Muddy42

If I'm feeling depressed, I cheer myself up by looking at garage forecourt kindling pricing. Makes me feel like a millionaire.

sounds a bit much. Fruit trees like slightly acidic soil. How much is a stove pan - 2 or 3 kilos? I give fruit trees a spade full a year. but who knows. Very difficult to prove what is too much.

p.s. wood ash is an easy, cheap and often readily available source of alkali, plus other nutrients. The soil around me is a bit acidic so I add some to the soil whenever I plant anything and thereafter occasionally dump a scoop at the base of smaller trees I'm growing.

You could try digging a hole bigger than you need and planting the tree inside a carboard box of your desired soil. Trim the cardboard to soil level and soon you wont notice its there and eventually it rots. Once the root ball gets through the cardboard it will be big enough to cope with poor soil.

Denmark has just ended its general postal service and personally I think we consider doing the same. The labour force is over-unionised and an inefficient throw back to the 1960s. The use of private letters is in decline and government / NHS should be forced to digitize. 90% of the physical mail I get is junk mail and a large proportion is a duplication of email. There are other ways to deliver the financial services and banking than through a post office branch. Sorry if this sounds harsh. For parcels, competition is great, but some days you get evri, parcel force, DPD all delivering separately and blocking up the roads - there must be a way to co-ordinate this.

Cylinder Piston Assembly WWW.LSENGINEERS.CO.UK The Cylinder Piston Assembly for the Husqvarna 390XP Chainsaw is crucial for optimal engine performance. This assembly includes components like the cylinder, piston, and... i dont think so

Agreed I think those are the standard US connectors (SAE) so should be very compatible.

i think thats only on the more expensive noco chargers. Its good to hear you have found this works.

Agreed I have a 2amp Noco charger. It charges everything from a quad to a tractor battery (this just takes longer, just ignore the % charged dial and keep going). I like the fact that as standard they come with a leads that can easily be used with crocodile clips or connected permanently to the battery as a trickle charger. The downside is that they are a bit "smart" and can sometimes refuse to charge older or heavily de-charged batteries. As above I might just buy a couple more 1amp noco chargers and use them as trickle chargers. I'm after a new jump pack. I have an ancient one made by RAC that won't hold charge more than a few hours, although you can charge it from a cigarette lighter which is a great when you are on the way to rescue someone!

bring it inside and it should recover, cold kills batteries. thanks but I don't think I'll try a solar charger. The shed is in a shaded spot and I'm skeptical that it would get enough sun! I want to extend the electricity to the shed anyway to run other tools etc.

Thanks will do. It would help if some manufacturers didn't hide their batteries so well. I need to remove 6 awkward bolts and the bumper (!) to get at the battery on the Grillo climber under the fuel tank/bonnet. I'm going to attach some permanent battery leads to make trickle charging easier.

So I went to service various engines and mowers and both had dead batteries. This made me think about trickle charging them over the winter. I have been doing this to the quad and its been revolutionary, especially in this cold weather. I would need to bring electric to the shed, which is something I was planning to do anyway. I can see that you can buy dual trickle chargers (which clip onto two batteries at once) but these are expensive. I have an existing 1 amp noco smart charger. I was wondering about charging both batteries individually then connecting them in parallel and attaching the trickle charger. Has anyone done this successfully? or I could just buy another 1 amp trickle charger or two to give me a spare for other 12v batteries.

compression is a peak value, so you could still have a ring leak or a stuck valve etc. even the oil itself can contribute to the compression.

Yes, there are a few things that could go cause excess fuel when you cleaned out the carb, or reassembled the choke or governor. BUT I would have thought a carb fuel issue would affect both cylinders equally. I would try soaking the piston. If all else fails, replacing the engine will require removal anyway, so you might aswell give this a go and tackle the crankcase side. It takes time, but technically is not that difficult. Just remember the order that everything goes in and the timing marks.

I am definitely no expert, but I did successfully rebuild my first B&S v twin last summer. I am a bit unclear about what you have been doing. You but you can strip down a v twin from two directions: 1. underneath the engine you can remove the single crankcase cover. this accesses a large area of sump, oil and the single camshaft, compression release, timed cogs etc. 2. Behind each of the two cylinders. Taking off the two valve covers accesses the valves and rockers etc. Then you can again go behind each of these to get to each of the two heads and pistons where the combustion happens. which route have you taken?