wil440

You guys really are lucky, Diesel here is £1.80 per litre thats £8.20 ish a UK gallon I always fill my truck at 1/2 a tank, over £100 every time, my guess to fill from MT would be over £250 This dumb country has relied on Russian energy with no investment in our own North Sea oil fields, fracking was stopped by the eco loons On top of Putin and Russian fuel (which we are not using really) we have stupid protesters calling themselves "Just stop oil" with the Extinction Rebellion idiots are blockading fuel depots and terminals, gluing themselves to fuel delivery trucks etc so we have also had shortages, it is a little better right now but still not good, a few weeks ago I travelled 20 odd miles to find a fuel station that had diesel and paid nearly £1.90 a litre. My electricity supplier put my direct debit up from £80 a month to £220 a month to cover the recent price increase of electricity, I called and got them to put it back down to £120 as my business uses a lot of electricity (lathe, mig welder etc) so I top up my balance from my business account every so often, this way I pay for what my business uses before tax and not after tax. We don't have gas, our heating is biomass pellets with a 70kw boiler furnace, 975KG of pellets have now gone up from £265 to £388 (cheapest) to nearly £450 (most expensive) just this year Food prices are going up and fast, every single day something increases. There was a news story 2 days ago about a retired lady in London who could not afford to heat her home so rode busses all day because they are heated, now that is bad, all the while illegal migrants are crossing the channel from France and given somewhere to stay, our Government block book hotels for these scroungers, recently our government drew up a plan to ship them to Rwanda for processing, any found to be legal migrants then get to come here, any illegals stay where they are in Rwanda, this is more to deter them from coming from France than anything else but of course all the leftist lawyers do gooders and charities are going to court to stop this while we the dumbass people of this country are squeezed even more. These migrants are not from Ukraine they are mostly men coming from Africa and EU law states they seek asylum in the first country they get to..... which is NOT the UK The inmates really are running the asylum here And don't even get me started on EV rubbish, I bought my wife a hybrid Volvo...... cheaper now to run it on petrol

Couldn't have put it any better Couldn't have put it any better

I have 3:55 and slightly smaller tyres at 33" and if I lock the trans out of OD my rpm is around 2250 at 60, tows nice, egt low enough, could do with rpm being a little lower for me, 2100 would be nice

No neither a lift or a level kit

To be fair to Cat my guess is this machine was sold without buckets as I too cannot see Cat selling such rubbish and Cat wouldn't sell a bucket with Strickland on the plate, if I'm wrong Cat deserve all they get because 1/4" as a bucket bearing surface is stupid, now it's 1 1/4" or so so ought to last better

I'm pretty sure the outcome was we agree on one side and we also agree on the other side as in diesel engine braking is huge at idle in a low grear but pi~~ poor at higher rpm and from what I've purused on the internet this discussion won't go away

100% agree John and this thread has been well worth the hijack (probably more me than you though that's done the hijacking) As you said my friend each one of us waking up in the morning to a post by the other has resulted in strong coffee and for me thats been 3 or 4 cups before even thinking about a reply Funnily enough that's just what I think, your posts are fact, maths, science and a mind stretching read, while my posts are more based on seat of the pants what I see One thing that did surprise me was the total lack of anyone else posting an opinion or for that matter posting anything at all on this thread but like you say that's more than likely made the debate easier to read. Have a beer on me John as that was a perfect discussion

I'm starting to get a nasty wheel out of balance wobble at certain MPH BUT I know for a fact my wheels are not balanced as with the tyes I have matey the guy who fitted them couldn't actually get enough weights on the rims. Front treads are wearing anyhow, outside of the left tyre is feathered and the inside of the right tyre is feathered, I think it has to be the control arms are not right.... but they are both the same, truck has never been bent Tow in would give feathering on both outer edges, tow out would give feathering on both inner edges Here's a clue, on taking the old tyres off there was a pile of bead stuff inside the tyres, never gave it a thought..... now I have £70 for beads to balance my size tyres No alignment shops here for the record

Not quite my friend but close, each person on here has made the choice to be here which in real terms is a cost to each one of us, this cost is miniscule to the returns The word here is "choice" lets not forget that there are still in 2022 countries that do not have any choice. As many would have noticed myself and @Tractorman have had what you would call a really interesting debate/aurgument in another thread, no crossed words, no fisticuffs, no nukes just different opinions, doesn't matter the outcome what matters is the whole thing was not and never will be sensored by the state, there are countries that are that scared of change they force feed people with utter garbage, thankfully I don't live in one.

