tractor,quad or lawn mower

[oldclaypaws]

Guess you might have sussed this Dexter, but with the combination of small trailer, tractor and road vehicle, it should be possible to chop and stack logs next to where the cut tree is, wait to season, later on take the tractor and trailer right up to the logs, load, tow to the car, unhitch trailer from tractor and hitch to car, and off you go home. In other words, you don't need to manually shift the logs other than chucking then in the trailer once next to the tree and removing them at home. Almost sounds sensible.

[oldclaypaws]

Before you remove your wheels Dexter, bear in mind that to do so might release oil from the transmission, so I'm told by a fellow Westwood owner.

[Dexter's Shed]

Before you remove your wheels Dexter, bear in mind that to do so might release oil from the transmission, so I'm told by a fellow Westwood owner.

that's a new one on me
had already looked to see if there was an oil filler on the rear or if like most they are just packed in grease, have had one rear wheel off with no puddles of oil, the other seems to be held on tight, so I'll worry about it's removal if and when needs must.
were hoping to transfer ours over the woods this coming friday, will do a go pro film to see if it gets up the muddy track ok, as we wont be taking it all the way in the works van, 6th gear all the way

[oldclaypaws]

Had a very helpful chat today with a guy in a local tractor / garden tractor parts place, they repair them and carry various parts, so he knows from experience what he's talking about. Westwood are well regarded as one of the sturdiest and most durable.

Firstly, the good news is loads of people round here do exactly what we want to do with them- riding them round smallholdings / farms as a 'cheap' quad bike, and they're very well suited for it.

His advice in terms of potential theft is that 90% of the time they just take the battery. Batteries have a high scrap value from the lead, they trash it and flog the metal, and its untraceable. Theft of batteries from rural locations is a massive and very common phenomenon, so taking it home is well sensible. I know a guy had a tractor in a small wood, they took his battery. Other than that, chain it to a large tree and have distinct identifying marks on it (and note the engine numbers) as proof its your machine.

Don't weld the diff. It'll put more strain on the transmission and steering and something will snap, especially if you're towing. Its got a diff for a reason and is harder to steer without it. If you need extra grip, go for offroad chevron tyres (and just suffer them churning the ground). If you go for tubeless, fill the inside with some of the green liquid anti puncture gunk and run them on low pressure, that'll give you all the grip you need and make them puncture proof. Thats what experienced locals do here; take the battery out, chain them, run chevron tubeless tyres and fill em with gunk.... And have fun.

[Dexter's Shed]

that's good to hear, mine never came with a battery, and I have no intention of fitting one for that very reason, you'll see in our video, we have one of those jump packs from ALDI'S £50 for a battery jump, tyre/air pump, usb port and a few other things, we use this in the woods to either charge up the mobile phones via the usb, or jump start the "tractor" although it's very easy to pull start, I'll be removing the tow hitch when were not there, as it's too simple to unscrew and therefore nickable, and at £20 not something I'd want to replace too often
we have a few motorbike type security chains, which we see it getting chained to goose dynasty HQ along with the trailer, and I've changed the front wheel split rings to pull rings, so I will remove front wheels too, and yes, we have pictures of engine numbers etc

so far everything your saying sounds like the westwoods will see us both ok and meet our demands, have to admit to trolling e bay for more cheap sit on's, but sticking with westwood seems the way to go, if we get a second,

[Dexter's Shed]

well, we got the little donkey and trailer over our wood, video to follow, but maybe a few days as my computer and therefore editing software is broke at the moment, in gear 5 it carried us both via the bench seat and towed the trailer, so was very impressed with its speed and handling capabilities on the muddy rutty track, it even pulled a few wheelies on us

[oldclaypaws]

So good enough traction on muddy surfaces with regular lawn tyres? Sounds encouraging.

[Dexter's Shed]

yes, in fact I think the bench seat helped, as watching you tube video's of other tractor boy's, they rock from left to right when stuck, to put pressure on the wheels, we only got stuck once, and by simply putting my hand on the left side of seat and putting weight on it, it easily pulled us out, so will not worry about big mud type tyres just yet, just watched all the video on my notebook, deffo some funny moments

[oldclaypaws]

Looks like I'll be staying with the sporting 'F1' single seat racer, can't fit a bench seat as the gear shift is just left of the drivers seat, yours is on the dash.

Keeping an eye on them on Evilbay and what they go for, I think we both got a bit of a bargain, the usual going rate seems to be nearer £400, but they're worth it even at that.

I pushed a wheelbarrow out the wood today the full 500 ft length of it, loaded with a bench seat and seat supports; it nearly killed me! So glad we got the tractor, can't imagine manually shifting several tons of stuff per year by barrow.

I've a cunning security plan which I'll PM you on Dexter, you might like the sound of it.

[Dexter's Shed]

used the wife's laptop to put this video together, enjoy


http://youtu.be/8CuH2nNnK5M