Matthew Storrs

2014 was my greatest year since starting on my own in early 2009.not just financially but also the quality of jobs I was getting- nice long projects working in beautiful locations and I also finaly have managed to get good newish reliable bits of machinery which was the problem in earlier years If I can have a similar year in 2015 I will be very content with that, as long as I am still making a good enough living from decent jobs that will do me nicely- no plans or aspirations to grow into a big business or employ loads of people, that just means more hassle as far as i'm concerned. Happy New Year everyone!

No that is just in low ratio, no diffs locked, I havn't yet needed to lock them yet on the road, but im sure if I was in a 4x2 rear wheel drive pickup there simply wouldn't be traction on the rear whees when pulling up a steep devon lane simply due to the lak of weight over the rear tyres, also I doubt many modern pickups are geared low enough that they could do a reasonable hill start with a genuine 3.5t in tow, I know the ranger certainly can't because we've tried it, so this means dropping into low- which means diffs are locked in a pickup- is that correct? consider there are hills round here which can be 4 miles straight drag up hill- that's a lot of time to wind up the transmission.

I do appreciate the comfort and quietness/ general car like attributes of pickups, and in this respect the landrover is considerably outdated and suffers from many niggles to boot. But I do need 4x4 on the road too, as Beau says, the devon lanes are a complete nightmare being single tracked and covered in mud/algae, Even with 4x4 on the landrover I can get a fair bit of slippage when I tow my 3 ton digger up a hill particularly when you have to stop several times whilst going up to let oncoming cars squeeze by! I would not want the same weight behind something in 2x4 in those circumstances.

I'm absolutely amazed at how basic the 4x4 system is on these modern type '4x4' pickups, I had no idea. How can it possibly be rated to tow 3.5t (as many are now) when it doesn't even have a usable road going 4x4 system- I believe this is a very dangerous combination unless your on flat ground most of the time. I was recently for a moment just ever so slightly considering trading my Landy in for one of these pickups as its now a 15 year old truck, but I wouldn't even consider it now iv learned about this- they would be almost totally useless in my application. I remember using a 1 year old L200 a while ago, and had to back a 1.3ton trailer along a section with a few winds in it, I consider myself to be good at trailer work but the clutch was stinking by the time I had finished, not something iv ever experienced with my Landrover shunting considerably bigger loads around.

wow, im surprised a truck is rated to tow 3.5t if you can't be in 4x4 on the road- I assume they are rear wheel drive when in 2x4? This would provide minimal traction towing on the hills unless you had the truck bed filled up too (which would then put you over the GTW).

Surely you can have the truck in 4x4 without the diffs being locked (just like a landrover is as standard) which would be fine on the road... Is there an option on these trucks to be in 4x4 and in low ratio whilst on the road and not have the diffs locked- for example if you had to tow 3.5t up a hill.

I might have missed this in the thread, but why not just carry the chipper on the front and tow the digger on a trailer behind? A bit of time would be spent when on site putting the chipper back on the back but not drastic? But thinking of the way you intend to hook the link arms on to the digger- do you mean you will have brackets welded straight onto the side of the track frame so you can hook on to them- where will the top link then hook onto? and would the trackframe actually be stong enough to have that kind of leverage applied to it- its only aprox 5mm steel from memory on the takeuchi track frame...

I didn't say all the time, but when it does happen I like to know I can pop to my nearest Landrover parts place and on the shelf will be waiting a selection of non genuine or genuine parts priced to suit. I bet your Japanese dealership doesn't carry all parts for a 10 year old vehicle on the shelf- and if they did you'd need to remortgage your house compared to Landy. Personally- I need very few parts for my Landrover so your first sentence is irrelevant to me:001_smile:

I like the Defenders for the fact that when you need a part you can find them very easily on the interent- and most towns have a Landrover parts place- how many other 4x4s can offer that and be good value too?

That said I wouldn't ever spend 25k on a landrover. 12k max for me, the rest id spend on another vehicle to make my business more versatile- or just keep it in the bank for a rainy day (or to fix the landy!)

I really don't know how any one copes without 4x4 (doesn't have to be landrover although I am partial). Yesterday I spent the day subbing for a largish firm who had many many large contracts. however they didn't have a 4x4 between them, instead we were using a Iveco tipper which was A COMPLETE LOAD OF CRAP! spent the day getting stuck on wet leaves on the side of the road (crown lifting job on a devon lane) and pulling over to the side of the road meant either getting stuck of grounding out. Personally id sooner cope with the smaller bed of the landrover and be able to go pretty much anywhere than struggle along with that Iveco. Guess that's just my line of work, but anything other than a Landy(or anyother 4x4) mog or tractor would be a complete waste of time.