Thing is Russian people do not get facts but fabricated rubbish to suit the rhetoric at the time, nothing but state media peddling garbage

Read a peice this morning stating the Russian army vehicles are suffering huge amount of tyre problems which is slowing their advancement Turns out that corrupt army personel are buying tyres made guess where ? Michelin XZ something or other $36,000 per 50 tyres versus $208 per 50 tyres..... bargain.... guaranteed for a full 4 revolutions of the wheel then your on your own

I rechecked from crank speed not camshaft and the end result is as you say 0.033 seconds per revolution of the crank so 2 complete "strokes" or half of the cycle takes 0.033, the complete cycle taking 0.066 at 1800rpm (yes I forgot the nought after the point) Your test in 4th gear as you say makes a compelling argument for diesel engine braking but I agree with what you say "low rpm only" this low rpm was the basis of my very first statement, diesels in low gear at idle have huge engine braking from my experience, it has to be for a couple of reasons as you say, number 1 is low gear working backwards driving the motor greatly magnifies any compression benefit, also any compression bleeding off so the downward force of expanding air after TDC on the "power stroke) is a net loss compared to the energy used to compress the air on the compression stroke, and plain old engine friction, I would also say the act of compressing valve springs continually would also add to the energy needed to turn the engine over at idle in a low gear, I doubt valves on the way back up/closing adds anything. Be interesting to see what slope 1st low would hold At higher rpm I agree the Jake brake is the best for the reasons you say Again John 5 or 6 cups of coffee got to go work some caffeine off now

Yes the actual surface area on the bucket ears was nowhere near wide enough, it's actually done just shy of 200hrs believe it or not, The pins where flat faced with no taper at all.... landscaper hole digging guys aren't ever going to get those pins in without the pins becoming rivets, there was a boss one side but it was may be a 1/16th bigger than the pin and was just for a spring pin to retain the pin, landscaper clowns couldn't be bothered to align the holes so never put the retainer in so pins come out one side and ears get bent but hey they still keep working.... THEN "this POS I can't put the other bucket on ! " The secret is to NEVER put a bucket on any excavator with the bucket on the ground, this is the dumbass way and if you are lucky you end up with a hour or so of up,down,up,down,back, forward. The way to do it on your own easy is a smaller than the pin bar in the tipping link and pick the bucket off of the ground, then use stick in/out and bucket crowd/tip to align the stick pin, once it's aligned it will slide in with hands, then move the stick until the smaller bar will come out of the tipping link, then use the stick in/out and bucket crowd/tip to get the tipping link aligned and that pin will slide in with hands, it really is that easy and works on all sizes of excavators but try telling hole diggers that. I've put buckets on a 100ton excavator on my own using a 3" dummy pin this way. Finished the ditching bucket, made 4 more bosses for the 2nd bucket and cut the holes in the ears on this one today. Tomorrow (May Day Holiday) I'll mock it all up weld in the bosses on the 2nd bucket, then line hone to fit as welding pulls the bosses a little, I could make the bosses a little bigger but the pull is not over the whole boss so easier to hone afterwards, long bolt with a slot in it and a coarse emery slipped in and wound around the bolt and I have a dog cheap flap wheel, when it wears out put another peice in and carry on, sad as I am I cut the slot in that bolt over 30 years ago The 2nd bucket has teeth mounting hardware missing so 3 out of 4 teeth are one bolt only, the bolts are taper head and maybe 12mm or so, I haven't got the correct bolts so I'll make 3 out of normal bolts and cut the taper on the lathe, they won't be hard bolts as it's a tiny machine so made will be fine, I'll use 10.9 cat bolts as the stock so strong enough Hopefully get the 3rd bucket well on it's way tomorrow too. It won't be a good earner because the landscaper hole digging guys work for my son, I do all of his repairs and he's got some equipment now but he also has some stupid people working for him ah well. Me thinks the next on the list of " I need" is a milling machine Here's a pic of the pin retainer side, only problem with this now I've done this one is the other buckets have to be the same as in the pin retaining stud and the bosses need to be the same distance apart or the pins won't fit.... no pressure BTW the snot is grease which will p~~s off the hole digging guys as they have an aversion to grease so not going to paint the buckets where if been heating and welding just going to cover them in grease

