Stuff you have fixed today

[Blobber]

I might have forgotten last time I used the skip find ride on mower it wouldn't restart after I had finished using it so it just got pushed away
anyhow I remembered when I got it out to cut the grass today , the starter was dead and had taken the starter solenoid with it! managed
to make 1 good starter out of 2 and a rumage through the solenoid box has got us going!

 

[sardine]

Scrapped post hole digger , missing one blade and both handles busted, a rummage in my junk pile turned up am offcut of 6" pipe for the blade, two curtain poles, steel tube for handle bushings and some M10 studding.

I will swop the blade bolts for hot rivets to match the other sidebwhen I get some .



View attachment 448929

Apparently curtain poles have the strength of dry spaghetti.

 

[m_c]

Apparently curtain poles have the strength of dry spaghetti.
View attachment 449027

Curtain poles will likely be some form of softwood probably pine. For tool handles beech is the easiest to get in the UK.

 

[Arc Tourist]

Nothing too exciting. I bought a mounting bar and a phone holder for my Honda 750X . The phone holder is all metal and quite nicely made for the £8.oo price. The only issue with it was that the spring in the rotating holder is not strong enough to eliminate wobble when its in either of its horizontal, vertical, or other choice of positions; so I eliminated the spring, cut the screw to length, filled the adjuster cavity with epoxy, and retightened the screw. Happy with that.
.

 

[Stueeee]

been working on and off on this Jones & Shipman grinder for a while now. I bought this machine with a comprehensive (but not complete) set of accessories at pretty much scrap value knowing it had some faults. Having sorted the wheelhead elevation that wasn't, the busted switches etc. I then discovered that the powered workhead motor just bursts into life as soon as 415V power was applied to the machine; and that it couldn't be turned off until the power was disconnected.

Needless to say, coudn't find a wiring diagram anywhere in Googleland, so just traced all the wiring and found the point where some genius had looped out the contactor and overload that starts/stops the workhead motor -the heatshrink sleeving and nylon zip ties are a clue to where I started poking about and changing stuff.

Still got a few bits and bobs to do on this machine, which is good as I have a long queue of precision grinding jobs to do whilst using it.

 

[lchris21]

...I just stuck the instrument mounting bosses back on, the handlebar clamps are nothing to do with me

Horrible stuff to weld, full of crap, but at least the speedo shouldn't fall off again like it did after his first ride .

He's wisely threaded the handlebar mounts from the bottom......good decision I thought

 

[Smouser]

The paint on our porch roof frame started to look a bit tired and it required a recoat.

On closer inspection, the wood was badly rotten so I decided to fix it 'properly' instead of just hiding things with filler.

I stripped out one side of the rotten wood while an upright piece of timber supported the roof.

I sent the missus to Wickes to get us a length of treated kiln-dried C16 timber with clear instructions that she needs to check them because there are loads of bent/warped bits.

She did good. Got us a perfectly straight piece of wood. However, it was as rough as a badger's ****

My fault, of course, I didn't say I wanted a smooth and straight piece.

Luckily it was not too hard to sand down a bit.

I did sand it a bit more after the above photo.

Painted the frame and everything looks nice and fresh again.

 

[Brad93]

been working on and off on this Jones & Shipman grinder for a while now. I bought this machine with a comprehensive (but not complete) set of accessories at pretty much scrap value knowing it had some faults. Having sorted the wheelhead elevation that wasn't, the busted switches etc. I then discovered that the powered workhead motor just bursts into life as soon as 415V power was applied to the machine; and that it couldn't be turned off until the power was disconnected. View attachment 449094Needless to say, coudn't find a wiring diagram anywhere in Googleland, so just traced all the wiring and found the point where some genius had looped out the contactor and overload that starts/stops the workhead motor -the heatshrink sleeving and nylon zip ties are a clue to where I started poking about and changing stuff.

View attachment 449095
Still got a few bits and bobs to do on this machine, which is good as I have a long queue of precision grinding jobs to do whilst using it.

looks like you've had a good deal there. The machines either been repainted or had very little use.

 

[nickk]

Replaced this rotten tailboard hinge cross member,piece of 80/80/5 box,had to create pockets for the assistor spring ends to seat into.

 

[OJCar]

An Aldi Air Compressor Air Filter screw thread.




(Humbrol Polystyrene Cement, clamp and no saga)

 

[RichardM]

An Aldi Air Compressor Air Filter screw thread.

View attachment 450066
View attachment 450067

(Humbrol Polystyrene Cement, clamp and no saga)

Bet it's not polystyrene.

 

[OJCar]

Bet it's not polystyrene.

Not Polystyrene, but it is ABS
and Humbrol Polystyrene Cement works on ABS.
https://uk.humbrol.com/products/poly-cement-medium-tube-ae4021
"Product Info
Usage: A solvent-based cement suitable for plastic model kits only.Substrate: Common plastics used to manufacture model kits including polystyrene and ABS."

 

[brewdexta]

I'm still tidying up the Kawasaki Mule. Next on the list was the bonnet, or frunk as its mid engined. It's plastic and the holes for the hinge brackets have given up.

After a bit of cardboard aided design, I cut a couple of bits of 1mm aluminium sheet and bonded them with epoxy. Bonnet now back on and working fine.

