One of those days

[jwilly]

Foggy rainy and damp, must be what you PNW guys are used to, 3/4 of the way out with the first hitch the skidder started acting up, like water in the fuel. Filter off, dry things out, back on, prime and starts right up, spits and sputters but makes it to the landing. What's up, idles for a awhile and head out, same thing, turn the machine around and back up the hill and it runs fine. Took off the screen on the fuel pump and it is full of gunk, cleaned it runs great, for a few minutes. Figured out there is crud in the tank that clogs the pickup line, that's why it will back up a hill, crud slides to the front of the tank. Next we have to drain the tank and try to vacuum out the crud, I think a piece of semi rigid tubing and duct tape will make a wand that can get in the fill port and reach the back of the tank. If that doesn't work we have to take the tank off and have it cleaned. 27 years of collecting a chip here and there adds up I guess.

Starting to rain hard so we pick up the tools, park the skidder and go to cut up the hitch which is in the middle of the landing and blow the tip in the saw, get another saw, break the pull cord, got a third and cut it up. Start to stack it and I blow a hose on the loader. Grapple rotate, which is pretty handy. We did have enough fittings and extra hoses in the tool box to finally get things put back together and the wood stacked and ready for the truck.

Went home and there were fresh baked cookies on the counter that looked really good, a cup of coffee , a handful of cookies, boy they are good, another handful, wife comes home and oops, they were for a bake sale.

Just one of those days

 

[KYLogger]

I feel for ya! My Deere dozer has the same problem (clogs up the check valve for the return line) same symptoms, algae is the culprit I think. I took tank off and pressure washed and cleaned with everything I could think of. Still the same I suspect internals on pump or injection lines.......It has been wet and muddy here too. BUT.........at least I havent upset the spousal figure.....yet.....

Hope Monday goes better!

Tom

 

[northmanlogging]

found some pine needles in my fuel lines a few months ago...

came home to a fresh batch of chocolate chip, and peanut butter cookies... I ate half of em, they where for a locksmith friend that got the wifeys car unlocked a few days prior... who happened to be diabetic...

next time your changing any oil make sure to drop all your tools in the oil bucket, its an old PNW trick to keep the rain from rusting you tools away, and a creative way to learn new swear words

 

[jwilly]

As far as I know the tank has never been cleaned and it is a 1986. Andy Swinton suggested draining the tank and cleaning out the elbow where the suction line connects but I can barely see it.
I have a setup for sucking crud from electric water heaters that I think will work. We'll get the machine parked with the tank side downhill, pump most of the fuel out, then reverse the pump and try to rinse the crud to the low side then vacuum it out. I sure don't want to pull the tank.

Those fresh cookies are hard to resist. The tools were pretty well oiled between the diesel and hydraulic, but I got some cheap gloves and once the oil hits them you can't hold anything.

 

[bitzer]

Wow that sounds like one of my days. The wife pist and all. Usually there is a run to get hydraulic fluid though because you used it all the day before and didn't have time to pick it up last night.

 

[1270d]

I just busted up over the bake sale cookies. That has happened so many time around here I tell my wife I'm changing my name to bake sale.

 

[twochains]

I tell ya...when things start going bad sometimes , they end up steam rolling!

Friday started out like gang busters...I found a flat set of timber on the back line and it had the perfect good sized pine to really knock out some serious loads and quick! I had two skidders on me, one bunching and the other pulling hitches. I was on pace to cut (4) loads of pine. Around 2 o'clock my new bad ass saw blew up! So I packed out to put a pull rope in my 660, about ten minutes later I see one of the skidder Ops walking out. His skidder had died and refused to start, about 15 minutes after that here comes the other skidder pumping a fricken stream of hydro out the grapple mast.... HOW IN THE HECK DOES ALL THIS HAPPEN AT ONCE???? DAMN!

At least I didn't eat any bake sale cookies! LOL!

 

[northmanlogging]

You blew up the 288? That'll teach you too switch brands...

 

[HuskStihl]

When a hydro line or connection breaks, it has a 360 degree area of potential spray. I occupy at most a 40 degree target, making the likelihood of a direct hit roughly 10 percent. The cheap ass hydro I buy is really bad at math

 

[treeslayer2003]

hey there boys. yep these things do seem to happen in rapid succession lol. pay back for the days where everthing goes right. hey, that's loggin lol. really I do need to buy stock in an oil company.......ya think i'd get any discount?

 

[twochains]

You blew up the 288? That'll teach you too switch brands...

Bad thing is that I don't really want to run a stock saw anymore! Yeh I think I have it narrowed down to something coming off the carb and went through the intake and hit the piston skirt cracking it and seizing the ring on the out put side! Cylinder is unaffected really and should be an easy fix if I am 100% sure where the metal came from! Otherwise I will be splitting the cases and checking lower bearings.

NM....I fricken love the saw though! Going to have to look into breaking down and wearing ear protection though! That hollow muffler can hit tones that rattle yer ear drums so bad that you would swear a skidder was running up on you...only to realize there isn't anything around!

 

[HuskStihl]

I'm sorry to hear about the new saw. I am curious about the cause of the failure. Are there any dings in the combustion chamber? Could a ring have just snagged the exhaust port? Hope it doesn't need much to fix.

 

[twochains]

Whatever it was came most likely out of the intake, must have hit the skirt then flicked back in the intake port and came back out on top of the piston to do a square dance and finally blowing out the exhaust. There are small pieces of metal or dings in the compression dome but I think that a saw shop can sure run something up in there and clean her up. Jon, the saw is up in town at a buddies or I would send ya some pics, I am guessing I lost a screw off the butterfly...don't know for sure as I didn't put the entire scenario together while I was up at my buddies working on it. I MUST find definitive evidence as to what happened or she is gonna b split and tore down till I figure out what happened.

 

[treeslayer2003]

you would like that 660 a whole lot better with more compression and an advance. it be nice if they offered the new 661 without auto tune......and with rubber mounts of course. sort of a overgrown 461.

 

[twochains]

Yeh...I'm pretty sure stock jut isn't gonna cut it anymore!

LOL! Sorry Willy for jackin' yer thread! LOL!

 

[HuskStihl]

I hope it was a metal piece from the carb, but I bet it's part of a bearing that came up thru the transfer

 

[jwilly]

It was just one of those days!

Have a great Christmas Everyone!

 

[treeslayer2003]

same to you and your's jwilly.

 

[jwilly]

THANKS !!