to mock up some ramps with planks to get the length righ and then buy alloy ones.

They are quite rare but I have seen a Brian James crossover in the flesh once. It's an option on the cargo connect I think. 

I can't work out how to send the image, if you google images "Brian James Cross Over" its the first image

EDIT: Forgot to say it was very good, well thought out and easy to use. I would guess much better than anything you could homebrew

8 hours ago, BunyipBen said:

 

nice video, what model is the Rayco? Its got a really good chip throw for a drum. 

On 05/02/2022 at 18:49, Ty Korrigan said:

I run a wee grinder, FSIB20.

Had an hour clock installed since new and now shows 142 hours.

For the last 10 hours or more I've noticed that my hands have suffered painfull aches after about an hour.

Painfull to the point I thought I really couldn't continue using a handlebar machine.

I first put it down to grinding in the cold and wet but now I've come around to the idea that the real cause is the side play in the bearings.

Despite being enthusiastic with the grease gun, grinding is certainly not as smooth these days when I think about it.

 The rubbers in the bars are still good though and I will buy a pair of gel gloves

So I've ordered a set of bearings from my local engineering shop who will extract and refit them for me, as I've a 50 stump marathon coming up.

In terms of bearing wear, what is average for a pedestrian grinder?

We managed 450 with a Carlton 4012 until the side play became too great and the belt shredded, bearings still ran smooth regardless.

   Stuart

Firstly, doing loads of grinding with that machine is always going to hammer your body. 

I get 100-150 hours on a bandit HB20 which I guess will be similar to what that will do. I don't think youll get away with just bearing though. I always have to replace shaft and bearings.

When they start to go at tickover the machine will shake unusually, we can't normally tell any difference when its at full revs but it basically wobbles the whole machine at tickover. Which is when you know the bearing and shaft are on borrowed time. 

16 hours ago, swinny said:

Took the chipper out of service last week and only just managed to get around to looking at it. 

 

Oil pressure is 42 psi when cold and solid 35psi when warm. 

 

Compression tests today reveal 380 psi across all 4 cylinders. Starts first time and runs and sounds well. 

 

Might not be as bad as I first thought. My issue is blue smoke on a cold start up. With my above findings I'm leaning towards just valve stem oil seals. And service the injectors..... see what it looks like when I take the heads off.... hopefully bores look OK and valves are OK when I've stripped the heads Down.

 

Fingers crossed! 

That's sound, they all smoke a bit on startup so I wouldn't worry if the smoke is only for 10 seconds. Mine is low on compression and its a right pain to start in the cold and smokes for ages, but when warmed up its fine. 

On 02/01/2022 at 18:35, swinny said:

Who through though? And what sort of brass?  This is a 4m40l 74hp..... looks about 1500 quid to rebuild top end just materials

A full engine rebuild on that will be 4-5k. But that is pretty much everything and should be good for another several thousand hours. A new crate engine from Deutz is about £6500 I think. 

On 14/01/2022 at 17:38, swinny said:

Just getting round to this now.... and I've taken covers off and found that my Alternator pulley is 70mm and the crank is 140mm

 

PPR = P x R /2

 

“P” is the number of poles in the alternator. “R” is the pulley ratio. Determine the pulley ratio by dividing the crank pulley diameter by the alternator pulley diameter

 

So my r value is 2....

 

How do I work out how many poles on this alternator? It's the last piece of the puzzle lol  😆  helllllllpppppp 😀 

 

Are you trying to setup the stress control? If so just use the actual engine speed and forget about the multiplier in the tacho for PPR. I.e you want stress low to come in at 2200rpm and stress high to come in at 2600rpm engine speed then you can have the tacho and stress control unit reading incorrectly but they actually function correctly. If your engine is doing real max revs of 3000 and the tacho reads 2200 then just setup the stress for it to work at 2200 max revs correctly and it will be fine.

There is a bandit list somewhere with their models, engines and PPR settings which I found once setting up my 150 stress control. Of course I cant find it now!