thanks 2 more to do tomorrow although forecast is rain and i'm working outside so might be Monday I have another set of bushes to make and one set to machine the shoulder so that might be the inside job for tomorrow wife won't be impressed though as it's a holiday weekend here... May Day Bank Holiday

I have a old samsung tablet, maybe 7", found a mount that fits it nice, base of the mount is suction and i've stuck it to the dash just on the left side of the passenger depression on the top of the dash, the tablet then sits right in the middle of the dash top pointing towards driver, it is just about the only place I could put it as it does not block the view of the road bearing in mind here in the UK your looking towards the passenger side all the time, It's on all the time.

Got to repair 3 buckets off of a Cat 300.09 mini excavator, this has Strickland buckets on it, Strickland manufacture buckets and other stuff here in the UK, not the greatest I'm afraid. The mini ex hasn't done many hours at all but is out of warranty time wise and the rubbish buckets aren't warrantied anyway The bucket "ears" are maybe a 1/4" with NO bosses at all so the wearing surface on the buckets are a 1/4" wide, pin is about 1" (25mm i'd say) The wear in the ears was huge at least a 1/16th on the wide ditching bucket with ears bent because pins have come out because the dumb landscapers don't bother with the retaining roll pins as a hole has to be lined up (way too busy to bother with that) So I made a pile of bosses and new pins on my lathe (don't know how I got by without a lathe) put a good step on the bosses and then cut the holes in the ears much bigger, come to set it all up to tack weld and the tipping link was twisted, managed to untwist it with a lot of heat. All welded in pins fitted and a straight stud welded inbeween the 2 bosses with a hole in the end, tomorrow I'm going to make 2 flags for the pins with holes in them so they are retained by the stud with a spring pin Don't know why 2 turned out upside down, not this way on my laptop And yes the bucket is sat on a beer barrel

New points, braided HT lead and mag gaskets arrived in the week, impossible to make the mag gaskets myself as one is 1/16th or so wide and at £2.90 for both I'm not complaining, not fitted yet as got another project to deal with first Still waiting for good screw on plug caps, I bought 2 in a rush made out of chinesium one lasted 3 days before it fell too bits so waiting on a pair of old style NGK caps

As ever John a good peice, but doesn't a four stroke cycle take 2 revolutions to complete not one, so compression and power stroke would take 0.66 seconds for one revolution and exhaust and intake take the same, 180deg per stroke for a total of 720. In your example one stroke would take 0.33 seconds ? That said not sure what the effect would be. As you know my working life has been spent in quarries, large machines on large grades both up and down and while your tests show exactly what you say they wouldn't be a typical example for my experience, this would be heavy dumptrucks downhill in 1st gear at idle, yes the weight and grade at some point will win and a retarder of some sort either exhaust brake of trans retarder will be needed, a better test in my opinion of effective engine braking would be a much steeper slope and in 1st gear engine stopped, I think what you would see is compression bleeding off allowing the truck to move as compression bled off of one cylinder to be replaced by the start of compression on the next cylinder so the truck moves downhill in jerks for want of a better description. I was just reading a thread on another forum about this very same argument/debate and found this.... not my explanation Oh for god's sake this comes up every couple months. Drawing air against a vacuum is one element of engine braking, which you have in a petrol but not a diesel. Some of the others are as follows, which both engines have: pumping losses: energy put into compressing the air in the cylinders heats the air up and some of this energy is lost. This means that the downward stroke as the compressed gas (but not burning fuel) expands is delivers less torque than the cylinders in compression, so there is net negative torque. This has a bigger effect in diesels because of higher compression and more air in the cylinder. engine friction: pretty straight forward. net negative torque. parasitic losses: oil pumps, alternators, water pumps, air con, brake servo vac pumps all require drive from the engine, so there will be net negative torque. So yes, of course a diesel engine will engine brake off throttle. And because of the pumping losses associated with compressing nigh on full cylinders, engine braking is normally greater in a diesel than a petrol. BTW John.... needed a few cups of coffee before reading this

