Cubster cleaning

Took the rear wheels off and removed about 20 litres of grass from the top of the deck and gearbox. White greased all visible mounts, and this was enough to stop the reverse lever jamming on.
Installed roll/pitch monitor. Also gives engine + gearbox temp and revs.
Backup hour counter saves running hours every 30s. Bit easier to use than the built in one which works in decimal hours eg 10.1 hours is 10 hours, 6 minutes.
Can also open the gates remotely.


Sharpened blades. Torque to 80lb
Stretched leaf spring on clear out system. Hopefully this will stop the lever disengaging

Firewood

It's beyond that time of year again, so I'm chopping and splitting to re-fill the wood store. Don't really need to this year, but there is quite a lot of birch that needs using up before it turns into dust.

How not to treat a grass collector

If you want to spent an afternoon bending 25mm steel tube back into a precise shape with long pieces of wood, read on.

Whilst cutting under shrubs with the ride-on, it seems as though the grass collector emptying lever got caught up with a branch. As this lever is made from 25mm tube, you can run a car over it and it won't bend. However, the torque in a 600cc twin means that the force gets transmitted to the next weakest thing, and this is sufficient to wrench the collector off the rear of the ride-on, dump all the grass, and re-work the frame into something approaching a Christmas novelty toy. The bottom would lock in, but the top frame was too twisted to get close to locking by about 50mm. Closest on RHS.  RHS was badly bent, and I used the LHS to get the shape back. Then removed the twist to get the top bit to bit into the catches, then re-bend the RHS to get the top cover to fit.



The left of the picture is RHS on the mower.

This 25mm tube frame is manufactured to a tolerance of around 1mm to ensure it fits and locks to the ride-on correctly. I'm not convinced it's back to the original shape as I can't say I've ever spent time admiring it. It does fit, and works ok now. Just need to weld a support bar back on and paint all the bits of powder I've scraped off.
All the 25mm tube is 2.3mm wall
£124 to replace it

Motolug trailer

Just come back from a 1400km trip with the trailer and 2 bikes. The bikes did 810km.

2 new tyres for this trip, and 1 bearing.

Going, the mt07 on the left and mt09 on the right. The mt09 didn't fit into the loading system properly and I had to drop the rear holder back a notch. Coming back, the mt09 went into the left side by mistake and wouldn't fit as the holder was set for the mt07. However, once strapped up, it fitted easily. Note that the front part of the loading system on the left side is marked and must be fitted on the left side. The rocking part has to go with the double rubber protectors facing the rear. The manual is silent on the correct way around, and most of the photos of that part have no rubber bits. The one photo that does, shows the rockers the other way around. I tried the mt07 the 'shown' way and it won't work. Both bikes have the same tyres 120/70 17.

1 bar strap, 1 strap on each swing arm, a front tyre strap to the ramp and a strap over the seat. Front tyre strap was added as I saw it in the manual, but should probably have been on the rear tyre.

The bar ends knocked going, and I had to put pipe insulation under the bar straps. Also the 07 wouldn't stand up and leant to the left, the 09 leaning a tad too.

Coming back, I compressed the 07 suspension a bit more when fitting the seat strap and the bar sat under the 09. The bikes hardly leant and looked way more stable.

Consider using some of the sticky matting on the seat in future to increase the friction.

The loading ramp system is still pretty hopeless and the rear will not touch the ground/reach the upper notch on the tow ball without it lifting the car up ie forcing the car suspension up through the tow bar. Need a further loading ramp to fill the last 10cm.
Currently have a mix of 8" tyres. Spare is original 2008 and in fair condition. 2nd spare is poor from 2008. 1 new rim+ Kingstire tyre kt-701 4.00-8 range C from ~2012 rated 6 ply 71M 345kg/130k 3.4/50psi, but the rim is only good for 265kg (this is apparently normal for 8" rims??) plus another ETG 4.80-8 62N 3.1/45psi tyre from Norauto September 2017 (?dated 11/16) which is 4 ply 265kg/130k on the original motolug rim fitted LHS. Old tyre badly split and worn. Motolug email states this is most likely a factory defect on the trailer suspension, but contrary to UK law, they refused to replace it or offer a cost price spare.
4" pcd. Shafts are 1" Spares are uk only
August 2017 replaced outer LHS bearing with no-name whilst waiting for better replacement. Very noisy with visible damage. Had to fit a 2nd washer to get castellated nut in the right place to reduce float. Oct 2017 replaced inner LHS with challenge bearing and pumped it all full of grease. Say 2mm float. Previous one was noisy and had thrown grease over rim.
RHS was tightened 1 notch, but still had a bit of float - say 2mm with the tyre under load.
Both tyres are now half worn after 1400km. ETG tyre has noticeable (1mm) edge between radial tread on inner side.