On 09/11/2021 at 21:26, mitchel said:

Hello,

 

I have recently gone vat registered and have 8 weeks worth of work already booked in before I went vat registered. Finding it hard to get customers to pay the vat, i'm not sure wether I can absorb the 20% on all the next 8 weeks worth of work. any help would be much appreciated how others handled this situation?

 

Thanks

Mitch

You will have to absorb 16.66%, not 20% as you are knocking the vat off the total. 

On 02/10/2021 at 09:28, Lumberjock said:

Hi, any advise would be greatly appreciated. 

 

I’m looking to start up a new business. 
 

I currently work as a forester with Cs30/31 qualifications. 
 

I would like to get back into private arborist work more close to home. I used to be a Groundsman for a short time. I do not and have no intention of climbing as I am over 40. 
 

I had the idea of purchasing an Arb Truck and chipper and advertising as Van, man and chipper for hire to arborists who do not have these. Charge a daily rate for my services. 
 

Would this be a good idea? Any pro’s and con’s you can think of?

 

Thanks
 

 

Problem is with this plan, almost everyone has a truck and chipper already. You would be better off buying a machine that's a bit specialist and subbing to people that way. 

With basic work tools and maybe a tracked chipper, cherry picker, skid steer/loader, excavator with tree attachments.

There is always work for diggers and cherry pickers even if its not just related to cutting trees.

2 hours ago, PeteB said:

She has 115k, the body hasn't been off to my knowledge but she has had some work done, telltale in screws, plastic body fitting clips and fixings etc. The park assist started getting intermittent then stopped altogether.  I've check resistance of each sensor and the read pretty much the same, I can trace connectivity through the earths to the body but no joy. It would be fantastically rare for all 8 to fail at the same time! The nanocom reads "no voltage to the front" and no faults for the back. 

At 115k I would expect it to have been off at least twice. Once for the turbo and again for the gearbox, unless the gearbox hasn't been out. In which case you are on borrowed time with that. 

Unlikely the sensors then, unless one sensor down throws the whole lot out of sync. I've had three disco 4s and a 3, diagnosing electrical faults on them is a bit of a game. The only reason I mention the body being off is because they find loads of electrical faults after all the connectors have been disturbed, you seem to get a run of issues afterwards.

On 05/07/2021 at 21:52, PeteB said:

Any members good auto electricians? Is the park assist module the same as fitted to Jag S Type units? If I swapped modules as I think mine is duff,  is it complicated and needing a recode?

S-type is quite old so probably not the same unit. No doubt they are almost identical though. 

Will almost certainly need coding as well, everything on them seems to need it. Out of interest how many miles and has the body been off for some work?

On 03/07/2021 at 12:04, Dan Maynard said:

Agree, the only problem with M500 is the price, and there aren't many around second hand. I was lucky and found one for just under £3k, it's tatty but chips like a goodun. On its second engine, new drum bearings, not much else to it.

I saw TW 150s for £3-5k and just thought about how much more there is to go wrong.

I don't think it's bonkers to forgo the 6", but depends what your mix of work is. I'm mostly doing small removals and pruning with it which it is excellent for, 2 or 3 man teams. Also means I can run a tipper trailer and so have decent payload because even with the chipper on I can load 2 tonnes of wood at the end a job.

I have a Jo Beau M400 and a 12inch tracked bandit. For me its ideal to be able to cover a decent spread of work. We can get in the back garden for little trees with the jo beau, which happens surprisingly often. Then can be machine feeding the bandit when required on bigger jobs

Personally I don't see the point of 6 inch whatever make chippers. If I was to run a transit van type setup it would be with at least a 12inch road tow (probably american) machine. Bandit sell a 15inch road tow machine which is under 3500kg which would take the snedding out of most jobs. 

That M500 is bargain for £3k even if its tatty looking. The build quality on my Jo Beau is a bit questionable but they are built to a weight so I don't hold it against them. 

On 07/06/2021 at 23:31, miker said:

Right, really got a hankering for the shogun 3.2...ive seen a 2015 with 33000 on the clock for £22k and a 2015 with 62000 on the clock for £19k, both have full mitsubishi service history, same spec etc, both from same dealer..does 30000 miles make much of a difference on these old bruisers ?

