openspaceman

Easier to get in and out of too. It was the crawler gearbox with no gubbins in it. I don't know what the name was by we had one similar with 5 or 8 tonne electric over hydraulic iglands which was ex FC

Yes I know but have never used one. What's in it?

I suspect some condensation has settled in the diesel somewhere then, I only ever had this problem with one tractor and I could see water build up in the filters which had glass bowls, drained it and thought no more but eventually the tank filter blocked. There was a poor joint between the filler tank and cap which let a bit of water in. I read the problem is becoming worse as biofuel is added to diesel as the bugs grow better in it but the cause remains water in the fuel system somewhere. I think the marine water displacer is simply anhydrous methanol, not that I know where to get that.

Both suggestions of a biofilm caused by a bug that lives in the water-diesel interface in a contaminated tank or wax having precipitated out and eventually blocked the filter (temperature below the cold filter plugging point could be right. Did it clear as it warmed up? If it doesn't and remains jelly like it's the bug.

As has bee said look at LEDs I have some 3W ones that have PIRs in passageways and 2 8W ones over my bench. Those 1000W halogens will keep you warm and cost 12p/hour each to run.

Yes but you can over do it and end up with the belhousing giving way

I should have said it looked a sound job. Epoxy sets much better if it is kept warm, I normally use a hair dryer blowing into a plastic bag with the component inside.

Probably much the same has happened over the years. I was a witness for a landlord and the tenant's barrister was overawed by ours and consequently slipped up on a number of details regarding the tenancy and sold his client short. I felt so sorry for the two tenant sisters who were country girls and looked the part in their summer frocks. Our barrister is now head of the supreme court and I can still remember the joke he cracked to misfoot the opposition, he really was just like a performer in a theatrical play.

I hit my 2100 with an axe 30 years ago and did this repair, with fibreglass nmat and epoxy resin, to the aluminium fuel tank, which has held since then though the saw didn't get used much. It is still fuel tight.

Well the top pulley means the tension in the rope is acting as a lever with the fulcrum being the butt plate on the ground and the load is the tractor, it's conceivable you could winch the tractor off the deck and over onto its back, in fact with a 1164 and Farmi 8 tonne it never happened but one should route the wire through the bottom pulley for a big pull. Also to keep the load low you should hook any lengths you are skidding to the slots in the butt plate. Again, in practice this wastes time and the high pull lifts the timber clear of the mud so we tended to pull up high on the butt plate and travel. We had water ballast in the 1164 front wheels.

Any reason it isn't logged on Arbsafe?

Even when you get there it will probably be farcical, both parties and their witnesses directed in by separate doors, barristers conversing with clients and then each scurrying back out and "negotiating" in the corridor, followed by reporting back to client with the dominant one cracking jokes , like the good showman he is, to elicit guffaws from his side in order to intimidate the opposition. Often followed by a direction to judges chamber to settle out of court. After which the winning barrister treats his opposition to a lobster thermidor at the local hostelry.

The thing about the old winches is once you engage pto they keep pulling, if for any reason you don't declutch they can have you over very fast, especially if a heavy tree breaks out the hinge sideways and snatches the wire. I don't know how they happened as I was not there on either occasion but in about 1981 a tilhill contractor was pulling a big beech, the feller left too large a hinge and the spades gave out, driver bailed out and fordson winched itself up the tree and snapped the rope. Other occasion was at Shabden park, slightly older contractor than me, far more experienced and I had only worked with him pulling elms out of the Thames with one of freddy gear's matadors, he was felling a beech when the tractor (with no safety frame), flipped and crushed the lamb dead. I had come late to the trade so started out differently with County and double drums, in order to get a bigger payload and more speed. The old guys looked on me with disdain, they wouldn't consider anything less than 100Hft as a tree and they only needed 3 trees to a lorry load, so driving forward 100ft and winching the log through all the mud with a little 2wd didn't worry them, often the lorry driver would parbuckle them onto the trailer. I was not able to pull quite as much and travel with it but self loaders were picking up my timber and then the biggest they could load was 50Hft and my wages were often paid by the bit of firewood or pulp hanging on the back of the sawlog, which we converted at roadside. The big boys just left the tops to rot. The igland winches were also fast enough for assisted felling but in truth you can only winch a tree nearly opposite its lean as once it has moved 10 degrees the hinge has strained too far to resist a sideways lean, so if the momentum isn't going in the right direction by then it will crack out sideways. I would say 3-5 tonne was sensible for the fordson but the pull comes from much higher with an A frame

