Daniël Bos

It's not a new machine and the company is Bavarian I believe (that's relevant coz german²) they'll never send a workshop manual to a mere end user without the correct paperwork! You Must Haff Ze Korrekt Papers!!!! And as far as finding a dealer, I can do that but I'm not. I'm diving in there myself!

Hi, I've been away from the delights of being annoyed at unknown other people's opinions and ignoring best advice to do whatever was planned before asking for advice.... Anyway, hi again...! I've aquired an "AS motor" rough terrain mower. It's a three-wheeler with a 165cc two stroke engine. It's running a bit rough though, any tips on how to tune it. It's got a carb unlike any other two stroke I've seen. It has a weird throttle setup where the valve is controlled by a flagpole thing that's moved by the breeze off the flywheel, bit like a governor. I'm somewhat confused and not sure where to start. I've asked my mower guy who doesn't know coz it's two stroke, and my two-stroke guy doesn't know coz it's a mower, and weird. Any clues?

I bid, I won, I collected...! The lot was the two ps250's with 4 or 5m poles and a couple of stihl bg85 blowers. Straight away one of the ps250 fired up, runs nice, no leaks, all good! There's one small niggle: the throttle cable is frayed a bit so it's a bit sticky but I reckon I can sort that with a bike brake cable (has the same end on it) The other ps250 appears to have a stuck starter, but' I've not looked into it any further. It's pole is missing one of the hydro quick couplers, i'll pop by my local hydro buddy to see if they have anything that small (it has the cutest little hydraulic couplers!) if not i'll probs just change them over to something more commonly available. One of the blowers fired up right away too, needs a new primer bulb (cracked a bit but not leaking yet) and a nozzle and she's good to go. The other didn't have a spark plug in it so I've not yet looked if she runs or not. So two out of four machines fired straight up, pretty pleased with that!

Cheers, I'll have a punt anyway. I'll just bid to a bit below what I think the value of a single working one should be and hope I can get one working out of the two. I'll go up to £200 odd, can't go far wrong with that I reckon. If not, it sounds like the parts should have some value?

Hi, I've stumbled across a brace of these at an auction close by. I've never seen one before, might get them (depending on price obviously) Used well, but not obviously ragged to bits. It's a dispersal sale from a local contractor. Does anyone have any information on these? Used experience? Value? Spares availability? Cheers, Daniel

The sprocket bearing inner race is a bit bigger than the ring of rivets. So clamping on that ring of rivets doesn't do anything to the bearing at all. I just used a washer slightly larger than the circle described by the rivets on the bolt head side. Can't take a pic as mill isn't in the same country I am just now.

I would (and have on my own set-up) drill right through the centre of the sprocket. Use a thick washer either side, slightly bigger than the Ring of rivets. If you're drilling the nose anyway, might as well maximize capacity.

the sucker there is the bit where they state "the vehicles exterior has to be distinguishable as a motor caravan in traffic" Which means it as to look like one, whether or not it looks like one is up to the person looking at the photographs you sent along with your application. DVLA have instructed their staff to make this decision based on (not publicly published) guidelines which are very restrictive and basically state it has to look like a "shop-bought" motorhome. This is (imho) all sorts of wrong, such rules don't apply to other vehicle categories (anyone seriously wanna claim a fiat multipla looks like a car??? or an ariel atom???). But it most likely is related to the more crusty "converted" vehicles, totally "stealth". Which means if the police are told to look for a motorhome, it could be right in front of them and they still see just a van. Anyway, I hope you get y'r v5 back as a motorhome! but I'm fairly confident it'll state "van with windows" (which isn't a vehicle category? odd!) Still think it looks great inside!

Deffo not a pine doesn't look like a horse chestnut to me either, I'd go with pear maybe?

The tree by the building may have moved just a tiny bit. Gap between the screws now measures 297 ish mm. Took me some time to find the same tape measure for consistency... It appears to be in slightly less health overall. Most likely because of the very dry past two years (with half it's root plate covered by the building) and the very Sandy soil. There's little bits of Browning of the needles throughout. Hopefully with a slightly less dry summer for a year or two she'll recover. So far, I'm happy to retain this one also. Though it would be unfortunate if the building got damaged, it's not in use often and failure of the tree would not likely result in injury or worse.

Cheers, I reckon anything over 60p is enough for me to take it on as it's within walking distance of my house and the ground is pretty easy going (clay). It's the faffery that'll take the most time I fear.

I'm not British.... Saxon Euro power for the win here, see it as humanitarian aid to these Islanders. There's a wide mix of species going in. Oak, birch, field maple, Holly, sw chestnut, hazel, whitebeam, hornbeam, goat Willow, alder, lime, whitebeam, turkey oak, Italian alder, Aspen. Probably a few I forgot.

I've been asked to do some planting, but haven't done any for years so was wondering what the going rate is at the moment? Planting in a grass field. Bare root whips. 4ft tubes + stakes. Trees and materials supplied so labour only. It's a bit faffy, planting in single lines with all the trees to go in according to a plan where each tree is marked. So I fear that would slow things down a fair bit.

