Injecting again :-)

A far better day than yesterday greeted me as I went to to feed and catch piglets this morning.

Many wise and far more experienced pig keepers than I will tell you that you can’t mix piglets of different ages and I’m sure it’s true if you keep them in a field but when out on the hill with plenty of room we’ve never found it to be a problem. The three Tamworth gilts who are much larger than the three spotties seem to get on fine with each other, wandering about in two separate groups with no scrapping at meal times.

With everyone else fed I turned my attention to the eight Tamworths on the croft as I was taking two gilts over to Portree for a customer, leading them into a pen so I could pluck two out and put them in a crate.

It was a bit of a rush but we managed to get them in, transferred to the trailer and down to the south end in time for the 8:55 ferry.

A bit of a detour

The Portree trip went like clockwork with the piglets transhipped to  their new owners vehicle on the old Co op car park. My nightmare of Tamworths charging down the A 87 did not come true, we filled the Land Rover up with pig food and Halloween treats and still we had time to spare. Almost three hours in fact until the 13:10 ferry from Sconser, with all this time to kill we headed for Dunvegan and the ‘Highland Ordnance Company’ for spare CO2 cylinders for the boys ‘Crossman Ratcatcher’ .22 rifle. Of course they had just sold out so our 40 mile detour was a bit of a waste.

Of course once there we had to check out the harbour to see what boats were in.

The ‘Nils Desperandum’ was looking no worse the wear for her brief spell ashore http://www.fishupdate.com/news/fullstory.php/aid/12850/TWO_FISHING_BOATS_RUN_AGROUND_AT_EILEAN_ISAY,_LOCH_DUNVEGAN.html but there was no sign of ‘My Amber’

Back to mister Lister

Arriving back at Arnish around 15:00 I headed over to Torran with the injector pump that I’d assembled yesterday to refit it to my mates ST1 Lister generator that was suffering from a seized cam follower.

and I will have to finish this off later 🙂

Wonky ‘wordpress’

WordPress is a bit like Bank of Scotland, I lost all confidence in it ages ago but I’m just too lazy to change it. I never posted last night (Thursday) so did it early this morning instead. I  told the world all about the evenings Halloween costume making then promptly stuck it on the net. I know it’s there https://lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/bright-lights-and-the-silver-knight/ because I’ve seen it 🙂 and I can tell from my stats that at least some others have also viewed the ‘days doings’ yet my mum can’t see it 😦 and I don’t think she’s alone! In the past people have asked my why I’ve not posted when I have and I’ve not thought much of it.

Today however when My mum kept seeing https://lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/2009/10/28/listered/ instead of ‘Bright lights and the silver knight’ despite  running ‘C cleaner’ then restarting her computer, I knew something was wrong. I sent her an email with a direct link to the post and even though the link said https://lifeattheendoftheroad.wordpress.com/2009/10/30/bright-lights-and-the-silver-knight/ it opened up a completely random post from the 29th of September 2008!

So basically who knows what you’re reading and when, it’s not me that’s been partaking of the red stuff it’s WordPress that’s wonky 🙂

So where was I?

First job at feeding was to move the ‘wee Tamworths’ into a smaller field ready for catching two tomorrow. I would normally have done this later but I was not sure if the wee darlings would cross the two bridges to get there. Sometimes we have to put carpet or rushes over them to get the pigs to cross, as it was way to windy for rushes and the carpet was now buried under tons of rock I thought I’d start early to coax them over with food. I need not have bothered as they just charged over it after me and the bucket 🙂

I think it’s all down to what the first one does, if the first pig crosses then the others follow quite happily but if the first one looses his nerve on the hard slippy surface the others turn and run.

I should be glad

Next job was emptying the remains of the Raasay school shed out of my trailer and into various piles. I dunno how old this shed was when the council deemed it unsafe but I do know that it was there when ‘Calum Bhan’ was at school and he’s had his bus pass for quite a while 🙂 I should be glad that I’ve got all of old wood and corrugated iron to recycle into a new Land Rover shed at Arnish but I’m doing the job in my oil skins whilst being power washed from the south and I can’t help thinking about all the school children who now have no shelter in the playground :-(  All because someone at the council said it was unsafe because they’re scared of getting sued.

I really don’t know how my generation ever made it to adulthood surrounded as we were by all the dangerous play ground equipment and never once wearing a cycle helmet 🙂

Pile number one was for the bonfire, which true to Raasay form is unlikely to be lit on actual bonfire night due to the weather!

Pile number two being for the 6” x 2” and 3” x 2” structural stuff, with pile number 3 being for the vee lining, yes indeed this fine shed was indeed wood panelled!

and of course a pile for the rusty tin, which will be fine once the ends are chopped off.

Re building an ST1 injector pump

This will of course be exceedingly boring to the vast majority of readers and I’m only mentioning it on here because it might just pull someone out of the sh1t 🙂

I stripped my mates Lister ST1 injector pump down the other day thinking it was seized but it turned out  to be a sticky cam follower which I’ve yet to address. Today with its continual and heavy rain seemed like a good day to spend in the shed putting it back together.

It is VERY easy if you know how and a complete disaster if you don’t 🙂

The rack must be lined up with the pinion (see the slot on the rack and the mark on the pinion)

 

well you put the rack in the injector body with the line in the middle, then drop the pinion in so that the mark on that coincides with it. Next the spring seat (flat side down) then the spring, then the collet and plunger, now there’s a mark on the plunger that must also coincide with the other two.

It’s on that T shaped bit at the bottom.

Compressing the spring to replace the circlip I did with my pillar drill.

The SR and ST Lister range of engines seldom need attention and I know about this not from having done one before but from having spoken to a man that has, cheers mate 🙂 and if I’ve got it wrong phone me quick and I’ll edit it before I get sued 🙂

Seriously though these engines are massively over engineered and even years of neglect seldom does them much harm. Lack of use being there main enemy, this particular engine had not been run for a while and the injector cam follower had suck in the upright position. Occasionally the exhaust valves stick open on them, again through lack of use which can be exasperated by short  exhaust pipe  facing south west 🙂 ( I speak from experience )

I run three of these old Lister’s a 1969 SR1, a 1974 ST2 and a 1978 HR2 all of which will still be running when the modern high revving piece of cr4p from China has been recycled into bean tins 🙂 and even when the finally die my grandson will be able to use the flywheel off one as a mooring for his boat!

Three out of four

Finally getting my 4 ‘Hella Jumbo 220’ spot lights wired up was the other major achievement of the day, not easy when there’s a monsoon raging outside and Royal Mail have your bulbs 😦 Seven days I’ve been waiting for them, hardly surprising when there’s a strike on but that’s my fault, I should have known.

Suspecting I had some bulbs somewhere I spent the rest of the afternoon clearing up my workshop and managed to turn up 2 new H3 55w bulbs and one 2nd hand one in an old spot light though no matter how hard I looked I could not find the other old spotlight to make up 4 😦

So as soon as it was dark I set off down ‘Calum’s road’ with my three lamps blazing 🙂 I know I’m really sad!