 

Ill get me coat

cheers

Mike

Check the engine spec. There was a change in 2014/2015 (I think) and you want the earlier variant of the engine. I assume it was emissions related. You can tell as the older one is the 197bhp and the newer has less power, it also has less torque. 

They are slow, noisy tow vehicles compared to modern stuff but get the job done. Definitely built to last and quite good off road with all the lock ups engaged. 

6 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

Not really selling it to me there.

 

Really strange the lack of chippers here compared to the UK. 

 

Is there some way you could have a French trailer chassis sent to the UK and have the chipper bolted to fit? That might open up the options significantly. 

6 hours ago, allseasons said:

Will get a demo and see but the vermeer is ticking all
Boxes so far and everyone who has one hasn’t got a bad word to say about them and they seem to hold there value very very well

The Vermeer machine is pretty good. The grapples are really not good, Id buy a grapple off someone else. 

On 12/12/2020 at 15:10, 5 shires said:

Well time has come to replace my trusty 2008 old Wildtrak  Tipper which has just passed its MOT with just a number plate bulb needed but it’s done 0ver 200,000k so has a few advisories to deal with.

Will be sticking With a  Ranger Wildtrak 3.2 and looking at getting ether a 2013 to 15 model but thinking of going for an automatic which I have never had before so I need a little help for the advantages and disadvantages of a automatic over a manual in general and for towing so any help who be great..thank you.👍

Like most things in life, there are auto boxes and there are auto boxes. 

The Asian stuff is generally very reliable but not very clever and they feel rubbish compared to a decent auto box.

I believe the ranger 3.2 has a box which is fords own unit. Probably the same as fitted to their cars in the US. It is a bit clunky, not very clever but should be be good for towing and off road.  In fact of all the ranger issues I know people have had I've never heard of the box being an issue. 

 A lot of companies use ZF. Ive got one in a Land rover, they are in Audi and probably loads of others. They are superb. Smooth, fast, great when towing.

Ive got another car from 2007 with a Getrag auto box and its nothing like the ZF in the newer land rover. Its smooth enough but takes an age to shift in comparison, however it handles a lot of power and torque very well and is apparently good for loads of miles. It will also locks the torque converter in 1st immediately so it launches better than a manual.

Another point, in my opinion an auto box is better off road. You have no loss of momentum when shifting gears which makes a huge difference when trying to maintain speed or accelerate up a hill. This is even more noticeable when towing off road.

On 15/09/2020 at 20:20, Moose McAlpine said:

I think 2 grand a piece.

 

He reckons they just need a battery/jump start but i've yet to see that. I'll find out for sure as i'm working my way through the equipment. He has 3 Timberwolf 230s and a huge Bandit 12XP, so these are all surplus to requirements.

I wouldn't want to pay any more for the vermeer than the schliesings. Regardless of what it takes to start them they will want a fair bit of money spending (full refurb). Id happily pay 2k for one of those Schliesing, aim to spend 5-6k on it and have a really smart spare chipper. 

22 hours ago, Jack.P said:

Intresting one today .

had just finished days work trimming up some nasty laurels and Lelandi 

Customer then insists the invoice is made out to a nearby rental house which I was a bit unsure about agreeing to as never worked there .anyway decided to drive past the other house on the way back ,

Turns out there not even hedges of any kind in there rental house .stupid feckers

the work undertaken was for there private garden and not a business of any kind  .

Always the wealthy which will try it on .

 

 

No trees or bushes there because you felled them, as it says on the invoice. 

6 minutes ago, Matthew Storrs said:

And cost you £40k in depreciation ?!

 not quite that bad. You probably break even on depreciation and tax relief to be fair. but it means i get to drive a lovely new work van about with a heated steering wheel, arm rests and 300 odd horsepower. It probably doesn't cost me any more per year than a £5K 15 year old pickup. 

54 minutes ago, Treewolf said:

Big difference on VED, for a Defender it's the difference between £270 and £580 pa at present.

