What I do now………

[Dodgy69]

Interesting stuff... and on vehicles a lot slower moving than your earlier work.

[MingtheMerciless]

Waits for picture of tractor test drive with "telephone numbers" on the speedo as its being driven at the speed of @wull

[Skub]

At minus 4°c even scotch folk have to pull on a jumper.

I piss and moan if the garage is out of double figures and I need to do something.

[demographic]

I got a call out to Muckhart, they phoned me saying the tractor wouldn’t start so after work I headed there to have a look, hopefully get them back up and running for the next day. I had an idea partly due to the weather and them keeping it outside, also the fact that the fuel filter system on these TYM’s are out front so they don’t tend to get much heat in them whilst in use.

It was -2 when I arrived and after some tests I found the issue was the secondary fuel filter, the fuel had started to gel and was so bad absolutely zero fuel was coming from the supply side of the filter housing to the injection pump. Luckily for them the service kits had been delivered earlier in the week so I replaced it, bled the system and had it back up and running. It was a cold one, -4 when I left.

I assume the gelled fuel was due to the cold, I've been told that garages sell pretty much a winter fuel blend and a summer one but it's through the same pump and they just alter the blend through the year.

I had a van that ran on (legally produced) biodiesel and I used to add garage diesel to it during winter to lessen the possibility of either gelling or even just having fatty particles clouding it which could clog the filter..
Changing the fuel filter was pretty much a doddle on that (direct injection MK 5 Transit with Bosch pump) but wouldnt fancy that faff on my Toyota as its significantly harder to get at.

[wull]

This one is what fucks me off with regards to the manufacturers and dealers, especially John Deere. I’m also a little annoyed at the customer for leaving it so long but it is what it is I suppose, I shouldn’t get too emotionally involved.

Their rough mower which is a John Deere 9009a was asking for forced regens to be performed more frequently until the point where it wouldn’t allow a forced regen, it would ask but not let them perform it. They then called me and sure enough the ECM has locked them out from performing one. I whipped the DPF off just to see if it was in fact excessively blocked and it was, all sensors etc came back as being good and the code it was throwing was pointing towards the dealer only option which is a real pisser.

So going forward, regardless of whether the DPF is now clean or whether it not it was a sensor needing replaced, it will not work until John Deere has came out, plugged in their computer and used the software to sort it and charged them an astronomical price.

The mower itself is being replaced, the decks have far too much required to make them good again, rough cost on parts just for the units is £5,000 and it’s been a money pit for years.

[wull]

At the start of the year it was time to start servicing the machines. I started with the two lawn tractors that they have, well they have three in total but there is two which are used for cutting the smaller areas.

Two Kubota BX2350’s fitted with RCK54 cutting decks. I gave the mowers themselves a full service, then set about servicing the decks which were a little neglected, one deck would not lower fully to the ground because the mid PTO shaft was seized solid so that was a bit of a chore to remove but I got there in the end up. Once both decks were removed I cleaned them up fully, both belts were extremely worn, cracked and had bits almost worn all the way through, how it hadn’t failed is beyond me, they would have failed soon that’s for sure.

After washing them, I applied rust converter and then sprayed some touch up paint getting the back to how they were originally. New belts fitted, greased, gearbox oil refreshed, mid PTO shaft sorted, back on and ready to go for the upcoming cutting season.

I believe they would not have been able to achieve the correct cutting height on the one with the seized shaft and they did say to me that one was cutting at a different height so I’m certain that will be the reason for it.

[wull]

Next I did the other lawn tractor, it’s a BX2200 which they only use for towing around smaller trailers or a trailer that has a pressure washer and IBC fitted to. This has a few issues that I seen from using it, one was starting it, you’d have to arse about with the neutral lever for it to start, sometimes it would work other times it would take a good minute of continuously moving this lever about before it would finally kick. They told me “we’ve always done that” but I thought “fuck that I’ll fix that, I ain’t arsing about like that”. The other two issues are the fuel level gauge and the temp gauge. Both were not working.

