Toad

7 hours ago, billpierce said:

Does look a tiny bit like small about of transfer on piston. Though v hard to tell from pics. If there is I'd prolly replace the piston as if your doing the rings for compression sake. Pot should clean up good.
 

Think don't think there is transfer on the exhaust side. The piston seems smooth there, although there are still some faint marks. The inlet side is a little worse with a couple of scratches you can just feel, I assume this is from poor filtration in the past?

I'll try to grab a photo in the next couple of days. Don't think there were any obvious issues when I looked.

Decided to get my finger out of my bum and strip my husky 371 down to rebuild. It's had fairly low compression but ran ok.

I'm going to change the crank seals as I imagine they'll be fairly hard after years of use, replace all the rubbers and put another exhaust on it as the original is pretty dented and rusty. The cylinder has a few vertical marks by the inlet and exhaust ports but I can't feel them with a fingernail, so I assume they are just normal wear marks from millions of passes from the piston.

I'm getting the carb cleaned and will fit a seal kit to it, I'll get the cylinder honed and have ordered a piston ring, the piston appears to be ok. I'll check the squish and probably delete the base gasket if I can, and polish the exhaust port.

There is a lot of carbon build up on the piston, the top of the cylinder and the exhaust port, how do people remove this? Seems pretty well baked on. 

Can the piston circlips be reused, or if I remove the piston, should they be replaced?

1 hour ago, Big J said:

Definitely Highways England, yes. I spoke to the Land Registry to ascertain ownership.

Cool. Good news. I often see the terms mixed up and didn't want you to spend ages chasing the wrong people. Not had that much to do with Highways England, but they will want a lot of work doing regarding traffic management I expect. Be prepared to spend a lot of money on a traffic management company.

Depending on the road type and how they are willing to work they might allow you to put traffic lights out switching them to all red while dropping the trees or they may want a proper closure. It's difficult to get the public to wait for a couple of minutes especially on a busy road. Of course if they are happy with winching them inwards then you will have an easier time.

Is it definitely Highways England, not the local highway authority?

21 hours ago, AJStrees said:

How have trees reacted to the tigermulch and compaction underneath?

To be honest I'm not entirely sure, they've all been highway trees so have had stressful environments. I've also moved on since then.

We have used tigermulch in areas like this, it's expensive though.

I think the pump should get to feel firm when you pump it.

Is it normal petrol pump fuel? Maybe chuck a bit in the cylinder and see if it will fire up just to rule out the spark, compression etc then concentrate on the feeling side?

2 hours ago, Gary Prentice said:

Was this an existing road access or a new one? 

 

Just wondering about the hoops you'd have jump through with the HA to get a new one 

For a new access, then you would need a section 184 license for the access and possibly a s. 171 license for the works on the highway verge. It might be that the highway authority uses a s. 278 license instead. If it's a classified road then it will probably want planning permission.

The highway authority will probably want the access building to an agreed spec. It's likely to want to be a commercial spec access due to using vehicles larger than a domestic car.

I used to do a fair bit of stuff with vehicle accesses. Happy to try to help out if you want?

Got My x25 yesterday. It's pretty short compared to the x27, and I think it would be uncomfortable to use for lots of chopping as I'm 6'1", but for splitting down smaller logs and little bits and pieces it'll be fine.

On 12/12/2018 at 20:36, difflock said:

Just watch Roland dos'nt fight back;

 

I love Run the Jewels, saw them in London last summer. Awesome show.

Mine got delivered Wednesday along with a few other bits I'd ordered. Thank you!

Put it together and had a little poke at some bits of wood while trying to survive a hangover. Will be good to get to use it properly soon.

I'm pleased with my x27, would it through a fair bit of wood since getting it in the summer. It is lighter than the maul I used before which means it's easier to use for longer and means you can get it swinging faster, and as kinetic energy is 1/2mv^2 the increase in speed means it imparts more energy to the wood.

I've ordered an x25 as for a lot of the smaller bits of wood I don't need the length of the x27.

6 hours ago, Baldbloke said:

 

Another point is that there was little advice available for early school leavers 40 years ago, and many nearing retirement age are still unsure of what they finally want to do for when they grow up

 

 

I think it's something that is perhaps even more of a problem now, nobody explains to youngsters and not so youngsters that there are loads of opportunities and different ways to get into more suitable careers. I try to reinforce to people that everything you do for work and at school gives you transferable skills that you can use elsewhere.

I have been really lucky getting into jobs because of things I picked up during my education, hobbies, outside interests and by life growing up on the farm.

