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Apr 14, 2013 18:07:49 GMT
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Full on bonkers awesome Fair play to you gents for making something awesome! Thank you very much Sir, It's always nice to read Bonkers and awesome in the same sentence ;D Well, blow me down, Potatobucket looks like it's working so let this thread continue The fender came off to be fully seam welded. But before I could do that I needed to add some curve to the front corner. With no way of shaping the curve in situ, a few tack welds were ground off, and off the corner popped. Using my Hi Tech metal stretching tools (hammering over a hammer in a vice) some curve was soon added. That looks much better, welded back on and the tail light holes on the front filled. Yes you did just read that right ;D A lot of the welds were hand finished using a file. Although hard work, I find it much easier on my hands and wrists than using a grinder. Looks quite good after a squirt of red stuff.. It will need a bit of filler here and there. I won't bore you with loads of photo's of making the other side fender, let's just say it could of gone smoother After what felt like months of cutting, bending and welding the fenders in the confines of the shack I was looking forward to seeing how the fenders looked from all sides.. So out the shack she trundled with a couple of clamps holding them on.. ;D You may of noticed a rather large "bow" in the left fender. This was taken care of by clamping it to a strong bit of box like so, and another clamp over the bow to stretch it to the right shape. While the fender was off the over sized lip was marked out and trimmed down. Looking good.. More to come later, it's time for a roast chicken dinner ;D
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Apr 14, 2013 17:19:32 GMT
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wow not intrested in these things but I thought id take a quick look! a few hours later iam hooked and want one and theres one on ebay only a few miles away but my garden has a 10foot squre garden think the wife might kill me A 10 ft garden sounds big enough to me for a Wheel Horse.. Then again, it is quite easy to get these machines road legal ;D The story continues.... Having at long last got the drive train not only working right but working reliably, the time had come to move onto a non mechanical part of the build.. The fenders/wheel arches. A few years ago a chap by the name of Michael (Thanks Michael) donated these two rotten fender pans to the build.... These pans had rotted out on the top flat bit's, which I didn't mind as it was only the rear quarters I needed.. Shame you can only see the fronts of the pans in this photo. So here's a photo of a cut and widened pan. Not quite long enough though.. Best add some length to it then. I should point out at this stage that I'm not an expert panel beater (If only I had the skills of TonyBmw) but I'm quite happy with how they have turned out.. Starting with a rather long length of 1.6mm steel. Firmly clamped between two bits of box for a bit of hammer work. Yep, I'm happy that the curves match quite well, athough the panel does need a bit of work further along. Clamped up again for the inner curve to be added. A few tack welds later to hold the front, rear and new middle sections together and a quick squirt of rust oxide primer.. So far so good Now for the inside section.. Ready and waiting to be cut out. After shaping, but will it fit? Errr.. no But after a bit of tweaking and trimming... Yes ;D With a small plate tacked in here.. The time has come to see if PotatoBucket is working!!!!
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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As nice as it was to drive the ol girl again, one problem cropped up which did take the edge off the fun.. The main drive belt kept jumping off at anything over 1/4 throttle! Having spent more time on my knees putting the belt back on than driving, something had to be done... A few days later it was.. Part of the problem is the Wheel Horse tensioner pulley. The lips each side are quite small.. This works very well if your using a standard length drive belt, but with something twice as long...... So, despite the naff photo the pulley had a bigger pair of lips welded on. The other part of the problem was the top of the belt jumping up and down a lot.. Skateboard wheel bearings soon had it sorted. They don't put any tension on the belt, they just keep it from jumping about so much. The dexion strengthening bracket will be replace by something a lot less dexion ;D Best take it for another drive to see how it gets on now.... Woo-hoo... Finally all the drive train problems sorted ;D While were at this point it seems like a good place to pop in a couple of video's, so you can see what she drives like now ;D
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Let's see if PotatoBucket will play ball again!! With the axle straightened eventually all the wheels were fitted to the left side. When I came to swap the wheels over on the right side, I found that 3 out of the four taper-lock bushes that hold the sprockets on had broken!! Why it only happened on the right side and not the left I have no idea. So 8 bushes of a different make were ordered to replace all of them both sides. Next on the broken list was one of the drive chain tensioner/guide thingys.. Neatly sliced in three by the chain. Time to do yet another job the way it should of been done in the first place... More internet shopping, and these small 8 tooth sprockets arrived. Bored out.. Bearings fitted. It's very hard to get any good photo's of the new chain tensioner/guide thingys fitted, but here you are.. Were catching up in time here, just a few days before the snow first hit the south.. Wanting to have a drive in the white stuff a big push was made to get it drivable again. This included relocating the battery.. The dexion bracket won't be there for long, the battery will be fitted in a box once the fenders are done. Six thick washers hurriedly made... They will be made round in time.. They fit on the ends of the axles.. And even though they were not really needed for a drive, some fenders/wheel arches were tack welded on.. Sooo... the snow arrived and the beast went out to play ;D
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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I think they show The Fall Guy on one of the Sky channels once in a while..
Vanishing Point was and still is a great film, the remake a "pants, politically correct (no naughty bits) remake was just terrible! It had that "made to be shown before the 9pm watershed" feel to it..