Definiatly be wanting a galvanised chassis in that budget, saves welding/waxoyling costs in the long run. I think id have a 3500kg 110 myself, id possibly find the 130 too awkward on many sites. Superwinch h14 hydraulic winch, 300 tdi engine. An alloy chipbox- but one that could be stripped down to just dropsides too. BF Goodrich mud terrains. Probably a roof box with a side access panel so you can just stand on the steps/treesliders and get kit out.

how much you want/need to make in a day depends on what sort of outfit your running. Someone who has minimal equipment- few saws and hand tools etc with barely any business costs- high insurance/finance/yard rental etc would be doing quite well if they earnt say £130 a day for some relatively basic chainsaw/hedge work (for example). On the other side of the spectrum- well established tree surgery outfits with plenty of machines/yard high insurance could easily be needing £130 a day just in running costs before they,ve even begun to earn themselves a wage, a personal wage of £24k a year is roughly £100 per working day, add the above running costs of £130 and that's £230 a day before the business has actually even earnt a profit. So in short in response to OPs question- could be anywhere between £150-350 .... Just work out your own costs and don't worry too much about others- as long as you can get the work and you are happy with what you are making- all is good:thumbup1:

No I would just feel sorry for the wolf if it was re-introduced, I just don't think there is an eco system to support them- The last wolf on Dartmoor was shot nearly 300 years ago, presumambly people couldn't live with them then so can't see it happening now when the human population has multiplied x6. Too many roads, houses blah blah, and the countryside has been 'precioused up' too much.

You really need to be looking at the train weigth of a pickup- the trouble being- many pickups are rated to tow 3.5ton but because their train weight isn't high enough you are not allowed much/if any weight in the actual pickup. IMO this is pretty much essential when towing the full 3.5t on hilly country. The Landrover is brilliant in this aspect as you can load up the landrover to its full capacity AND tow 3.5t which is safer then towing 3.5t without any weight in the pickup- the backends are light enough as it is.

Not quite correct, my landrovers TRAIN weight is 6550kg meaning the landrover and load on its bed can weigh up to 3050kg and it can also tow 3500kg to bring it up to its train weight- something which it does regularly towing a 2.8ton digger plus 500kg attachments in the pickup bed which also serves as necessary ballast to tow the heavy trailer. All this talk about tail wagging dog is 100% down to bad driving and bad loading of trailer, iv never been wagged in my 110, simply cause I load it correctly and drive accordingly. In response to OP, the landrovers are good towers being low geared (a problem which many other pickups suffer from is too higher gearing). I would say they handle 3500kg with relative ease on flat to moderate hills. Pulling 3500kg up a 1in3 hill can get interesting if you don't have the landrover ballasted enough- lack of traction, ifor trailer brakes don't work going backwards- so not enough weight in Landy means being pulled backwards if you have to stop when going up a steep hill.

Around water courses you mean?

I once ran a standard oxdale tractor mounted splitter of a 1.5t mini digger, I had a bracket made to go on the splitter so I could hook it on with the digger. It worked well on the digger- quite quick return etc.

OOH, You've got me green with envy, That's the new version of my Takeuchi, very handy size, does Mark manage to tow it legally with a pickup (under 3500kg) I notce the new 228 is 100kg heavier than the older TB125 which would push it over the 3500kg limit for towing- which is a shame. That looks a decent size grab he has.

Well, I prefer a cab, im on Dartmoor most of the time and its nice to be sat in the warm and dry still doing a days work when its pishing down out side. The only drawback is possibly slightly reduce visibility, but in short I would never buy a cabless model if I planned on spending any time in it, they also add a bit more weight to the machine (150kg) which all helps. I loved my TB016 it was brilliant for pretty much everything I used it for - plenty of grabwork, they have good reach for a 1.5t machine. I wouldn't go for the digbits grab myself, I had one but it was too small(tines weren't long enough) to get a good grip on logs and I had to weld teeth on the tines to get it to bite into the timber. I have an RSL engineering grab now on a 3 tonner and its far more up to the job- iv given it some serious punishment shifting piles of big granite bolders and its held up very well, they were at the APF show and the one on the 1.5t also looked much better than the digbits one I had..

Hmm, that's interesting, I phoned augertorque to ask for a planer to go on my augerdrive, and they said 8ton machine minimum! must have been a new salesman, how is it on your size machine?

Yep, could have been, didn't think of them. Perhaps it was blocking out their sunlight. Could have been nasty if it had landed the other way though/ no more Pixieland:001_huh:

That's more like it:thumbup1: Did you have anything to do with the Beech which snapped in half outside pixie land? Strange place for it to break off- looked quite sound wood??

Cheers for the responses:thumbup1: This is the sort of thing I had in mind, This is a 6ton trailer which weighs 1.5t plus 3ton digger and about upto 1ton worth of attachments etc. http://jpmtrailers.com/images/p1020903.jpg I would probably preferred a dual axle trailer but they increase in weight a fair bit so single might just do mine fine. The tractor has genuine 4 wheel braking, ie discs on all 4 wheels as opposed to using the 4wd system to brake.

Yes 24 ton is GTW. tractor only weighs 3.5t:laugh1:. Im looking at various multipurpose dump trailers so I can tow my digger to the job plus all its attachments and use the trailer on site. I always had this plan with my 95hp Zetor which pulled like a train, but lack of adequate brakes prevented this. (typical zetor). Iveco kid- that's some serious pulling:thumbup1: