Pigglet

I'd been looking at a Weibang mowers for a while but couldn't find much in the way of info and reviews on T'interweb so thought I'd post this for other folks. My old Hayter 56 died last week so I took the plunge and bought a WB567SK V-R (56 Legacy Pro Roller). My local machinery dealer stocks them and assured me parts are no problem. Time will tell..... A bit about me, ie what qualifies me to comment on a mower? I've worked in garden maintenance off and on for 20 years, helped a friend set up his own landscaping business and currently work in property maintenance and management so use a mower regularly. Over the years I've used Honda, Lawnflite and hayter mowers. Hayter have been the mainstay being relatively cheap and reliable until recently........ My own machines include a Hayter 56, Etesia 46, an old bobcat 48 zero turn mower and a Ransomes Maquis. Back to the Weibang....... (no it doesn't have a woohoo engine:001_tongue:) Info I read on forums had people comparing them to a hayter with comments such as "It's a cheap copy of a hayter" etc..... Let me dispel that misconception straight away, it bears no resemblance to a hayter in any way, particularly build quality. The Weibang is in another league compared to a new Hayter 56 which in my opinion is very poor. It bears more resemblance to my Etesia than the Hayter. It's very solid and seems well specc'd and put together. Little touches like proper ally wheels running on proper bearings add to that feeling. It's got a FJ 180 Kawasaki motor. I really rate these engines, my Etesia is 10 years old and an ex council machine and the KAWA engine on it is still really sweet. The briggs on the younger Hayter is smoking and rattling despite having done less work. It's heavy! You would not want to be lifting it in and out of a van on your own regularly, the handle at the front makes lifting it easier but it's too heavy to make it a regular thing. The handlebars are height adjustable so you can set them pretty much where you want and they are well damped to reduce vibes, if I had any criticism of this mower it's that the bars are a little long so overall the machine is bit longer than the hayter so it's less nimble. In use it's great. I've only used it for a couple of hours in the dry so far but I'm impressed and much prefer it to the Hayter. It's fast, in fact in 3rd gear it's probably the fastest comparable ped rotary I've used, noticeably quicker than the Hayter which had new drive belts fitted only a couple of months ago. Drive take up is very direct, more so than the Hayter or the Etesia, it feels more like a chain driven cylinder mower in that respect. Grass collection is very good,way better than the Hayter. The bag is big at 72 ltrs and it completely fills it. I ran it until the bag was full and chute blocked, emptied the bag and left the chute full, fired it up and it blew the chute clear straight away just like the Etesia, not at all like the Hayter! It'll be interesting to see how it copes with wet grass, as in the past I've relied on the Etesia when the Hayter stopped collecting. The lugs the bag sits in are nice and deep so it locates positively and the bag itself has a bit of rubber pipe over the locating pins which is easily replaced and prevents wear. It gives a better finish than the hayter, My own lawn is quite bumpy and the hayter used to bounce over some of the bumps creating rings in the lawn. The Weibang doesn't do this as much, I'm assuming it's the extra weight??? Overall opinion- I'm very pleased with it and for under £1K I think it is extremely good value ( I got it cheaper than a Hayter 56 Pro). It's early days as I've just got it but on my own lawn it's left a better finish than the Hayter and cut it noticeably quicker due to being both faster and requiring significantly fewer grass bag stops. The only criticism I have is that it's a bit less nimble than the Hayter being slightly longer.

Finally got round to checkiing the above links out. They are just what I'm looking for, I'll use 2 in case one goes faulty

Ta, Can't get on Ebay at work but will have a look when I get home.

We had a visit from some scrotes through the night, they've been active in the area but we've not had any bother untill now. We have an Ifor horsebox that is parked on the drive, has a wheel clamp on and is right under our bedroom window. It was tampered with last night, normally I hear anything unusual outside but it was so windy last night I didn't hear anything. Are there any motion triggered alarms or hitch locks and alarm combos that are worth investing in? If it makes a loud shriek when moved that would probably be enough to let me know some one is up to no good.

Having had a few dealings with local planning authorites over the last couple of years we always use a trusted planning consultant to handle our applications. It costs a couple of hundred quid but she has ensured that 1) I haven't wasted money on an application that is not likely to gain approval and 2) that we haven't been bullied by the LA planning departments. A couple of friends have submitted similar application to ours and it sounds like the planning department have tried to knock them back and impose changes and conditions on dubious grounds. We had none of those issues and I'm guessing it's because they knew the consultant would of pulled their (the LA) argument to pieces.

Cheers Spud. I dropped it into the local dealers for them to look at, they claimed they tuned the carb and it seemed OK when I tried under no load conditions afterwards but when I used it in anger the problem returned. I'll try leaning it off a little and see what happens.

My 036 has had this issue since I got it, basically it will start fine from cold, run up to full throttle and cut under load no problem but when I release the throttle from some where near fully open it will just cut out. If I run it down to tickover slowly it's OK. Any ideas? I was going to order a carb kit which leads me on to...... Do people use parts from the likes of mister solutions, garden hire spares etc or only genuine stihl? All info greatly appreciated.

In a word ... Wild!

Used to work on them as a grease monkey and owned about 8 in various guises since I passed my test. It's a love/hate relationship

Get a 110 or a 130, 90's are too small for anything other than just towing and posing in. They are great vehicles and do exactly what they say on the tin however they require considerably more attention in terms of general servicing than most modern cars and pick-ups which is why a lot of them end up knackered. When you know what you are doing the extra lubeing and checks doesn't take long or really cost much but makes all the difference to a vehicles longevity. Things like regular greasing of propshaft UJ's, oil level checks in axles/gear box and transfer box, swivel housings and ALL steering linkages. It's these things that get neglected when they are owned and maintained by people who don't know any better and end up causing sloppy steering and premature wear of major components. As stated you are better of buying an older vehicle in really good nick thats "tight" rather than something newer thats been worked hard and neglected. Buy a shed that you think is a good "fixer -up" project and if you don't know what you are in for you could well end up skint and sick of landrovers in a pretty short time..... (Speaking from experiance:lol:) Be warned - Landrover ownership can be like a disease of which you are never fully cured, I love them but after using one as a daily driver for a year or 2 tend to get sick of them and vow never to own another. After a couple of years I always hanker after another:001_cool:

We've just put some on our HiLux. I've always ran BFG's and found that in the long term they work out cheaper than any other tyre as they outlast them by a considerable margin including Generals which I ran on landy's for a bit. We were changing the BFg's at about 50K miles and they still had about 5mm of tread left but by that stage weren't much cop in the gloop or snow. IME Remoulds just aren't worth it on a daily driver doing average or abve avergae miles of miles, the performance is usually way below a premium brand tyre (borderline scary on some) and they just don't seem to last. We've just put a set of the conti cross contact AT's on to try as the truck will be getting changed in a year so if they don't last as long as the BFG's it's no great shakes but first impressions are very promising. Despite being a quite aggressive profile they are no noisier than the BFG's and corner and stop just as well. Price wise we got 4 Conti's for the same price as 3 of the BFG's!!! Deffinitely well worth a look. Continental Tyres -ContiCrossContact? AT

Whats the general consensus on verticle Versus horizontal splitters. I'm after a tractor mounted log splitter for domestic use splitting arb waste. A friend has a Major LS2000 which I have used and whilst it's much quicker than an axe I find I need to twist to hold the log in place to stop it dropping off the beam with one hand and operate the spool V/V with the other so I end up being a bit twisted. It's also not much cop on big discs for obvious reasons but as I don't get loads of big discs I'm not too worried about that. It is fast though and I can split nice long lengths. The verticle units look like the would split heavier logs but don't look as fast or comfortable to use??? I've not used one. I'm thinking about getting either the major LS2000 or 3000 as they seem well made for the money. Atkins Farm Machinery Anyone got any opinions?

Hi Scotty, thanks for the reply but I actually managed to get through to the guy near me earlier so I'm sorted now.

Hi BD, I've tried to contact them via email and phone last week for a quote but not heard anything back.

We've got a couple of stumps that need grinding out near Stokesley. Anyone on here interested or know someone that may be?

I bet that was poky for a landy! I appreciate that there's no such thing as a free lunch but I'm just trying to make it more driveable at the bottom end and mid range by restoring the performance of worn components and taking a bit of time to set things up properly. Funnily enough I was talking to a mate at work last night about it and he said he was told to "tweak that screw on the back of the pump that alters the fueling" when he took his 110 for test. His head gasket went a couple of weeks after it's last MOT then the turbo seals expired shortly after that. I guess it send his exhaust gas temp sky high and he didn't realise.

Too early to say at the moment, only just done it but I'll keep an eye on it. My intention is not too try and get maximumum power out of it, rather set it up correctly as it should of left the factory. My interpretation is that the adjustment I have made has simply added a bit more fuel at the bottom end of the rev range and the result is a negation of what on my particular disco was horrendous lag before the turbo boost got things moving. It's made pulling out and junctions considerably safer. It's made no difference whatsoever to performance above 2K RPM. I read an article on landy zone that inferred that injector performance tends to drop off quite significantly when they have seen over 100K miles. Replacing the injector nozzles restores the original spray pattern which restores both performance and efficiency. Todays fiddle I see as compensating in some way for the drop in injector performance and the adjustment will probably need to be re-visited as and when I re-furb the injectors. What I'm trying to do is restore some of the original performance and driveability, not tune the nuts off it to out drag the missus 3ltr hi-lux. I have no intention of upping turbo boost or altering max fueling settings.

I've had Tdi'd landy's for years but never really got round to trying to tune them as such. My current disco is pretty flat off idle so after a bit of searching I found this: http://www.stonefisk.com/doc-arc/def_man/ThermoGuard_Tdi_Tuning_Rev.2.pdf I've just adjusted the "Diaphragm rest position" as described in section 3 on Page 8. I kid not it's the biggest improvement in performance to any standard landy I've ever made.......... Even better, it took about 5 minutes from pulling up on the drive prior to starting the job to going for a test run. I'm going to re-furb my injectors so will tweak the pump timing and other fueling settings then but for starters I'm well impressed with the improvement i pull-away performance this has achieved:thumbup1:

Thanks guys. I've seen gator blades advertised somewhere when I was searching the other day. I'll give them a go.

As per my previous post, I got a 36" rotary mower at the weekend and it's made short work of the lawn:thumbup: It's a Ransome/bobcat and whilst I appreciate it's not as HD as the ferris it was a bargain and does what I need which is really just domestic duty. I'm wondering if it's worth fitting oregon mulching blades now I've got it to the height I want it???

Magic, Thanks for that:thumbup1:

Thanks for that Tractorboy, I reckon thats a bit big for my need plus it's outside my price range though.

Another thankyou here. Ordered a flip line and rope clamp on Tuesday and it was in my paws yesterday. Fast delivery adn superb prices. Many Thanks:thumbup1:

Thanks for the replies guys. Bob, thats very encouraging to hear:001_smile: Badger, It's a rotary not a flail I was thinking of so I will have a good gander at the deck and blades. I'm reasonably competent at sussing out the mechanical condition of things having worked on plant and landscaping machinery in the past so whilst I appreciate they are comercial machines and as such will of been used in such an environment, I was intending to buy something that looks as though it's not had too hard a life, something like this...???? Ferris 13hp 32" rotary pedestrian mower ride on size | eBay UK