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Despite this machine being very heavy and having 6 wheels for traction, traction has been a problem at times.. This was always going to happen using worn grass tyres.. So after a bit of penny saving and a bit of haggling 6 of these beauties with inner tubes arrived ;D Best get some wheel rims cleaned up and painted then.. The first wheel rim in the E-tank. A few days later the paint had bubbled up nicely. A quick wire brushing later and the rim was inside drying. I could of scrubbed more paint off but the barrow 'O' water was on the very cold side. One rim cleaned.. Painted for protection. Tyre fitted. With all my spare wheels sorted.. I needed to swap some wheels on the machine to the new ones... This is when the problems started!! I found the rear left side axle had got bent!! Quite how this happened I'm not sure, my guess is the drive chain tried to jump a tooth on the sprocket just at the wrong moment when full power was being applied. A lot of beating with a rubber mallet got it straight enough to get the inner bearing off, but the axle was still very bent.. In the end the bulk of the bend was straightened using two blokes swinging on a scaffold pole, the final tweaking being done on a 12 ton press. No photo of this because Potatobucket won't let me click on the image for some reason! As straight as I can get it. You can see a very slight "out" of you squint hard enough while rotating it, but it's as god as I can get it. Photobucket is having real problems now, so I will have to continue this later when hopefully I an get access to my photo's again!!
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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While the 3 point saga was going on I was also playing with the drive belt guard. This pulley was very close to the inside of the guard so a hole was (very) badly cut out of it. A few min's later I noticed that the belt was hitting the inside of the guard in a different place, so I had to space the guard out a bit... Which meant I didn't need to cut the hole for the pulley in the first place Oh well... A lot of welding later had the pulley hole patched and the flange that was on the outside of the belt guard moved to the inside.. A cover was needed to cover the opposite side of the belt guard.. The bit at the bottom left of the photo. A very old Wheel Horse side cover was straightened and trimmed.. Extended.. A few times.. Until it covered the bit that needed covering.. A little trimming.. And how it looks after weld dressing, de-rusting and given a quick coat of brown stuff to keep the rust at bay until I'm at the final paint stage. A quick jump back to the belt guard.. It needed a little metal added to fill the space created when I had to move the guard out a bit.. A view from the drivers seat.. Thanks for reading my ramblings. More to come a bit later, domestic duties need to be done..
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Morning all.. I knew I was a bit behind with keeping this build thread up to date, but I didn't realize it's been just over 4 months!! Sorry about that.. Quite a lot as happened on this build during the mast 4 months, most of it heading in the right direction, some of it in the wrong direction as broken and bent bits have been found! I guess we should continue where we left off, so onwards with the three point linkage. A bit of faffing about with some wood was needed to work out the dimensions of the lifting arms.. Four bits of flat bar were tack welded together. Drilled and shaped. They fit on the lifting bar. With a few tack welds ground off, 4 into 1 became 2 ;D A bit of seam welding made then rather strong. The "fixed" drop link needed cutting and the angle between the top and bottom changing slightly. And then chopping again once I noticed I had welded it back together 90' out!! Now for the fun job of welding the top arms to that bar thingy.. Lot's of measuring and clamping.. Yep, that looks square.. A while later... The arms hadn't been fully welded at this point. Another fun job was to work out where the hydraulic rams would mount top and bottom.. Not hi-tech measuring here, just a bit of tube and bar bolted/taped to one of the lower mounts. The top of the tube is the same height as the center of the pin hole on the top of the ram with the ram fully down.. and the top of the bar when the ram is fully up.. Armed with some measurements it was drilling time... This only just fitted on the drill! Sooo.. Are the holes in the same place each side? Yep More steel going on to add strength. To cut a long story slightly shorter, the 3 point works like this.. Click on the picture. And currently looks like this..
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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just found this this evening... er yesterday evening... immense! think I like it because the grille reminds me of a tractor that used to be on a program I used to watch as a kid, about a postman with a monochrome cat...... Thanking you Sir.. I can't remember the tractor in the said program, but I'm guessing it was red?
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Awesome Ian, just bloody awesome !!! Thanks Rian.. It gets better ;D
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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That's a great build Rian, I love the "rustic-ness" of the roof.. I'm sure the birds will love it.
You have also just made me realize that we don't have a bird box here... I need to sort that very soon me thinks.