Boughton or preferably Cooks (with the open gears) suit the age of the tractor. Lack of safety features like deadman's handle make them inappropriate for modern use. The size of winch depends on whether you intend to use it to gather sticks up to the tractor and then skid them or to winch in, pay out and winch in again (which was the traditional method for big timber)

Very good for someone so young, my granddaughter and I did the big ben as a start of doing the 3 when she was 11, I was proud of her, then she turned into a teenager and we never walked together again, such a disappointment. I turned back on Crib Goch in winter 1970 and always intended to do it agin but on several visits since, in summer, it has always been too crowded. I always felt it was cheating to start from plas y brenin and much prefer to walk up from Nantgwynant where the parking is better, in a circular route.

Don't know where the E came from. Actually the descent down the pony track isn't much fun and after 5 ascents without having a clear summit I doubt I'll do another, the litter is unbearable. I've had good views of the summit in sunshine doing the ring or the walk from steall to kinlockleven. Anyway the favourite route is get a lift to steall car park, along to the falls and then east along the walk to Corrour till you get to the bridge and the cottage ruins. north up the hill before the bridge and onto a lush hanging valley, late June-July a goodly smattering of orchids and bog asphodels and the occasional butterwort. On to the watershed and then left up to the summit of Carn Mor Dearg, from there there is only the arrete to a short scramble up to the top of Ben Nevis. I didn't have a rope so never tried the abseil points. Also I don't do snow and ice, not donned crampons since 1970 so stay down below a couple of thousand feet in winter. To the OP: as a reasonably fit working person I used to reckon on about 15 miles and 3000ft of ascent for a decent day's walk, by the time I was 59 5 munros in a circular walk took about 10 hours and near finished me, mind I had been pen pushing for a couple of years by then.

Get there early though as the queues build up on a good day, similarly with striding edge. For a crowd free arete in summer carn mor dearg

Is it a sprocket or a rim? I discarded sprockets as soon as the drive link bottomed out, telltale is a bright spot at the bottom of the sprocket, rims tended to disintegrate as a sign of wear.

Nice bit of free publicity there then! I was concerned the MEWP operator was not sufficiently separated from the chainsaw operator

All of them seem to lose their elasticity and none of the buckles seem to hold their adjustment. They're a necessary item once your gut exceeds your hip measurement.

Sorry I missed the question earlier: the regulations allow the use of an agricultural tractor for (a) purposes relating to agriculture, horticulture or forestry (b) cutting verges bordering public roads © cutting hedges or trees bordering public roads or bordering verges which border public roads I don't know what the interpretation would be if the tractor was chipping branches cut manually and then transporting the woodchip, in practice we do it.

I don't disagree, the point I was making was that I'm seeing less of specific predator species, like stoats and weasels. I’m seeing more "scavengers" some like red kites, because they are artificially supported.. Locally there are less rabbits than in the past. Also Crows Magpies and foxes seem to benefit from roadkill. At the same time locally the road network has effectively driven habitat sizes down below that can support a meta population, increased traffic makes a roads a barrier to herps where in the past I saw lizards and grass snakes scuttle across. Give me a cite of which predators you mean. But we plainly agree that there is a decline further down the food chain so what we differ on is what these predators with increased numbers are and how their predation is reducing the prey species population. I hold that the decline is to do with environmental factors other than predation. I have no knowledge of the studies with hen harriers you mention but I have seen the return of kestrels who in turn have been displaced by buzzards.

Not against the law but it can be seen to be not minimising risk to use one. I have not seen a prosecution yet. However there are many instances of successful prosecutions, some even using third party photos, of things like scaffolders not using edge guards, i.e something to prevent slipping off the edge even if guard rails would prevent a body falling through. I like to have a small battery saw next to the chipper but would be very wary of using it in public.

Agreed. The point is it shows use of top handled saws (was the use single handed?) other than when suspended from a harness is commonplace. It's just another bit of ammunition for a diligent HSE bod to notice and resurrect the attempt to ban the sale of top handled saws.

That's a view I share. In 1985 it wasn't unusual to have a weasel run in and out of the logpiles as we ate lunch but I haven't see one since about that period. I think the problems lie nearer the bottom of the food chain, whether that may be less over wintered stubble or less dairy cattle to produce flies for the swallows or less mice and sparrows from better hygiene in crop stores I don't know.