john.k

You missed the week before when the six were there plus a mini excavator to set the posts .

Perfection is a fine thing for them as can afford it!

Nope,the cane toads ate them all..

Water hyacinth and Nile cabbage......disappeared from the river s and dams here within six months of introduction of beetles.

At least......you usually find when a gun is leaking out the T handle slot in the endcap,the rubber pressure piston seal is split,and the whole body of the gun is full of grease.....reminds me of a funny incident when a $10,000 gearbox failed from lack of greasing,and a father and son had a blame fixing session of who didnt grease anything.......the son didnt know how to load a grease cartridge at all,the father knew how,but didnt take the sealing cap off the cartridge (was a metal ring pull in those days.)

People often say grease is expensive,list about $200 a 20kg drum......but keep an eye on ebay,and youll find grease at giveaway prices ......like 20 drums of white grease,from a failed business venture ,the seller eventually sold me the whole lot for $1.......another ebay listing for a sealed 200kg (44 gallon) drum of Moly Grease........yes,thats right......list was over $4000,the guy ended up giving me the drum... the Graco air powered grease pump that went with it,and two new rolls of 3/8 high flex hydraulic hose with Graco guns fitted..

Ive got maybe a dozen grease guns,and the best has always been an American made Lincoln gun,which unfortunately take the small Caterpillar cartridges............as far as other guns are concerned ,even the $150 Tecalamit guns are various grades of garbage...........I find the older the gun the better.....really old ones have leather piston seals that last ,modern guns have garbage rubber seals that often split within six months.

Surely a remote change mechanism can be devised using a servo motor,or even a handwheel up on deck ,as some of the bigger boxes had.......changing a gearbox seems an extreme expense to cure a minor problem.

I recall the Dorman diesels.....even the biggies were the oiliest engines ever ,and would be regular callouts for muffler fires in the hospital standby units.......a muffler fire in a 12QCT would be spectacular ,a flame 20 ft long and a thick cloud of oilsmoke.

I knew a guy who knew nothing about engines put an 8L3 together in his loungeroom......we got it going with a motor scooter on the flywheel......and the local Gardner agents bought it and rebuilt it properly.

Not that long..........my advice...,spend 50 quid on tools and do it yourself ....head off in an hour ,clean it up ,take it out and have it faced,back on and engine running in 3 hours...................however ,its not uncommon for these kinds of engines to have multiple cracks in the head if theyve been run hot.