Druidic exploits of a various nature!!

[v8druid]

another big catch up

Right then ..... just got rained off .. big time! So time for a catch up !!
It’s been a busy week.

Monday started off with a bit of a juggling session with loads of stuff sat about up top ... to make some space to widen me ramp .... again!! So’s I could advance the edge of the excavations...ramp-side.

VA-r is a must-have for junk juggling ... especially as I do not want to be too close to the edges of what’s been dug out with 15+tonnes of ‘Drema !!

Twin wall perf was the first thing .....



Followed by me sleeper pile ..... did try for a ‘one lift’, but with the front wheels aloft, decided I’d better split it ...





Re-homed it all....



And having made some space to work with all the other extraneous bits an’ bobs shifted/relocated/etc., I could have a go at said ramp.


Batter pulling VA-r style at 60 deg.s ......



‘til this pops up !!!! ...



There’re all sorts buried in here ......



And this is by far, no where near the biggest lump of tree I’ve hauled out the ground so far...



I know where there’s a lump awaiting unearthing that’ll make this look small ... but it's staying where it is ... ‘til I get to it!!!

Anyway ... got a couple of loads into the dumper and off up the field .....

View from the gateway in .......





And a few others a bit closer .....





I’d gotten 110 loads in there when it got the Jakie treatment last Saturday !! Another 55, since its previous attack by him.

[v8druid]

End of play Monday saw a much wider access ramp ..



And a lorrastuff, in new homes, out the way for getting up and down..





Aside from the odd lump of tree, plus the usual large lumps of block walling, I’m still finding all sorts of crap in the ground ..... leccy cables, alkathene piping and the strangest one so far, recently, is a halter rope that I’m damned if I can pull out ... it’s firmly attached to summat .... I hope it ain’t a dead horse !!




Also shifted yet a few more large lumps of rock....


To add to the ‘rubble pile’!!

Having moved the sleeper pile, I found this ‘lurking’ in a n other pile of stuff behind ‘em ....



Last year’s and obviously inaccessible to cats ..... a real ‘elegant’ build, in a pretty impressive location, perched on a 25mm spindle !!

Then the lights went out on what had been a glorious day!!!






Tuesday morning I ripped into the side of the ramp ....



To uncover yet more crap ....



And eventually managed to load out another 5 loads of spoil ..... after sorting through it, sifting rocks and blockwork ......





Plus of course ..... the inevitable boulder or three ......





and ......the usual pile of ‘debris’





In between the various interruptions from the boss .... Tuesdays are also Clara days ATM so work is interspersed with ‘helping’ Pam with her.

‘Twas 32+ C here Tuesday ..... Druid melting temperatures !!!!

[v8druid]

Wednesday was a little cooler ... to start with and the VA-r went on for some boulder mauling.......



And rubble sorting .....



Picking the bigger lumps out with the Cranab ..

Before carrying what I think’s the heaviest yet back down the ramp with me to the bottom ... grab was not impressed .... I was, ... that it actually managed to pick it, but hasn’t quite got the grip to cling to it for long ..... more on that again ......



Dumped it at the side of the bottom of the ramp ..... where it’s still sat ATM.




The rest of ‘em got stacked in the usual stockpile .... which is also growing .....





As does the rubble pyramid ....





Spent the last hour or two clearing the deck and prepping for the morning .... and the arrival of Pam’s BIL, with Charlie ..... Thursday was booked for ‘tree day’ .

[v8druid]

Meet Gareth .....



“One volunteer is worth ten pressed men” as they say ..... and he sure was willing.

Fully kitted out with harness, 3 safety devices on the basket, an extra lanyard extension to the ‘Drema’s 8 ton lift hook and a talk through of how and what I’d got planned, plus what to do, if there were any machine prob.s .... we were ‘at it’



Initially started with just the forks and basket to attack the lowest and deadest limbs, which were ultimately in the way to get higher ....







‘Fraid the pix aren’t the greatest ... I wasn’t getting out the cab to take any with him up there and Pam occasionally showed up to take the odd few, between Clara sitting and yapping with her sister.









Then it was time for .........

[v8druid]

.....some proper reach ....









Frustratingly Pam didn’t take any with him full up, dealing with the uppermost limbs, but he said after that it was a really stable platform to work from and it never really felt like ‘he was up there’
It did perform faultlessly, but have to admit that a serious level of finesse is required with that on yer hitch ..... like the old TV program .... ‘The Gentle Touch’ is a real necessity!!