You can tell the insurance company anything you like... But if you want to insure the van for what it actually would cost to repair/replace it if the worst should happen, then (depending on the company/underwriters) it'll make a difference how it's registered. Fortunately none of mine have ever been in an accident of any sort (fingers crossed) but a pal who had a stunning converted van got his entire claim rejected as he'd declared it as motorhome, but the v5 didn't state that. Logic and fairness don't apply to insurance company loss adjusters.

Three years on, here's the "field" tree. It looks to have moved about an inch, which given the distance over the measurements would be an increase in lean of approximately 0.45 degrees. Considering the position of the tree, it's vitality, and the targets should it fail, I'm quite happy with that. From the picture it may not be very clear, the tree has just one single branch on the "high side" which actually doubles back towards the low side to such an extent that I reckon it's net contribution to counteract the lean is zero.

PS, That picture in yr bathroom of the creepy guy would put me off from using it.

Awesome looking build! Which victron bms have you got? And when you say 1000W heater, is that an electric heater? As far as DVLA approval as a campervan goes, be prepared to be disappointed. You'll most likely get y'r V5 back as a "van with windows" which means you can't insure it as a camper, and means van related speed limits (campers of any size have the same speed limits as cars). A recent change at DVLA means they'll only approve conversions "that look like a campervan". In reality this seems to mean it has to have a total "factory" look on the outside, with an awning, roof plastic shite, a retired dude driving at 37 on a motorway and "campervan graphics" (which are oddly specific). There's been almost no conversions approved lately, even ones that have awnings, pop-up roofs, go faster stripes etc.

I'm pretty sure y'r pipe sizes aren't actually 1/2" (12.7mm) od, but something like 14.5mm od, so a 15mm bender would be fine. Similarly, 3/4" (19.1mm) is actually quite nearer 21 od, so should be just fine in a 22mm.

I think you've posted this in the wrong section? Shouldn't this be in the free tip site directory....? I'll get my coat.

Also not battery, but still explosive related: I worked with a company that had a car detailing and body shop department, they did amazing renovations of old cars as well as polish and clean up high end new cars, removing all the protection the car manufacturers put on for transport, removing all the glue residues from protective foam stickers, polishing to a very high level etc. My colleague Anton had been working on a nearly new porshe that had needed some small bodywork. He'd unexpectedly come across the need to respray part of the inside of the boot (bonnet, frunk, storage space at the front, porsches are weird). This was a problem as the car was otherwise finished and due to be delivered back to the customer by the end of the day. Anton was a hairy fellow, he had a mullet and though never grew a full beard he always had some form of dirty moustache. It was not all his fault, his facial hair was so thick and grew so rapidly out of his delicate skin that when he was a conscripted private in the army he had a special dispensation: he didn't have to shave. They'd tried to make him shave, and he tried, but he'd be profusely bleeding from the face at roll call every morning and looked like he hadn't shaved for a week by noon. So my hairy friend was in a pickle: he needed the paint to be dry to be able to refit all the carpet and trim, but there was no way it was going to be dry in time for the afternoon delivery the customer was promised. So Anton got a hot air gun and tried to gently heat the whole boot space, after having left it for a while he went in to give the patch a final bit of close up heat. It was at a very hard to get place though, so with his body twisted like a filipino contortionist he dove right down in there, turned the heat gun back on and.... Boooom! Now the porsche's boot lid was flat against the windscreen, the heat gun was dangling from the ceiling light, and Anton was smoldering. His hair had fused into a solid crust, tight against his scalp, his eyebrows, lashes and moustache were crumbled to dust. For the next few weeks Anton was a lego-head, with only drawn on facial hair and a hard cap of "hair", he had to wait until enough hair had grown back underneath his crust to be able to cut underneath to get it off. The smell didn't leave him until he finally was able to shave his whole scalp. Surprisingly, the car was fine after some additional buffing, the paint was dry, put back together and delivered on time. Here's a picture of what Anton looked like pre-whoosh (though this isn't actually our Anton as this happened some time ago, in an era where taking photographs was not a daily thing for most people...)

here you go Difflock, you love a bit of a project... pto powered washy device ebay clicky-link

Looks like ash to me

The battery won't explode unless the combustible mixture within is exposed to a source of ignition. What most likely happened in your case was that there was a cloud of combustible gas in the air, near the battery. This cloud got ignited by the sparks, the flamefront will have either travelled to the inside through the battery's vent tube/holes, or the cloud combustion was so powerful it cracked the case getting the ignition to the perfect explosive mixture contained within. Ventilation won't do anything to remove the combustible gasses inside a battery. But if there is no way for the source of ignition to reach those gasses there is no explosion. The forced ventilation of our box removes any potential build up of gasses near the battery, so if there is any sparking there is still no explosion as there is a "buffer" of (non combustible) air all around the battery. To prevent sparking, the charger is only powered when the door is closed (simple door switch with a relay).

We've had a similar explosive bit of fun on the farm. Now all the batteries are charged in a wee box outside with forced ventilation.