I serviced the tractor itself first then removed the back right wheel to access the neutral lever safety switch, it was actuating the switch when in neutral so I removed the connector cleaned it up fully as it was extremely dirty, I quickly checked for power which there was then put it back on. Works perfectly good now. As for the fuel gauge I decided we could live without it as the sender unit is the problem and it’s a nightmare to get to, a very common problem with the early 2200’s as they revised the sender unit for the later years. I wanted the temp gauge working though so I set about seeing what was wrong with that.

You’ll love this, simple mistake by someone at some point but it beggars belief sometimes. I ground the temp sender switch on the block and the gauge did not move, it’s meant to go to full hot when you do this, but it did not. So I thought either there is a fault with the wiring between here and the gauge or the gauge itself. I then removed the connector at the gauge and tested the gauge, it works as it should, I then checked for continuity between the wire at the sender unit and the gauge and that’s when I noticed the colour of the wires were different, so at the sender unit I started to look around and I seen the correct colour wire attached to the horn I knew straight away because the horn did not work either, so I swapped them round and that was it, temp gauge working as it should. So someone at some point in the distant past had them removed for whatever reason and attached them to the wrong bit.

P.S I have just remembered something I was told by them, I’m sure this 2200 got a new loom fitted at some point years ago by the dealer or whoever they were using at the time for repairs, chances are he fitted them round the wrong way when he did that because I can’t think why they would have had both the horn wire and the temp sensor wire off at the same time.




In the same pic above you can see I serviced the John Deere 4710 tractor, I serviced it as normal then started on a few small repairs that it was needing. One was the door, I towel don’t open, I removed the lock and latch cleaned them all up greased them and put it back on and it’s working fine just now, headlights weren’t working, problem was the connectors, sorted them so now we have lights.

There are a few other issues that I’m going to address at some point, the blower doesn’t work, no power getting to it, the working lights don’t work either, the front and rear ones, no power to them either, I’ve applied power to them and they work so the issue is power getting to the switch itself, the radio doesn’t work either, all of these are in the roof so to do the repair I’ll have to remove the roof which is very easy on this tractor, pretty much 4 bolts and then you can slide the rod cover to the side to access everything form above. When I did a few quick tests I did it from in the cab but to do the repair I’ll have to come from above.

[wull]

Next up for a full service was the Massey Ferguson 5420, it’s a fair old size which is handy for getting in and around what you need especially the hydraulic filters which are well hidden.

The Jacobsen HR600 was an absolute pain in the arse to service, everything is crammed into such a small space, access is very limited. Full service including blades removed, sharpened and balanced.

Last up was the Kubota 5040, full service on that one, pretty simple job on the Kubota.

[Count Steer]

It may be a pain to work on but that Jacobsen is sooo cute! It looks like a vehicle from a children's book (if you ignore the rotors ).

[wull]

Up next was a full service on this Massey Ferguson 362N, these are the tractors I’m more used to as growing up on the farm this is what we had. This is by far my favourite machine on site.

It’s had a radiator leak for a very long time so now that I’m on site they decided to replace it, so I fitted a new radiator along with the service and made a note of a few other issues, these issues we will address this winter coming as we can survive just now with them.

I removed the front loader because I was going to replace the radiator, if I wasn’t doing that I could have left it in place for doing the service as I’d still have been able to access everything albeit it does make a difference but for the radiator it had to come off.

[ChrisW]

I love the wheels & tyres on the tractors you've been posting recently - they remind me of RC cars I had when I was a kid!

[wull]

The TriMax Stealth 340 was up next for checking over, this is an out front mower that is used for cutting the course when it’s a little soft.

I removed all blades for sharpening, checked all belts, gearbox oil etc. Everything was spot on, I did tension two of the belts, they didn’t require much, greased everything up. There is one grease line missing, on these you have grease zerks on the outside which then feeds the grease through a grease line to the cutting spindle, and one of them was gone, so when they’ve been greasing it the grease has been just building up on the backside of the zerk doing nothing, hidden by the cover. I have that part delivered now but need to still fit it.

I also stripped the PTO shaft down and greased that up. These get left outside uncovered which I’m not overly pleased about, things like the couplers on the PTO shaft can be a pain in the ass because of this so going forward I’ll keep on top of it.