It was ‘getting on’ by the time we’d gotten to this point ....


And called it a day, as a rather larger cousin of Charlie’s was going to be needed for the next bits!!

The aftermath ......





The FLT mast got left on her for the night, for me to sort Friday morning ..




Spent the day Friday, tidying up the carnage and creating this ......



Charlie worked hard and gave his usual ‘all’ to the cause ... aside from a few pit stops, that I’ve now grown to expect ..... the usual blocked filter issue ......



And how it should look .....



Still have no idea WTFA this is ........



Every two hours or so I have to pull the carb, remove the cover, lift this crud out of the filter,



.. quick squirt of carb cleaner, blast from the air line and it’s fine again for another two-ish hours hard graft !! Soooooo bloody annoying ..... everything in the fuel system is clinically clean .... new pick up filter and pipe, tank surgically clean, etc., etc. !!
If I had to use it every day, I’d have tried the de-aromatised fuel route by now .... will do, but just not gotten around to it ............. yet !!!!

Yesterday morning was a continuation of Friday’s efforts and generally clearing/tiding up....from this .....



To this ....



Interspersed with the odd carb strip, to get there !!

[v8druid]

‘Twas going to be a short day, as we were off out early yesterday evening, with my mate from Ross (with the garage dig).
‘Drema’d not moved since Thursday evening, so though it an ideal opportunity – given the temperature, for an oil change .... cold. There’d be now’t sat that wasn’t going to be in the sump, as she’d had two good hot days to drain down, so out came Ollie’s drain plug fitting, which he’d very kindly donated to the ‘Druid’s cause’, belly plate off .....



...... and adapter on,



..... after extending its lil’ hose a few feet to reach the bucket.



And out came the sump oil ...... slowly !!

Topped up the hyd tank, while it was draining ..... she’d spat oil at me from a FF QC one morning in the week, coupling up the VA-r .... much to my surprise and covering me in Plantohyd ..... it hadn’t clicked and the females centre had stayed in after ejecting the male end .... fortunately not hot !! Not supposed to be feasible, but ......... one of those freak things. Plus there’d been a few atts on/off this week which had sapped the level a bit.

After the sump had glugged its last, I took the plug adapter out, over a bowl, for the dregs and to have a look at said unit .... very small orifice for the oil to escape through, so explained the speed of it .. nicely made unit though and controlled the bulk so well with none of the usual OMG!! Where’s it heading next, when you usually release the flood gate that is a sump plug!!!

‘Pinky’ in the drain hole and could feel no nasty sludge, where you’d expect it to be/build up, so all back together and refilled the sump, before dropping the filter and fitting one of Massa Rob’s new ones, duly filled with lube, to the brim .. first.

Years of working on Mr Rover’s V8s has taught me never to drop both together ..... with an MT sump, dropping the filter allows the pump to drain dry .... and as their pumps won’t self prime, it’s a mistake you only make the once. So I take no chances with any motor .... ever !!

I had called Rob earlier to see if he’d any ‘horror stories’ about the B4 Deutz,s doing anything nasty, but had gotten his ansafone .... so took no chances ..... he did later confirm he’d encountered no issues with dropping both, but better safe than sorry in my book !!!


Oh ... I also found the bolt head that had sheared off the fuel filter housing a few months ago .. sat in the belly plates sump guard .....



Then it was ‘early bath’ and out for some well earned nosh ...... nice too !!!




Today dawned ....... dull, overcast and spitting rain !!!!!!! Didn’t last long though, but left the ground a little less dry than it’s been of late.

I’d spent some spare time yesterday with me trusty Oregon maul, abusing some blocks and Pam was busting to get ‘em in the baskets this morning ..... so Sunday or not, the ‘Drema was allowed to ‘stretch her legs’, ferrying log baskets for filling !!!

So she slung it all in the cages, whilst I got the easy job of finishing off what I’d gotten cut so far, with the Oregon!!!



Had just about finished tidying it all, when ......... it bloody lashed it down .....








...... and that was the end of play for today!!!! Annoyingly said wet stuff was not forecast for today !!!!

For anyone who’s not seen enough already .... there’s loads more pix here ...

http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/v8...?sort=3&page=1
http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/v8...?sort=3&page=1


Going back to the “more on that again” comment ref. the Cranab’s gripping abilities .... and another comment I made a while ago regarding the possibility of needing some additional plumbing mod.s.