 

If you don't 'fess up to the change then it's not tax avoidance (which is legal), it's tax evasion, which is illegal. If you get caught, expect uncomfortable penalties from HMRC. Remember also that your insurance will look for any excuse not to pay out, and undeclared modifications are way up their list of exciting discoveries. That also probably means you're legally uninsured. Then of course there are the type approval aspects, which require that any seats fitted are of a type which has been type approved and fitted in a type approved way, otherwise you'll require SVA. 

 

It really isn't a good idea even to think about it nowadays. Those days are over.

The VED is of no relevance really. It's capital allowance that's the big one, its 8% for a discovery car and I think 100% for the van. If you earn well a 50k van will save you probably near 10k a year in income tax. 

59 minutes ago, The dogwalker said:

I got an update from the Brian James dealer yesterday and was told that a new hydraulic engine/pump was shipped from England the same day so it should appear here within a few days.

This is fast enough in my book, after all Brian James England should have recieved the pictures the day before that.

I've had really good experiences with Brian James warranty. Had a ram fail on the last tipper (might have been two back) which was sorted the same day, I assume a manufacturing issue as the other one was fine. The trailer was over two years old. Had a serious amount of tips (many overloaded)

Bent and snapped various bits loading with machines, overloading and generally being a bit rough with the side panels. Always got the spares really quickly.

I loaded about 6 ton of soil on the tri axle tipper once and it wouldn't tip it but that's the only time. It towed fairly well though.

I'm very happy with mine, which is why i've had about 6, maybe more. Fortunately I make enough money working that I can afford to not worry about the depreciation when I swap them every couple of years, which means I get to run the trailers I want.

On 05/05/2020 at 22:51, david wood said:

i borrowed one of these to move some timber and it had lot of good points and one bad.

good was it sits low, tri axle so towed well, sides good to take on and off, tip mechanism seemed good with very tall twin rams.

 

most hated but easy to overcome point was logs kept sticking in at taildoor, there are a lip either side when door off of about 3/4 an inch and big lumps were attracted to it like a magnet and then a bugger to move.  bit of plate popped in to make it sledge past would solve. 

 

overall a fantastic trailer i thought. 

The one you borrowed was the original tipper1. They had lips on either side and mine used to jam fairly easily. used to always make sure I had a pry bar, felling bar, sledge hammer and a saw to persuade bits out.

I now have the tipper 2, this is smooth on the way out. Have yet to have it jam up. I really like the brian james trailers, got a 12ft plant trailer as well which seems really good but I've not put loads of miles on yet. 

42 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

Spoken like a true desk jockey.

 

Why do you think your opinion is more valid than that of current working climbers?

 

Single rope working and top handled saws don’t kill people.

Using them incorrectly does.

The most concerning part of the post is 25 years as a climber, then going on to say he never used a top handle saw. Must have spent 25 years doing 5 years worth of climbing.

I must have really friendly top handle saws, mine have never killed me. Not even once. 

People will learn to speed up and kill themselves with whatever tool you give them. Its human nature, we want to race, faster is better and time=money.

One very important factor is tax. You can claim a lump of capital allowance with a new or expensive van which in my experience will negate any deprecation and them some. But it will depend on which tax bracket you are in. The more you earn, the more benefit from an expensive van. 

8 hours ago, Steve Bullman said:

Not sure if you appreciated the research and technology that goes into the metallurgy of wood chipper blades. It’s not simply a case of going to an engineer and having them cut a chunk of steel using your existing blades as a template 

Hate to be 'that guy'. But it would be really simple to get a new knife tested tested, find out exactly what it is and get a load of new ones ground off a bar. I am certain there will be better products out there for chipper knives but they are probably prohibitively expensive. Metals such as inconel would be great to use in machines but the costs would start to get silly, where the costs outweigh the benefits. 

23 minutes ago, Matthew Storrs said:

Yeah agreed- but £1000 would sort the wheat from the chaff- £10k sounds fishy to me. Some items are less than a £1000- no bloody way I’d give them £10k up front even if I was serious about buying a high value item. What happened if Euro Auctions went bust overnight- for example...

Last year they had 30million in the bank and 40million total assets. So id be pretty confident in dealing with them. Assuming its the same company based in Northern Ireland