We really should be reinforcing that the fact you can write an essay means you could write a report about trees, or write letters. If you're good at understanding how a chainsaw works it might lead to some sort of job in mechanical or agricultural engineering, the fact that you've organised your workload and the workload of your colleagues for the last year puts you on a really good standing for working as a supervisor within a larger company or running your own company, there are so many skills people don't realise they have or that they could use elsewhere.

1 minute ago, the village idiot said:

Good work Holmes. It was 95 or 96, can't remember now. Environmental Biology.

 

Got a bit too chemically curious towards the end of my second year and made it no further.

 

Hendrefoilan for year one, then Uplands year two.

Hah. Missed each other by a year or so then.

I was in house no. 40 by the path from the shop to Woodside flats, next door to the rhyddings in brynmill and then in Uplands for 18 months but can't remember the name of the roads.

Made friends with a couple from Bournemouth in recent years, turned out the wife and I lived a few doors apart and went to the same club nights.

Really miss those days, used to love a drum and bass night at Escape.

5 minutes ago, the village idiot said:

I was at Swansea too Toad. I thought I recognised you!

Looking at your profile I guess you started there in 95? I was there from 98 to 03, did materials engineering and lived in hendrefoilan for the first two years.

Grew up on the family farm (theme running here) and showed reasonable aptitude at school, but I was lazy and could have done better. Did A levels and worked on the neighbouring estate during the summer and worked for an agricultural merchant collecting and testing grain samples.

Finished a levels and somehow got onto a degree course in Swansea, amazing town, loved being by the sea. Worked for agricultural contractors and for a company doing mobile seed cleaning during the summers. Got onto a masters degree course in Swansea and did that, but mostly buggered about for 18 months. Worked as a labourer for various points. Finished my dissertation, felt depressed and went to Australia to work on a farm for three months. Came back to the UK, worked doing mobile seed cleaning and then went back to Australia, working for builders, as a cleaner and pissed about for 3 more months.

Came back to the UK and worked for agricultural contractors, builders and for a temping agency. One day got a job for a week doing data entry, completed what had been taking them 7 days in the first morning and got a permanent contract out of it doing it support, that company was sold and relocated, I got a short term contract writing software, that wasn't renewed as I was shit and a bit too lazy, then got a job in recruitment for the county council, and with an eye in going back to Australia applied for jobs in highway engineering as I could use that to help me emigrate, got on well with that forgot about going back down under and have done various jobs in highway maintenance, contract management and now highway design for 11 years.

Spend time wafting about on the farm outside of work and thinking about selling a few logs through the farm shop as I'm bored. Spent this last summer building a dog walking van for my now ex girlfriend and have spent a lot of time working on cars for fun, and occasionally for money outside of the day job. Would like to do more mechanical stuff if I get the opportunity.

Kind of curious to know what the issue is, thinking it's like the Simpsons episode where Homer gets a Japanese flu from a food blender or something. I guess there's no idea of when, or if they will be released then?

55 minutes ago, Vespasian said:

How about we shorten yours to Twat..

It doesn't fit? Maybe Erov or Eero.

2 hours ago, Mick Dempsey said:

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-46413209

 

You do wonder what other older songs viewed through contemporary #metoo eyes will be swept away into the past.

 

Suggestions please.

 

Under my thumb: Rolling Stones (in relalationship mind control)

 

Mama, he’s making eyes at me: Lena Zavaroni (consent issues)

 

I’m on fire: Bruce Springsteen: (Underage sex)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

To be fair, it does sound a bit rapey though doesn't it?

3 minutes ago, Adam M said:

Chuff all (2400) as the developer had a nice piece of paper from one of our planners telling them no protected trees on site. Helpful. 

Did you have a poo on the planners desk? I can post one to them if you would like?

I assume it is designed like that and bolted in as they need to machine the crankcase flat for the cylinder to go on. Quite clever design really.

Going back to the original topic, has anyone got over excited, bought something from eBay and then had a slight moral crisis when they realise the goods they purchased might have dubious history, and what did they do?

Fitted an oem filter and elbow and it's not much better. Hah. Oh well, at least I have more spare parts now.

Going to make a start on rebuilding the 371 soon. Not sure whether to just change the crank seals anyway, or inspect and pressure test it and then decide. Will get the carb cleaned and a kit fitted, replace the intake boot, impulse and fuel lines, fit a new decomp valve, probably a base gasket delete depending on squish and a new ring/rings as compression feels low. 

Is it worth lightly honing the bore when fitting new rings?

I am concerned the exhaust bolts won't come out as it's all pretty corroded, but I'll take my time with them.

Have got a spare 365 crankcase but going to try to keep it as original as I can.

Would you want the bigger saw pulling the chain on the cut side? Let that one use it's greater power and torque and the smaller one help pull the unloaded side of the chain back and help the larger saw out?