Thesnarlingbadger

Made me realise how knocked my body is [emoji848]

Done

Got these crap picture in the dark earlier if you can recognise it from these. If not I’ll try and find out the make and model tomorrow. Do certain ones have certain issues.

To be honest I would never have checked it if there wasn’t some sort of issue. It’s pretty much a closed system but the guys in the gear box said some oil will get flung down the shaft (minimal amounts over long periods) and this may be the issue as the van has done just over 100k and may never have been checked. Usually not an issue but bloody expensive if it does go tits.

Looking at some of everyone’s things that have broken has made me realise small company small issues however I have had my fair share of crap since January. The Transit has been the biggest of my problems. Had the front near side bearing go. Then engine malfunction popping up and it kept going in to limp mode. Diagnostics showed sod all. So after a half day checking all the pipes and every inch of the engine noticed the waste gate was jammed and the actuator was the issue, it’s built in to the turbo so had to replace the whole thing, gave it to my local Machanic as I knew he would get it done quicker than I would and I had some big work coming up £900 down but happy to have it done. Anyway there was a noise coming from the van and I assumed it was the sound of air rushing through the waste gate. But no it was coming for the rear of the van and sounding a lot worse than it used to, kept my fingers crossed for a rear bearing, but no of course it’s the diff, checked the oil level, very low and metal filings in it. I wasn’t even going to attempt that fix so it went in to a gearbox specialist £2000 later and the van is back on track. I’ve had issues with the tail lights on the chipper so as I’ve taking the led lights off that have caused nothing but issues and replaced them with normal bulbs but still had problems. So spent 3 hours early one morning with a torch under the van and found the cable had been pinched by a bit of Woodchip and the wires had been crossing (I effing hate electrics). The blunt chains are building up, the grinder has a flat tyre and a missing grease nipple, got a 261 that I need sort the carb out on and the ram on the tipper keeps getting stuck on the last ram and I have to give it a good jerk every time to give it that last push. The radio in the van has a bad earth as well (the guys are most pissed off about this one). I have Monday and Tuesday to start working through the list so better get that radio sorted first ?‍♂️.

Depends how old and how many hours it has. Seems cheep to be honest. I’d be carful especially if you can’t easily go and see it before buying. The ones I’ve looked at in the past have always been £15k plus.

I’ll just add one of the limbs over the house was removed as it had a split in it, hence that being a little more sparse.

Had the pleasure of deadwooding this beautiful Oak last week. Also a perfect tree to get the apprentice in a harness and out on some limbs. And then a 3m reduction on this Ash on the same site again a hell of a tree (until I got my hands on it).

Nice one, yes I’ll check it out and if I need to just pass them on to a sharpening company I will. Cheers

Nice one. Thanks mate. I’ve got some diamond disks knocking about at the back of the yard somewhere. I’ll Start the sharpening this week. Cheers

Fair enough. I’m a short arse so the cab seemed alright to me. Hope you get something sorted soon mate.

Fair point. What’s done is done. I’ve got into a busy work load now so the yard stuff will take a back seat but I’ll consider clear pvc throughout when all the other sheets blow off (roofing is not my forte).

The new Hilux has a 3.5 tonne tow. I’m sure you’ve already looked in to this. But I believe they are the only 4x4 on the market now with rear diff lock. They carry a tonne so put them in the right tax bracket (for now) but there is talk of the bed having to be the same length or bigger that the cab so they are not a car, this would undoubtably put all the double cab pick ups on the wrong side of this. The whole tax pick-up thing is really becoming a bit of a pain in the arse and it’s all because loads of city office types use them to drop their kids off to school. I think it was Coca Cola recently got done by HMRC for using VW combi vans because they are not classed as a van. How this is the case I do not know but if this is the lengths they will go to I think all 4x4’s have a pretty bleak future.

Mainly due to the fact this pvc sections end up brittle and cracking after a couple of years. Don’t mind replacing a couple every now and then but not a whole roof. The logs actually get a fair bit of light from the sides and the other roofing I managed to get a decent discount as I got a load that got damaged in transit. £5 a sheet and had to buy 3 for full price.

Last weeks work. 34 conifers down and ground out. Had an emergency job come in on the Monday so I had to put it back a day and spend Saturday grinding the last stumps, wouldn’t have been so bad if they didn’t all have bloody iron bars in the trunks [emoji25]. 12 loads of chip but customers kept the thousand or so logs so that was a bonus. The predator 360 worked bloody hard and did me proud but out of curiosity any of you know the best way to sharpen multi-tip teeth? (I have about 50 dull now), also has anyone used the rock multi-tips? Worth the extra couple of quid? The first pint went down pretty fast on Saturday evening. And the emergency a split out Holm Oak for a university I do some work for fun climb and it was just make safe and stack brash didn’t get many pics as we had to knock it out quick. The base was riddled with white rot and the standing steam was like a wobbly tooth.

a quick cheep one the lads and I knocked up a couple of weeks ago to store the logs sales for next year. I have a new love for free pallets.

I wish, they would certainly make our job a lot easier.

“Get away from her you bitch” I still use this line regularly usually when the misses cat is to near the kids.

I would say Aliens, Shawshank redemption and Apocalypse now. But there are plenty of others Kelly’s hero’s is a good in.

I’m doing the CS32 at the end of next month and hopefully this will teach me a thing or two about winches. At the moment I just keep pulling that leaver and close my eyes thinking I’ve not had one snap yet, it’s got to be this one.?‍♂️

I’d say the powers that be have good reason to take those rights away from you. Mind you id blame the winch. I think this tree would have split on the bend and gone sideways before the winch gave up on me.

Cheers Mark. I know if the tree owner phoned me to look at it and I went out I’d have said MEWP straight away. But the fact I turned up to do it on the day I felt like I should at least give it a good go. I’m not pissed off I walked away from it, and the end of the day I’m still here and I’ve got a family to support. Not worth the risk. I know some people would have done it and if I was younger and still in my glory days I probably would have.

It wasn’t a big job (the Ash was probably only 50ft) and to be honest if the roof wasn’t right under it I wouldn’t have had an issue I’d have just cut lumps off and sprung about a bit but I wasn’t comfortable getting up past standing in the main brake in the branches. The tree had so much movement. If the trees behind were higher and I could get a decent enough anchor I would have been a lot happier and probably not have started the thread. I know there are people on here who could have done the job without a second thought but not me.

That was the plan but I wasn’t able to get up the tree high enough to cut in small bits the lean on it was giving it was to much bounce and any time I moved it would bow down about 5ft and spring up again. The main point and i’m willing to admit it is that I didn’t feel safe in the tree at all.

Not a bad shout but then I’d be adding more ropes in to an already tight spot with the rigging line as well. Although the trees behind look taller the angle I was at when roped in to then was near horizontal and made getting in to a comfortable position a nightmare.