[Mr. Dazzle]

How much front downforce does that thing give?

[wull]

How much front downforce does that thing give?

I’m not entirely sure on the exact numbers but you can adjust it via the tractor itself, front 3 point linkage allowing you to adjust float, the benefit of this is being able to use it on the 5420 with the very wide turf tyres so when the ground is softer this works better versus the Jacobsen HR600.

[Count Steer]

How much front downforce does that thing give?

I’m not entirely sure on the exact numbers but you can adjust it via the tractor itself, front 3 point linkage allowing you to adjust float, the benefit of this is being able to use it on the 5420 with the very wide turf tyres so when the ground is softer this works better versus the Jacobsen HR600.

I suspect Dazzle was thinking F1 front wing style downforce

[wull]

How much front downforce does that thing give?

I’m not entirely sure on the exact numbers but you can adjust it via the tractor itself, front 3 point linkage allowing you to adjust float, the benefit of this is being able to use it on the 5420 with the very wide turf tyres so when the ground is softer this works better versus the Jacobsen HR600.

I suspect Dazzle was thinking F1 front wing style downforce

[wull]

This one I have to share.

A week ago Friday I was doing a job for Muckhart Golf Club when the past Captain asked me if I could have a look at his neighbours quad bike, it was explained to me that it wasn’t running and that they had people looking at it but either they couldn’t suss it out or hadn’t been back or some shit like that. “Not a problem, I’ll go have a look, give them my number and I’ll go have a look whenever they want”.

Well I didn’t hear from them until Thursday there, in the message they were saying that it had a few parts replaced but it will only run with the choke on. I replied saying that it’s more than likely the carb needing cleaned and organised to go remove it yesterday. They wouldn’t be in themselves but there would be folk there as it’s a farm so the usual farm workers etc.

I arrived yesterday and the quad is outside with a tarp over it, a farm hand appeared and I was chatting to him for a bit before I started on the quad, he told me they had folk working on it a while ago and they replaced a few bits, he also told me they had ( owners, users ) put diesel in it. So I’m now thinking even more that it will need the tank carb etc cleaned.

He buggered off so I made a start on it, I removed the tarp covering the quad with the intentions of removing the fuel tank cover, fuel tank, carb etc………..well fuck me dead………….they weren’t even there. No fuel tank, no carb, sweet fuck all to do with what I was there for. I got a hold of the owners on the phone and they had no idea the parts were missing, they told me the folk who had worked on it before which was about a month ago must have taken the bits away with them but they said they couldn’t get a hold of them and hadn’t heard from them in all that time and just presumed they weren’t coming back. They thought they were going to come back and do whatever they had to do on-site.

Obviously they apologised for wasting my time, I explained whoever was working on it must have taken the parts away to clean them, what did piss me off was the intake boot wasn’t covered, even with the tarp on I wouldn’t have risked that, it was poor fitting at best, I blocked it off just for peace of mind. I told them that I can’t do anything without the parts so if they get a hold of them or whatever just let me know.

So a wasted journey, probably 18 miles round trip, an hour of my time I suppose, I could have been an arse about it but no point. It was a beautiful farm though, might generate more work going forward.

[wull]

Short video of the track being irrigated during the season, can’t remember when but probably July August time. It’s been a hectic season especially with the International Horse Trials which was a huge success. Our inaugural year hosting it so going forward it should hopefully grow, albeit it was pretty huge. 1500 horses competing. I’ve never seen anything like it, what an experience.

[Skub]

It'll not need irrigated much after the last few weeks.

[wull]

It'll not need irrigated much after the last few weeks.

It’s proper turned to shit now. Before the Glorious Finale which was towards the end of September we were still out irrigating, we were good good to soft in places maybe slightly faster and got it back to soft good to soft in places but the going was changed after the second race on the Wednesday, it was changed to good good to soft in places. The track was superb though, it’s been a decent year.

We have one more day of racing but we are confident it will be cancelled, They scheduled it in last year for the first time in 50+ years and next year it’s not being included. So the Glorious Finale will be back to being the final racing of the season.