monkeybusiness

That’s ace!

I’ve got a 1928 safetrak that has done at least 3000 hours and it’s still a great chipper. The 1928 road tow is one of the most underrated chippers out there imo - I’ve had a few now (2 of which got nicked and have yet to turn up...). The top mounted stop bar and feed hopper shape are great - they are a fantastic machine that can be picked up for not-a-lot of money. Look out for water contamination in the hydraulic oil (the early ones had a design fault with the breathers, it doesn’t affect the safetrak though). Otherwise they are pretty much bombproof with regular maintenance.

Shit the bed!!! Any pics of the old unit?

If you ever need hydraulic motors speak to flowfit. They’ll match just about anything (motors aren’t expensive to be honest, less than £150 a lot of the time).

Can you not get it made/copies/repaired?

I had a D4D Dyna that had similar symptoms - turned out to be a very dirty sensor within the air intake pipework (possibly the air mass sensor). Took it off, gave it a good clean, sorted the issue! Had to subsequently sort the air filter housing that was letting dirty air through...

I don’t have any first hand knowledge of those old 230s, but was once told by someone well up on his Timberwolfs to avoid them as they have some sort of problematic issue with the drive belt setup.

If you want something manoeuvrable that can get to your worksite pretty much wherever it is there is nothing that will touch a 1928 safetrak. They need maintaining (like anything really) and I wouldn’t pay any attention to the hours showing on them as the boxes have a habit of resetting... Isuzu engined ones are the earlier Mk1, but I prefer them tbh. Overheating problems will almost definitely be down to a blocked radiator - there could potentially be an issue with the engine if it has been allowed to overheat too much though. The control boxes are good at shutting them down if they overheat/have an oil pressure issue etc, but will also shutdown if a bonnet switch etc is loose which can give a false overheat alert (making you think there is an issue when there isn’t). Sharp feed rollers (dress them up in situ with a flap disk on a 4.5 inch grinder - a horrible job but makes a big difference) and sharp disks give a machine that will feed as well as any of the competition. There’s a strip of metal that partially closes off the rotor exit chute which gets broken off - they block with this missing but not many people realise this causes the problem. Small Bandits are not much good from my experience - nothing like their big brothers. Stick with something European if it is on tracks and to be towed behind a van/pickup.

Do you have any details of that 1928 that’s for sale?

Shiny shiny! Mega setup there boyo!

No personal experience but know of a lad who set one up on a wooden pole instead of the official version - it snapped and smashed his face/eye socket really badly.... Be careful!

Wowsers! What an amazing machine! How does the reach compare to your Liebherr? What is the quick release hose block attached to - I can’t work out how it’s supported off the telescopic dipper? Also, can you fold the arm down low enough for roading with that head on, or do you move it separately? Mega bit of kit, I bet you can’t wait to put it to work!!!

Can you remove the pins from the Botex and fabricate a flat(ish) floor to low-load a digger? Or get a low loader trailer and take the lot? Chuck the chipper and/or mulcher on an Ifor Williams (or stick it on the front linkage if not too heavy - not an option with my set up though). That’s what I do, but it costs a bit more (and isn’t as versatile if you just want to drag a little digger to the job).

You can get the new 2.7 tonne zero Bobcat on 0% at the moment, can be spec’d with double proportional aux and a canopy if you are worried about weight... I don’t know if they are any good, but I can’t see it being too hard to get enough work to cover the payments!

It looks better without it, I’m with your mother in law here!...

I seem to spend my life dealing with people wanting a different piece of paper to the guy on the previous job (I’m talking about our generics/qualifications etc, not SSRAs which are obviously completed site specifically). They all want the work their bosses are paying us to do to be done yesterday, but seem to have issues with irrelevant minutiae before the get-go. And our paperwork is genuinely bang on (it has to be with some of our clients, which is fair enough!). I can’t believe how many of these people exist, and how much it must cost to employ them all, as none of them ever seem to do anything other than generate filing cabinets full of arse covering crap!