Been noticing, since adding the Hill’s QH valve that .... I’m not getting the grip that I had with the grab .... having thought about this, I’ve concluded that the dump valve in the QH valve must be set lower than full circuit pressure as it would appear to not be giving the grab’s close circuit ‘dead end’ pressure, before dumping to tank !

So......an additional valve is required, I think, to isolate the grab’s close circuit, or effectively, to close off the QH valve’s ‘T’ line when the grab’s close circuit is active to enable it to ‘dead end’ and allow the grab’s check valve to maintain FULL circuit pressure on close.

Having had a scout about .... I can’t find a straight forward solenoid op, open/close line valve, if they exist (which I dare say they do), so I’m considering a 3 way diverter, with the ‘T’ line feeding into it and the ‘A’ port (inactive/default) feeding to the tank return line. The ‘B’ port, could then either be dead ended with a blank plug .... or could even be tee-ed into the grab’s close circuit, but I don’t think it would be necessary to go to that length to achieve the desired effect

The 3 way diverter’s solenoid would be activated in tandem with the close circuit’s solenoid, thus diverting full dead end pressure to the grab’s close circuit only and the QH valve would retain it’s constant full pressure ‘top up’, whenever a motion is activated.

Your thoughts gentlemen please?


Nearly forgot ..... amongst all the other stuff this week I’ve also found time of an evening to ‘exercise the dog’ twice this week and keep the green stuff at bay ....

Pam was actually about the one evening to get some pix of ‘the Dane’ in action with me clinging on, trying to maintain some level of ‘verticality’ ......






The banks this was bought for are pretty ‘interestingly’ steep, although the camera struggles to show it......









She’d disappeared by the time I got to the ‘really interesting’ bit !!!

[v8druid]

Been trying to find a supplier for some Bofors teeth for me Akerman 'rock' bucket for months.
One of the guys on the 'other' forum put me on to MST a few weeks ago as a possible source and they were duly ordered.

Well they arrived today .....



Me and Charlie been busy all day ....



Lopping, chopping and filling the 3^rd basket .... I’d been keeping an eye open all morning for the delivery vehicle ...... and still missed it ... came down from the top to find ‘em in the middle of the drive!!!


Very similar to the one I already had ...






......certainly close enough to frighten the bejeeezus out of the rocks round here .... pins are a bit on the loose side for a fit though? .... 'bout a mil smaller than the MS ones I already had.





Very nice and sound ‘hard’ .... certainly have a better ring than the ‘upset’ mild steel that arrived with t’other teeth and look to be machined to shape.

Would’ve gotten ‘em in today, but was determined to get the ‘tree bits’ tidied up today .... almost managed it and my arms and feet are hanging off tonight. Did try one in the bucket’s gum plate and fitted a treat.

Not quite sure HTF you secure them (the pins) in there, once dropped in?
Considering cutting some short pieces of tube for ‘lock rings’, dropping ‘em over the ends of the pins and welding ‘em to the pin ends?
Sound ok to yous???

I’ll get some pix of the installed items tomorrow, for some opinions

[v8druid]

Well it’s Sunday again already ...... not such a big catch up tonight .... busy-ish week, but we’ve had Clara a lot this week too, as her mum is real busy with trying to get 4 wedding dresses put together/finished off, for later in August !! She designs and makes a lot of them from scratch!!!

So...... Bofors teeth retainers .... went in a POP Wednesday .... after I’d hauled out the Akerman from it’s resting place with the adaptor.....





... locked it into place , on the bucket ....





... and dropped them teeth into place,



it was evident that the pins were perfect ..... for a good slogging into place to keep the teeth located solidly.





Then put it the right way up for a damned good battering with a sledge and drift, to make sure they were as far home as they would go .... ‘El Solido’ J



Then turned it over to trim off the excess pins, protruding from the underside, flush with the gum plate .....



Before introducing the ‘new teef’ to some troublesome rock at the side of the bottom of the ramp !!



And ripping the guts out of it......







Giving me a couple of extra feet of width for the approach and the ramp too when I get around to widening it all the way up ..... after I’ve moved a few more bits and pieces out the way.

Selection of ‘weapons’, sat about in reaching distance ......



Thursday saw little done ... very damp start and took a while for it to dry out to ‘drive-able’. About to get going and my mate from Ross rings and asks if I can nip down the local builders merchants and grab him some timber .... ‘cos he was stuck in Devon all day, for work and had someone coming on Friday that needed the materials .

