equipment tips

[rdh]

i have painted the spring on my stihl weed eater head yellow
it seem that it gets dropped and its hard to see to find
just thought that may help some .

any one got some tips??????????post here.thanks

[Vibe Ray]

Ineteresting approach!

[kutnkru]

Dont forget to spray the mechanisms on the motors gas/2cycle to keep things running smooth once the dust really begins to fly.

Kris

[bob]

Heres an easy one, writting the mower hours on your oil filter when changing it.

[awm]

This could be a very helpful thread and here
Icant think of a thing that i dont think you
guys already know.WELL HERE GOES.
trimmer guard off- trim left to right ,can
save hrs if you get good.
Where permitted remove side discharge cover
again saves time.Just dont spray the ladies
porch or laundry lol.
Spray linkege with rust resistance lubricant.
On a new machine I TRY to keep oil clean enough
to see thru,This might be overkill but Ive only
had one tecumseh to go sour on me in a lot of yrs
of mowing.
keep pruning shears on mower and sneak and cut
any limb thats trying to take your eyes out.
ITS SLEETING OUTSIDE SO WHAT ELSE CAN I THINK OF.
Dip trimmer head in water to keep line cool.
I think of others Ill get back.
By the way some of the things I wrote are a bit
controversial SO CONSIDER OBJECTIONS ALREADY NOTED

[cos]

Take a big pvc tube and put a cap on the one end. Drill two holes at the other end. Slip a rope in each end and tie a knot. Fill the tube with kerosene and slip your hedge trimmers in. Hang it up and your trimmer blades will not stick and be virtually clean for when you use them again.

[BUSHMASTER]

Originally posted by cos
Take a big pvc tube and put a cap on the one end. Drill two holes at the other end. Slip a rope in each end and tie a knot. Fill the tube with kerosene and slip your hedge trimmers in. Hang it up and your trimmer blades will not stick and be virtually clean for when you use them again.

i was with you until you wanted to put kerosene in it (Boom)
or spontanious combustion....spray the blades with PB BLASTER it will dry with a protective coating on it.and if you want more protection from rust add some silocant bag out of some electric products that you buy........

[Fantasy Lawns]

remove the spark arrestor (small mesh cone shaped insert on the exhaust side) on your weed wackers & edgers & rev e'm up ;-) ....

[Runner]

Hey Bushmaster, I hear the gel - like solid rocket fuel works good for that too!

[TJLC]

Good tips, guys. I'm always losing trimmer head springs in the grass. I think I'll have to paint them now. I usually don't remove spark arrestors until I really have to. Trimmer guard off, yes. Is someone building a pipe bomb.LOL Very good thread. I would love to hear as many tips as I can.Thanks

[Nathan]

bolt or rivet pieces of angle iron or aluminum to the belt cover on your WB, slit some hose to put on top of the angle iron. This works great so you can take the bag off and transport/trailer/ go through gates without having to run back and forth for the bag,plus since the bag rests on the rails the bottom won't get dented or punched with holes. I wish I had a digital cam so you all could see what I am talking about.

Another thing is to set up your trailer for the most efficient access to all items. It can save multiple minutes off each account which adds up to a large amount of time over the day. We have our trimmers on a rack on the curbside of the trailer so they are easy to get to. We try to keep the WB on the left so they can be started without climbing over things. Hand tool are placed togehter in 4" pvc pipe on the front of the trailer next to a special holder for garbage cans. Nothing is placed in front of another peice of equipment so no shuffling has to be done to access anything.

If you don't have a dumptruck buy a loadhandler, they really do work!

[thelawnguy]

Originally posted by BUSHMASTER
Originally posted by cos
Fill the tube with kerosene and slip your hedge trimmers in. Hang it up and your trimmer blades will not stick and be virtually clean for when you use them again.

i was with you until you wanted to put kerosene in it (Boom)


This is what the manufacturer (echo) recommends, tho they suggest 50/50 cutting oil/kerosene. Kerosene is pretty harmless unless you get it very hot.

[Greenkeepers]

Make sure that you have a tool kit in each truck. I know of guys who have come running across the road to ask me for a screw driver.
Fill up all equipment each night.
Put trimmer/blower racks on the trailer so you don't have to reach in the bed of the truck for them.
Carry a can of fix a flat, just in case.

[Henry]

I have been keping my trimmers in a mixture of motor oil & kerosene for about 7 yrs without any explosions. Just stick em in at the end of the day and next time pull it out and all the pitch wipes off with a rag.

On Kawi motors, take off the starter and turn it so the rope handle is on the right side. Now you can start it from the back of the mower. Great for enclosed trailer.

[GrassMaster]

Hello Everybody!

We always carried enough gas on trailer to last longer than gas in trucks. No matter if you are 2 blocks or 5 miles from store, that stop at the gas station takes about 20 to 30 minutes everytime or more.

BTW, we at that time bought the 5 gal. plastic gas cans at Sears, because they had the little kits you could buy, with the extra spout, strainer & vent caps. It saved us well & we carried extras in the trucks.

We kept ice in 2 liter bottles with the top cut out, just throw the whole thing in the Igaloo cooler run the water slow & ice seperates from container. Keep enough ice for 2 to three days & the guy that does it just refills containers, then places back in the freezer. That store cost you lots of time, not including money!

Buy everything in Quanity, cases of oil, trimmer line, blades, filters, spark plugs & etc... WE knew we were going to be in business the next day, the day after that TOO & buying in quanity saved BIG BUCKS!

We made it a point to stick to the same kind of equipment. The Same trimmers, blowers, hedge clippers, walks & etc... The reason was all I had to do was keep 1 or more extra of the following, Pull rope assemblies, carbs, plugs, bump knobs & all that other extra stuff that you need. Then when break down comes, lotsa times we could swap out the parts in just a few minutes. Saved us a lot of down time.

No matter what we were doing we carried the tools to perform any task & it always came in handy. Those trips back & forth to the shop cost MONEY. Hand tools & ladders a must. Hey during the day & we are running ahead of time, if we had a odd job or a possible new customer wanted something done, well we were always prepared!

We sharpened all our blades on everything & carried extras. LOL, we even carried extra tires, Catcher bags, throttle cables mainly for the trimmers & blowers. Life was made real simple having all the same kinds of equipment. BTW, I carried most of extra parts & tools in my truck. It's easier to hang on to them longer. :-)

If at all possible use the old equipment first, so what I did was carry all the New equipment with me, when possible. If you leave it on the truck for the guys, they will always run the new ones first.

The new stuff was intended for back up only. If not in a short period of time the new equipment was junk & yo back up was junk TOO! Run that junk in the ground & if it goes down you have new realiable back ups.

Thus giving you a little more time to fix the old, because the back ups were in new condition. Sometimes you will be surprised how long that junk will actually last, before junking it, when we did junk them, we had plenty of extra parts?

It worked for me, just fine & Dandy!

[BUSHMASTER]

Meybe i just read it wrong but hey if echo says to fill a tube up with co mbustable material..into a seal tube along with you tool riding around in your truck in the middle of summer their maybe lillte chance if it going boom... i don't really know now but... if you do this and it does go boom call echo ...they should replace all that was lost right?....all equiptment in my eyes that contain fuel should not be in an enclosed space with a vent fan....thats just me.and sound about right runner...

[johnnyjay]

Here's a tip I heard at a Pro Day Seminar. Buy a orchard ladder to use in trimming tall shrubs or hedges. It is described as an aluminum tripod fruit picking ladder in A.M. Leonard Buyers Guide 2001 catalog. You can place the pole right into the shrub or next to the tree and it puts you right in the middle for faster trimming and reaching hard to get areas.