Rupe

Its not real, its a piss take!

The centre panel, between the two reinforces, already resonates a bit! We are looking in ot improving that.

Got the tipper hooked up today and looked at wiring the trailer light socket into the loom of the truck but it hurt my head too much so I left it for now!!

Lucky fo rme that I don't transport woodchips for a living then. So few of my jobs are "remove from site" which is why a 3.5t truck is ideal and tool storage is more important than capacity. I think any 3.5t is a compromise but anything that can be done to improve the loading is a good thing.

I'm only looking at being "less" overweight!

Its along time since I was able to turn down freelance work on the basis that they wanted me to do bad work, and in these times you need to take whats offered, but ultimatly the company you are workign for are making a profit out of bad tree work (not your fault) and they are doing so without paying a climber PAYE and NI etc. The customer has had the wool pulled over their eyes and the bad work continues. Its up to you if you want to carry on like that. NO ones judging, these are hard times, just don't make me have a fit by telling me they expect you to have your own insurance too! That really would be taking the wewe.

Yes, two reasons. Firstly the side drops down to horizontal and creates a work bench with vice. Secondly it reduces the amount of wood chip you can hold to a slightly less overloaded amount! Most chip boxes are full size and then we wonder why we are overweight the whole time and the truck (especially LDV's) are dying on us. Then you also get a storage space for rakes (whatever they are) etc.

You have to imagine that YOU didn't do the job, the company you were working for (i.e. the one that gets paid by the customer) did the job. They just happened ot use you for the climbing part of it. Take the money. If it up sets you that much then don't work for them again. Another problem is if you do a fantastic job and it make the company your working for look better than they really are, again take the money but decide if you want to continue making them look good.

Got the chip box on, only loosely so far so we can measure up and get the final panels made to fill in the gaps at the rear. There will eventually be white plastic panels covererign the sides so the will be no structural steel work visible, just white plastic outside and smooth steel inside with no bolts or welds showing. Also I still need to sort the roof out and have not decided on material yet. I weighed the truck before putting the chip box on and it weighed 2020kgs so I've not got much left to be within my limit!

Can you be more specific about the work you do? What sort of mileage do you do, how much load do you carry over what mileage etc, do you do one job every two or three days or 4-5 jobs a day. I may not be able to offer much advice but I'm interested as to why the LDV was no good and also I think "tree work" is extremely varied, we do not all do the same work. I, for instance, hardly ever carry woodchip more than 4 miles, occasionaly upto 8 miles or so yet I work upto a 40 mile radius. If I was carrying a full load of woodchip back 40 miles at the end of the day regulary I would never buy an LDV, I would go japanese. If I did 4-5 jobs a day I would probably go Transit. If I employed people to drive for me I would go newer (not necessarily new) but self drive you can have an older vehicle if you look after it. If your main income is from hauling wood/woodchips away from jobs then you need a haulage vehicle and an LDV is not a haulage vehicle IMO.

Heres mine, and my old truck

Euroliners.com... The best wheelcovers in Europe... This company sells the walnut dash as well as wheel covers.

They do them in carbon fibre look too! I was in Halfords yesterday, OMG what crap there is available these days!

My LDV fettish continues.....

Not much got done today. Finished welding all the brackets underneath and got the tow hitch on but thats all. The back end of the truck is not the prettiest view, maybe one day I'll get a new tow bar fitted but the one off the old truck will do for now.

I think every company should have someone qualified and someone else with common sense, put the two together and it should cover every situation. One can keep the pen pushers happy and the other can get the job done. If you can get both in the same person then your doing well.

Problem sorted. I couldn't borrow a trialer in time and had to get it moved today thats why I was stressing about what to do. Anyway we wired up some lights and took it to scrap yard. Got 100 quid for the old wreck.

And wheres your climbing helmet? That looks like a chainsaw helmet.

receipt from the scrap collector guy?

OK, that sounds like good advice. Do I need any ID from him?

Ok, the "no end of trouble" answers my question better. Cheers.

Can we wait till its finished before going into that? There are a few finishing touches that I may not be able to afford just yet, such as aluminium roof (plywood might have to do for now).

The guy that wants to collect it isn't really a scrapyard or dealer, he just drives around in a transit and collects scrap. 60 quid would save me a trip to the scrapyard or borrowing a trailer. I just don't want any comeback from selling to him. Can I just put his name in the blue section and send it off to dvla and if he gives a false name then its not my problem? Thats the question I'm asking?

Mick, what a FRAG? I don't want to drive the thing on the road, it just wheelspins everyhwere cos there is no weight on the back end!

Thats what I'm looking at but it says tick the scrap box if you dismantle it yourself?? A scrap yard counts as a vehicle trader so you would fill in the red bit but I'm doing neither so I'm confused.