8th November
Last week I was talking about machines, and getting a new weeder for the front of the tractor.
Well this week its machines again.
The wee compact Siroma tractor which we use for tunnel work and going out to the field for harvesting, it lost second gear.
It lost its second gear on the day we were taking Pumpkins out off the field, and on to the banking for the pumpkin day.
So after a phone call to the Siroma dealer, it was suggested that it might be a small pin out of place in the gearbox.
So the job started.
I unbolted the top plate of the gearbox, that was easy, but unluckily the pin for second gear was in place, but the second gear had two teeth broken of its cog.
Second phone call to dealer, resulted in gearbox would need to come off, and sent to them for repair.
This was now a big job.
The first job was to unbolt the back of the tractor from the gearbox, then slide the back of the tractor away.
This part was pretty tricky, the rear of the tractor, has the drive from the gearbox to the rear wheels, so it is pretty tight, and everything needs to be very even for it to slide out, eventually after lots of struggling it slide out.
First part done.
Second job was to unbolt the gearbox from the front end of the tractor.
But this was much more tricky. I couldn’t get to most of the bolts, they were hidden under the floor. So the floor had to be unbolted, and the throttle, brakes leavers and clutch leaver all had to come off, then I could take the floor off, revealing all the hidden bolts.
Eventually I had the gearbox off, power washed, boxed up, and its away on its holidays down south to get repaired.
So now when I get it back, it will be a job and a half to get it re bolted back together, I have a pail full of different bolts, cables and pipes all need put back in the correct place.
Luckily it is a quite time of the year in the tunnels, so I do have time on my side.