How do they prove competence / set benchmarks for safety etc in Scandinavia? Or are they a bit more pragmatic about it and don’t subsequently answer to industry governing bodies in the same way as we do here? You could run the risk of introducing a whole new raft of requirements to work on top of the not-fit-for-purpose load of crap that currently exists - I’d be more inclined to suggest tying in with (and trying to influence) a big player such as the FC that is a widely known body whatever your background, and subsequently carries weight (in terms of ‘trees are trees’ to the layman/builder/civil engineer etc etc). Mechanised deveg is not in any way a new idea, and the FC (for all of their faults) have more experience than anyone else in the U.K. in putting soft, breakable human beings inside big strong machines to keep them safe and make them more productive in a dangerous environment. The AA and the NPTC aren’t going to help here - IMO they’ve done nothing to get our industry specific accreditation recognised by the CSCS mafia (they handed it off to BALI, who introduced the total bullshit ROLO tax) - that’s the main problem I see you facing, anything more task specific won’t be recognised in its own right. It’ll all come to a head when someone has an accident with a machine, and the task specific tickets are looked into (and found not to exist). I’d be hedging my bets with the FC/FMOC route personally, and think that the owner operators with the biggest investments and subsequently the most to lose if/when the shit eventually hits the fan are best placed to try and steer it from the beginning. But that’s just my view.

This is true, but for the price they offer something very well made and recognised that shouldn’t cause any HSE issues in the event of something disastrous happening... I had my fabricator mate look at making me something and whilst you will never really beat something designed and built bespoke for a particular person’s application it wasn’t worth messing with this time when Cabcare’s offering is as good as it is for the price it is. Talking to them at the APF I got the impression that they are in discussion with the FC with regards a benchmark for this type of excavator guarding. They are also apparently open to suggestions from operators about industry specific improvements to their guards. If you don’t already know him, give Adrian Grew from there a ring and bounce some ideas off him - he’s a very decent guy who knows his onions.

It’s a very well thought out guard on that Kobelco - makes my cabcare (which is spot on to be fair) look rather second best! Cabcare were great when I ordered from them to their credit - I wanted the top section of the screen guard easily removed for when not ‘treeing’ and they adapted their design so that it’s a 1 man lift-off with 4 bolts (previously the whole front piece needed to come away as the bottom section won’t self-support, which is a much bigger job). No extra cost, still certified, happy to help sir! Great company.

I bet it’s because it’s a really low volume machine specific part outsourced (and because of the low volume subsequently supplied at a similar price to JCB as something you could buy as a customer direct from CabCare or whoever). JCB will then need to put their margin on it, potentially stock them somewhere for forward distribution, get them to a relevant dealer etc etc. I’m not trying to justify it, it’s bonkers money, but I can sort of see how relatively specialist parts like that quickly become expensive. I’d imagine you saw the guarding on the 8 tonne Kobelco on the Molson stand at the APF? I’m not sure who supplied that but it was very well thought out IMO, with the bars angled to minimise line-of-site obstruction. Might be worth investigating it’s source?

I’d want to see the inlet manifold downstream of the air filter personally, and see what sort of built up residue is present. There shouldn’t really be anything if the air filter set up works properly. If it’s clean, you need to look elsewhere for reasons for continued failure (overheating/oil starvation etc)

I think that Bartletts vid (and the apparent lack of obvious consequences with regards approved contractor status) did the AA no favours at all within the industry unfortunately.

I’m not sure I understand - what are they all shooting at? A hill?

Yeah, this is a terrier!

I’ve had several moments when I’d like to shoot my own dog - once he cocked his leg on a toddler on a beach, he used to bark at/attack wheelchairs, out of nowhere he will want to do nothing other than hump someone he’s never met before, he’s locked himself in the van (with the keys) more than once... Absolute bellend - I can’t actually describe how much I love him though!