I really cannot see the downward force on the top of the piston on the power stroke adding the same amount of energy that was used to compress the air on the compression stroke as for one a portion of that energy will be converted to heat, more energy will be used to compress air than will be released on the power stroke and then there is the next firing cylinder to compress. Do a test on your truck as yours is manual, 1st gear idling on a slope versus neutral idling on a slope, i'll bet 1st gear is slower, this is engine braking, get 20 people to push your truck while in 1st gear idling clutch in down a slight slope then let the clutch out and see what happens, just tell them to keep their faces away from the tailgate I used to compete in off road trials in a diesel landrover and have gone down some really serious banks, always low 1st gear engine braking holding the vehicle to a nice descent speed and have also seen some people decend at a rapid rate after the crap landrover gearbox has jumped out of low 1st. Take a Cat777 dump truck slightly older one without the auto retarder with the Cat C32 V12 32ltr diesel, put that in 1st gear and that will go down some grade empty at walking pace usually with the rear wheels hopping and skidding, loaded at 100 ton payload yes you will need to use the retarder also due to the overall weight We'll have to agree to disagree as while I also respect your point of view diesels have the best engine braking of all engines

sorry I disagree In a 6 cylinder engine there is always one cylinder on compression or very close to it so compression one after the other with no power stroke from the previous firing cylinder so the endless cycle of having to compress air gives engine braking Look at any firing order thats the compression events, doesn't matter what the cylinders that are not on compression are doing, doesn't matter what the other valves are doing With the foot off the pedal it is just a glorified compressor sucking air in the air cleaner and pumping it out the exhaust and we all know compressors take energy to work, the energy here is the wheels driving the motor through the transmission, they don't put " engage low gear " at the top of hills for nothing, the lower the gear the more energy it takes to drive the compressor as once a low gear is driven from the wheels it actually becomes the equivelant of a high gear at the flywheel trying to drive the motor faster compression stroke - all valves closed, air is compressed, holdback Don't forget.... this just moves onto the next cylinder in the firing order, so always a cylinder compressing

Diesels without a throttle plate will hold back on a downgrade because the cylinder that is on compression does not have the previous firing cylinder powering the compression cylinder, this is linear across the firing order so constant, the vehicle weight and downgrade pushes all cylinders over compression If a diesel with manual box is put in gear on a small slope it will not roll away this force is increased many times by the transmission ratios so the lower the gear the more retarding force there is Diesels are better than petrol because of the higher compression ratios

I'm a heavy mobile plant mechanic..... 44 years now and counting mainly Cat and Volvo excavators, loading shovels and dump trucks A few points to note as I see it 1. You had a torque figure which wasn't an angle torque to spec which is easy to retorque hot and me personally I wouldn't have listened to anyone saying they would be ok, also were they all rechecked at 125 once done ( I tend to recheck still cold at least once if not twice) as the first ones torqued to 125 will usually move especially with lube 2. On to lube..... I don't know the Cummins specs for H/G fasteners, are they also 125 and lubed ? A lubed stud/washer/nut at 125 will be higher torque than a unlubed same, this is why Cat do not lube jack from the factory cos they cannot be sure of the end result 3. I'll presume all nuts spun down easy ? I've seen people winding down H/G fasteners with tools because they won't go down with fingers which just removes torque on that one 4. Why was the H/G changed ? was it leaking in the same area ? if so was the block checked for flat Maybe check the torque figures for other stud kits to see if the ones you have are different ?? Seems odd though just water at the front on a new gasket, things like low block, gasket not fitting around a water hole too good, poor head skim BUT I just did a quick internet search and advice for ARP's is retorque twice hot once after 15 minutes or so then once after a week or so