No such thing as a ‘quick nip’ in there ... only one or two guiys there know WTF they’re doing/talking about and it’s easier to wait for one to be free, than try to ‘educate the pork’, that masquerades as the rest of the sales staff! L
So next to sod all got done Thursday, especially as it’s also a Clara day and my input is needed frequently.
Plus we were out to tea at 17.30 with Pam’s elderly cousins, who’ve been nagging us to come for a feed for some time.

Same issues Friday .... wet/damp start to the day and was just drying out when the neighbour calls me to ask if we’d got any water ‘problems’ ..... Nope!! We never do ... we’re economical with it, being on a spring with finite supplies. Pity they can’t say the same ... same spring but separate storage ... thank God, or we’d be in the same boat, when they empty their tanks !!

Any way .... having determined that there was plenty going into the tanks, (our overflow fills theirs), but it appeared to be leaving theirs as quick as it went in ...... there must be a problem ...... a 5 ltrs a minute problem ????
Turned their line off at the tank exit and within half an hour the level had risen a good 10cms ... so major leak somewhere !!

There’s been a wet patch beside the drive for a while and that seemed as good a place to start as any .... stuck the VA-r on the ‘Drema so’s I could put an 18” bucket on and trolled off up the drive to ‘have a scrat’ at said wet patch ..... like looking for a needle in the proverbial haystack, but eventually uncovered a pipe .....



our feed pipe, from our tank !!!
Ours is blue .... theirs is black so an easy suss ..... right smack bang on a push fit joint .. I hate them.....they’re crap !!

Any disturbance and they leak and this one was right in a field entrance and only a foot down !!

Turned our feed off at the tank and ‘butchered’ the old joint out, to replace it with a nice new MDPE screw compression joiner ....



...... that problem solved and obviously the supply rate into their tank slightly improved, as all that was going into ours was now ‘overflowing’ into their theirs!!

However it was still leaving at a rate that left the level in theirs stationary, unless the outlet was turned off !!

So ..... decided to turn their line off at a stop-cock about 100 mtrs down the line that night and see if their tank filled overnight.

He forgot to do it !!!!

[v8druid]

Saturday we’d planned to make our annual pilgrimage to Welland steam rally ...

http://www.wellandsteamrally.co.uk/

https://www.facebook.com/WellandSteamRally/

..... a great day out and we were taking Clara and her mum with us for the day, as her hubby has been away for the weekend !!

A great day was had by all .... especially Clara .... spent most of the day on my back, with a great view of proceedings ....



I didn’t get to see a quarter of what I usually get around and missed catching up with a few guys from the 'other' forum that also get there ..... but a great day all the same !!

Clara got a ‘fetching’ new bit of PPE .....





And the weather couldn’t have been better, but did cool down later in the day ..... like 19.00-ish .....



Better than last years show stopping deluge at 16.00 though

Didn’t get back ‘til well past 21.00 and was seriously considering going back today, to catch up with all I missed ...... but was too knackered after yesterday’s marathon tramp about, playing ‘pack horse’ ...

It’s a 3 day event .... one year we’ll do all 3 days J and get to see it all !!!

So today has been a lazy day, nice Sunday lunch with Clara and her mum and some post lunch snoozes in the sun ..... ready for some more leak seeking tomorrow !!!

One to make you smile ..... the BIGGEST pair of overalls I’ve ever seen on one of the stalls ...



66” (168cms) chest ........ I do know a guy locally, who’d probably fit these !!!!!!!
He’s a big fella!!!

anyone mad or sad enough to want to see more ..... http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/v8...%20show%202016

http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/v8druid/slideshow/


http://s1275.photobucket.com/user/v8...postlogin=true

[Stock]

Saturday and the weather couldn’t have been better,



66” (168cms) chest ........ I do know a guy locally, who’d probably fit these !!!!!!!
He’s a big fella!!!

Them a bit small for likes of me..........................

[v8druid]

Them a bit small for likes of me..........................

**** me Stock ....... just how big are yer ?? that display pair must've been like 80" chest ...... sure as hell bigger than 66" ....could've had a party in 'em ..... they were Humongous !!

[ianoz]

Think this was taken when Stock was a LOT younger and had not truly perfected the art of eating to its full .LOL

[v8druid]

Think this was taken when Stock was a LOT younger and had not truly perfected the art of eating to its full .LOL

didn't know SuperMario drove ducks on the side Ian

[Stock]

My toe nails now require 3rd party intervention..................................

[v8druid]

My toe nails now require 3rd party intervention..................................

oh dear ........ time to lose some Boyo