Next up was the wiring, again. I had to find a better earth for the front lights, so went fishing under the dashboard, and found more than I bargained for

First was this, which turns out to be a phantom ignition unit. Rather than use a switched live, it connects to a live from the battery and detects when the vehicle is in use and provides a switched live. It usually used for powering accessories.

But what accessories and why if there is a switched live available? This gave a clue, it appears to be a GPS receiver.

Then I fished this out. It's a tracker. So for some reason they don't want a normal switched live.

I don't know much about them apart from they log all sorts of data. It's an ex council park bin collection vehicle so I guess they were keeping tabs on the workers.

There's also this on the dash, it has a piezo electric buzzer, a button, an annoying flashing LED and a coax connector.

I believe it's part of some kind of walkie talkie or similar, the holster for the handset is still on the frame.

For some reason there is a second key and several random rocker switches. One is for the beacon.

It's all coming out tomorrow, then I'll fix the earth and find a switch live to activate the hydraulic lift relay. i just hope it's all passive, probably but I'll take photos before disconnecting it all.

 

[minimutly]

Spent the day down the hole, fixing an overoiling issue with this. Turned out to be because the cooling fan had lost a phase, hotter oil thinner oil, so the flow increased through the restrictor.

 

[finyuk2005]

Spent the day down the hole, fixing an overoiling issue with this. Turned out to be because the cooling fan had lost a phase, hotter oil thinner oil, so the flow increased through the restrictor.View attachment 450304View attachment 450305

how many killerwatts would that beast be?!

 

[minimutly]

700 if I recall. About 2.5 tons a second goes through it.

 

[finyuk2005]

thats an awesome amount of water!!

 

[minimutly]

The two vertical shafted ones at Llyn Celyn are bigger, and even they are small compared to some around.

 

[Geoffm]

Farmers - could break anything. This has been sitting in front of the workshop for 2 months or so, as I have been putting it off as I expected it to be difficult and threefore procrastinated over fixing it. I now need to get another project into the shed, so that forced the issue.

We grew some green feed maize at the end of last year, and the idea was to break feed it to the cows, but with a wet summer, it took off and was 7-8' high so you would lose the cows in it. Dave the sharemilker borrowed an old "silorator" forage harvester from a friend, so we could cut and carry it to the herd. We used to use these things in the 1970s and 1980s to make silage, where it picked up the cut grass with a flail drum, beat it up and fired it into a trailer behind. All much smaller scale than these days where there are dedicated forage harvesters worth the best part of a million bucks each. This one was last used maybe 10 years ago and is probably 40 years old. We put the feed out wagon onto it, which is much larger than the V shaped cage trailer used back in the day. The extra weight, and a foot that dragged on the ground tore open the hitch across the back. Looking at the break, I suspect it had been cracked for a while, but once it went it tore open. For bonus points, it also bent the mounts of the frame, so the skids wouldn’t be adjustable.
The rule of borrowing gear is if it breaks, you fix it. You can’t hand it back broken.
There is nothing to push against which had me stumped for a while, and I was looking at making bending forks and all sorts of solutions. After much thinking, I got a 10T jack, cut through the middle of the broken bit, put the tractor on the front, and that let me jack it vertically, and some heating of the side plates with the big oxy heating tip and use of a sledgehammer squared everything up to about 2mm out of parallel.

The original mount was 89x89 SHS, around 3 or 4mm wall. The new bits are 89*89*6mm SHS and doubled up which hopefully will make it much stronger. It turned out to be much easier than expected.

New gearbox oil as well, as the oil in it drained out when I tipped it on the front to get underneath. Pretty sure the oil shouldn’t be grey coloured, so overdue for new oil anyway.

It will probably never be used again and will spend the rest of it’s life in the shed or stored outside, but at least it is ready to go if needed and better than it was.





Heat it and beat it


Weld in new cross bar


The mag drill proved it's worth again.



Finished along with the world's worst paint job as I was trying to work around the rain.

 

[Blue Chips]

The underside of the exhaust pipe on our 22-year-old Toro Wheelhorse garden tractor had rusted completely through, and the exhaust was melting the plastic grille mounts and blistering the decal and paint. The exhaust pipe was welded onto the muffler as part of a single assembly that's available at an exorbitant price, and since the rest of the muffler assembly was still solid, with only minor surface rust, I thought I'd repair it rather than empty my wallet on a new assembly.

I cut off the rusty exhaust pipe, ordered two pieces of 90-degree pre-bent tubing, and then cut and welded the tube pieces together to match the original double bend with 45-degree twist. The new tubing was one size larger than the original exhaust pipe, so it slid snugly over the stub that I left sticking out of the muffler. I welded the end of the new tubing against the original weld, followed by some 2000F-rated paint, which I think should heat cure by running the engine for a series of increasing lengths of time. This repair should keep the exhaust system happy for several more years. I also repaired the melted plastic grille mounts with some grinding, drilling, tapping, and new steel studs.

The tractor has lived outside for all of its 22 years, and it's overdue for new paint and other cosmetic freshening, but it's a well-built machine that still runs well, and the cosmetics will have to wait until some other projects are out of the way.