Over the weekend ( or thereabouts)I couldn't post to my thread on the Howard Gem (something to mess around with) funny really as I posted to other threads Then everythink was back to normal I do use a VPN all the time, this site doesn't cause any problems with a VPN but some others really get my back up with having to do the pick the pictures out deal every time Could also have been a problem with microc#ap

I turned 60 1st march this year, got arthritus in both hips and spine, both hips need replaced. That said I don't do nothing well at all, well I'll rephrase that.... I cannot go long without messing with something mechanical, everyday it's getting harder but I'm sure if I stopped I'd be siezed up like a bricklayers wheelbarrow. Went to Finland for 5 days in March and we're driving to Denmark on 1st June for 2 weeks for my brother in laws 70th (He's lived in Denmark for 40 ish years) my wife hasn't seen him for maybe 8 to 10 years, they speak on the phone but he's pretty much Danish now and difficult to understand but a day or so face to face and he reverts back to speaking English sort of. We're then going from his place to another part of Denmark to a cottage at the sea for a week then driving home, around 900 mile to get to his place, 250 to get to the cottage then whatever to get home. Was thinking about taking the truck and trailer but size meant it would be commercial for the ferry crossing so WAY expensive, then thought about going in the truck but again car sizes in ferries aren't Ram size here, so Volvo XC40 it is. I'm still working and determined to carry on BUT I'm taking time out also now

Got the engine back together, intake and exhaust fitted and carb back on. No spark from the mag and on pulling the HT leads off the P/O had obviously tried to clean the HT lead connectors at the mag end ( these are a short strip of copper bent around the end of the wire with a hole in it with the copper wire coming through the hole and soldered), they didn't look too closely as the centre wire was corroded as in gone and at least on one spark plug cap there is no continuity between the screw that winds down into the wire and the plug end of the cap AND in the past some clown has fitted 12k ohm resistor plugs, Mag ignition NEVER has resistor plug caps EVER Off to find HT lead and caps which might be difficult here as everything is this carbon fibre premade rubbish now and of course I sold my huge box of HT lead/caps/boots etc about a year ago. Might get around to seeing if it will run today . Update as I never actually posted the above anyway.... got just normal plug caps and copper core HT lead and made 2 up, still no spark, I had the points and condensor out of the mag and cleaned points and regapped, this is absolute genius as there is a concentric screw just to adjust the points so the heel part is seperate and fixed the other side has one screw to hold it down and a concentric screw to adjust, simplicity in itself to adjust the gap, checked the condensor and 495MF, no specs to compare it to so ordered a new condensor. New condensor arrived today 21/4, checked it and 295MF, fitted it and now there is a good spark. Petrol in and wind it over..... the wind it over is a crank handle on the gearbox and a decompression lever, must be dogged into or onto the first motion shaft somehow, lots of bangs and spit backs and one or two were really loud but plugs not getting wet but the carb appeared to be getting flooded so stripped the Amal carb which again is simplicity, me thinks float was stuck. Few more tries and it's running and after setting the carb as per the 1963 manual that came with it it actually runs quite good Wouldn't go into gear as clutch plates rusted together but put it into diff lock and wound a hub backwards while in a forward gear and it freed off Everything working as it should 3 forward gears and 1 reverse, rotors working, tiller handles moving left and right and up/down One thing I found. The wheels are not actually bolted to the hubs like through holes like a car, they are on slip rings with studs/nuts and springs so you tighten the nuts fully then back off 1/2 turn and if the wheels pick anything up like stumps and it gets trapped the wheel just spins. Now I need to put it to work somewhere to see how it goes..... at 810cc I'd say it will be fine...... then to decide whether to keep it or sell it It does run and sound really good