Almost midnight now on the first of January so still officially New Years Day and that’s me not long out of bed! Methinks the old body clock has been a little confused, probably pickled in alcohol if the truth be known. It was a ‘late one’ last night and I never really faced the day until 10:30 this morning, when I awoke minus wife and plus dog!!
Dunno what happened there right enough, I do have a vague recollection of the post lady taking me home last night. Don’t recall going to bed but me suspects I must have been snoring like a pig before I hit the sheets. Methinks the wife must have left the bedroom door open whilst making a hasty retreat to a quieter bed at the other end of the house. The ‘wee dug’ is obviously not averse to my nocturnal growling 
https://www.wunderground.com/personal-weather-station/dashboard?ID=IHIGHLAN44#history
The day that I eventually saw around 10:30 this morning though was a ‘pure peach’ by recent standards with some proper sunshine and no rain that I recall. My weather station says otherwise but it’s hardly surprising, the nick I was (am) in. Hogmanay had been a very long day indeed
The poorly digger
It was actually the 30th when things started to go a little ‘pear shaped’,
that was after the day spent visiting my dad in his care home on the shores of Loch Ewe. Moored ‘stern to’ on a buoy in the old fleet anchorage was Briggs Marine’s Kingdom of Fyfe http://www.briggsmarine.com/marine/vessel-charter/tugs/kingdom-of-fife/ This time last year Douglas Clyde, one of her current masters was working for Cal Mac as a master on Hallaig. Seem to remember having a pretty good bash in Raasay House with him last Hogmanay Sadly the lure of the open sea proved too much for Douglas and he left us for Briggs shortly after.
Hoping to get stuck into some serious welding outside on my wind turbine foundations on Thursday, I was disappointed by A, the weather and B, a broken digger!!! Calum had died whilst my partner was using him to make some drains on the Torran track. The KX71-3 had suddenly stopped responding to all hydraulic controls bar the dozer blade and was quite a way from home on a really shitty day.
I went to have a look and very quickly came to the conclusion it was just a simple electrical fault relating to the ‘lever lock’ that prevents you using the hydraulics unless you’re actually inside the machine. All the diggers I’ve used have this lever/arm rest that has to be lowered prior to the ‘unloading valve’ closing. The Kubota will also not let you start the engine unless it’s in the up/safe position, though that’s a function I’ve not come across before.
Of course, as soon as I arrived at the digger it worked just fine so I started to ‘track’ home, whereupon it suddenly stopped after a few hundred yards. Calum was revving away, the blade would go up and down but that was all. I switched him off and without realizing the arm was still down I tried starting him again. It wasn’t until the Kubota was actually running that I realized it shouldn’t have been. Well that’s pretty easy to sort I thought, it must just be a faulty switch.
Eventually I got the digger into the barn, it would have been an impossible repair outside in the pishing rain. In the comfort of the shed I took the safety lever/arm rest apart and tested the switch.
That’s the rascal in the centre of the picture below that bit of orange plastic, it’s easy enough to get to after removing the 2 x 14mm head bolts off the wrist rest and half a dozed Phillips head screws from the arm rest. Trouble was the switch tested OK so it was time to ‘break out’ the workshop manual which I’d bought off eBay http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/271664750789?_trksid=p2057872.m2749.l2649&ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT for less than a fiver, all 440 pages of it on CD. This was great, apart from the poor Japanese translation, abysmal photographs and lack of index. Now do not get me wrong, it was invaluable, the wiring diagram was accurate and the seller first class. Not only did he send me the CD but I got a link to download it directly onto my laptop too, so I didn’t have to wait for the post.
The wiring diagram was on two pages which was kinda awkward but I printed that off and stuck them together so that was just fine.
The favourite culprit now that the switch had been eliminated was the relay that controls it all or the wiring to it.
There are four relays under the seat and all are the same, though only one controls this ‘interlock’ function and that one did have a dodgy connection which was burnt and had verdigris on it Sure enough I cleaned it all up, swapped the relays around tested it and rebuilt all the stuff I’d ripped apart like the floor and seat. There really isn’t much room in a Kubota KX71-3 cab! All was fine and I sent my mate on his way in the digger and the pishing rain, He barely got through the gate when it died!!
By now it was getting dark and I’d still got other stuff to do so ‘called it a day’ and went inside to study the manual in the comfort of the house. I now needed to find the solenoids that actuated the unloading valve and test them but on this score the manual was useless 
The pictures were just so bad that location proved daunting to say the least, though the digger aint that big and surely all i had to do was follow the pipes, yes.
Out for dinner
Having studied the book and come to the conclusion that it would be simple enough to sort in the morning I got myself cleaned up and we went out to the local restaurant. OK, we went to my mates house along the Torran track almost a mile away in the dark on foot. Whereupon, suitably laced with a fine red wine I confidently enlightened my audience as how I was going to fix Calum in the morning, aye right. Well, the night went well, we dined on a fine soup consisting of cod and ground up crab shell followed by a fine mushroom and venison risotto. After which the three of us wobbled unsteadily homewards under a starry sky. At least that’s how I recall it, darling wife assures me it was pishing down, funny how good food, company and wine alters your perspective
Hogmanay
As usual, the first task of the morning was feeding the animals, though this time it was in daylight, not because the days are appreciably longer but cos I was stuck in my bed until almost 8:00am. Still the two Tamworth gilts are so happy in their new surroundings that they had to be woken up for breakfast.
Their ‘hearty breakfast’ didn’t stop them breaking into the croft to raid the birds fat balls right enough.
It was after that that I started removing yet again just about every one of the panels off the Kubota in my quest for the unloading valve solenoid.
Eventually I found it, though it bore no resemblance to what it was depicted as in the manual. Having found it and having ascertained that the fault lay within the wiring loom I ran a separate 5 amp fused supply from the switch to the solenoid and all was peachy. Just had time to move my weather station sensors to a more suitable location before a hail shower and failing light.
It’s now up near the wind turbine on a taller fence post and the wind readings have increased accordingly.
The ‘Boat Shed Bash’
That done, I gave the digger a good testing and deposited it back down the Torran track for my mate. The day was disappearing and I had to go to work to cover for my ‘back to back’ who was gonna ‘flash up’ the barbecue for the ‘Boat Shed Bash’ that was the night’s highlight. With Raasay House bizarrely closing for Hogmanay a couple of the Hallaig’s crew had taken it upon themselves to organize a night out at the old boat shed. So, I joined the Hallaig at 17:00 to let ‘Captain Cook’ Mackinnon away for duties in the galley so to speak.
We had a ‘late run’
which involved just one car and the finest bit of parking I’ve seen on an empty deck yet
Seriously though, it was just great to get extra bodies on Raasay for the celebrations and I know they’d made a supreme effort to get here.
And what an amazing night it turned out to be.
One of my PA’s that hadn’t seen action since my 50th some ten years ago was ‘pressed’ into service and between ‘Big John’ and,
well, everyone else, belted out some fine tunes until the ‘wee hours’.
https://www.facebook.com/paul.camilli.9
As for today, well, that’s been a bit of a ‘right off’ in the actual doing stuff front but we’ve done a little ‘first footing’ been first footed and I’ve repaired a grateful holiday makers wiper motor. All in all a pretty good start to 2017, well apart from me still being awake at 2:30 on the 2nd of January!