Not wanting to hijack your thread here, here's a short-ish time lapse video I made of a day at the bird table.. This may bore the hell out of some of you, but I think it goes well with a cup of coffee :-)
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 24, 2012 8:04:54 GMT
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I love it!!!!! You nutter ;D You know what they say about the best laid plans... One roast dinner and a couple of glasses of red later, I made the mistake of watching a bit of tv... Quite a few hours later My wife woke me up to come to bed!! Oops!! Anyway, let's get this thread up to date.. The snowplow/dozer blade was only plonker in place to see how it looked.. It won't be going on the beast but I do plan to make a blade that's much more in keeping with the "big Cat" look I'm going for.. What will be going on is a three point linkage.. Although I've "used" 3 points many a time while driving tractors I've never had to fit one before... I bought a 3 point kit and a couple of hydraulic rams last year, the time had come to try and make it all fit and work.. Ok, the lower arm mounts were added to the chassis a long time ago Let the head scratching commence as parts were plonked in place for a look.. A couple of pins were needed so the bottom of the hydraulic could pivot.. As luck would have it I had a couple of gudgeon pins from a dead Kohler KT-17 engine kicking about the place.. A perfect fit in the ram The mounts were made from a couple of bits of angle. How the rams will look on the back. A closer look.. The mounts need a trim and a tidy up.. They will be welded to the chassis when I know exactly where they need to go. The top of the rams will push/pull on an arm which will be attached to a large pivoting rod across the back.. The bearing blocks were made a long time ago.. I say "bearing blocks" even though they will not have and bearings in them. Steel turning on steel with lot's of grease should be up to the job. The original plan for mounting these "blocks" was to bolt block to these steel plates and the weld the plates to the frame.. Which was all fine and dandy until I realized that should I need to I wouldn't be able to get the pivot bar out!! Plan B... Weld the "block" to the plates and make the plates bolt-able.. One side done, one to go.. It just needs a little tidy up..
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 24, 2012 6:57:36 GMT
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More to follow later as dinner is ready, but I shall leave you with this photo ;D Yes, I totally dig where you are going with this. You know it will need a canvas roof too now. Morning dude, I see where your going with a canvas roof, the trouble is to get the proportions looking right the roof would have to be so low I wouldn't be able to fit under it. Wheel Horse did make a canvas cab kit you could just bolt on, the proportions never look right to me..
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 23, 2012 18:15:53 GMT
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Not much has been happening with this machine since the test drive video's.. Well apart from more test driving when Pete turned up for a go. Some of these photo's were taken from video footage so sorry about some of them being a bit blurred.. Now for something a bit steeper!! Going up!! A look of relief from Pete as he made it to the top without falling off the back ;D Pete wasn't brave enough to drive back down though A happy and blurred chap ;D All was going well until we reached the bottom of this brown field (since harvested) of beans.. When one of the drive chains started making some nasty crunching sort of sounds! A quick look in the right side outrigger showed a less then healthy chain tensioner/guide thingy A very slow drive back home was made with minimum of chain crunching, where the busted chain guide/tensioner thingy was extracted!! I knew that skateboard wheels wouldn't last forever, a bit longer would of been nice though!! The good news is the chain had stretched enough to be a perfect fit with a half link removed.. All I need to do is wait for the other three chains to stretch ;D More to follow later as dinner is ready, but I shall leave you with this photo ;D
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 23, 2012 17:38:26 GMT
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Amazing determination and engineering lads! Ta muchly
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 23, 2012 17:37:07 GMT
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Nutter been checking this build from day one and have to give you respect for sticking with it and making it work....awesome!! "Nutter" sounds about right to me ;D Thanks for following my build and the respect.. Failure was never an option ;D
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 23, 2012 17:26:46 GMT
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Absolutely bloody brilliant!!! Love it. Thank you Sir, I'm rather fond of it too ;D
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 23, 2012 17:18:41 GMT
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Congrats dude! Now it needs a supercharger lol Also, one reason the belt may be jumping off - it appears on the "tension" side of the drive belt, it first goes to the sprung idler, then the rear, then the front, then the final idler? If so - remove the spring from the rear idler, and instead make the idler under the crank the sprung one. This way, it's only taking up tension in the "return" side of the belt, not the "tension" side of it. The way you've got it, I'm assuming under load, the belt starts to wobble all over the place? Cheers dude. The engine should be "sort of" supercharged but isn't at the mo.. Something I need to sort out. The engine came from the factory with a sealed air filter box, the only air going in was forced in through a short rubber pipe by the engine cooling fan... Kinda super (or is it turbo) charged The problem with that air filter box is it won't fit under the bonnet, so it's currently got a normal "suck in air around the edge" filter fitted.. I think the belt jumping off problem was due to the left steering lever hitting the belt tensioner lever when it was pulled fully back taking tension off the drive belt! That problem has been solved by relocating the spring. Saying that I've not test driven it again to see if the belt stays on, but it should do. The drive belt does flap about the place a bit but only when the engine is ticking over. Give it some revs and the belt settles down.
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Last Edit: Sept 23, 2012 17:24:53 GMT by Stigian
My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 23, 2012 17:01:19 GMT
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Absolutely fantastic fella - very well done and I've learned a cr*p load on the engineering that goes into these things..... much appreciated. Excellent write up and I can't stop grinning at the vids. Colleague just saw it over my shoulder and after a 'what the heck is that. You Brit's are nuts' moment is now going through the vid's too ;D The giggle sealed the deal Thanking you kindly Sir. I've learned cr*p loads too building this beast. You never stop learning as they say. Glad you and your colleague like the vid's, I trust you have both subscribed to my channel ;D
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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Sept 23, 2012 16:57:39 GMT
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My YouTube Channel www.youtube.com/user/UkWheelHorseBlokeQuote - D'you know, it's people like you, doing totally brilliant and pointless stuff like this that gives me a little hope for humanity
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