Dumpy Part 6 - A Cracking Adventure

Sad news. Dumpy suffered a catastrophic failure - a cracked gearbox casing. Cue the adventure involved with finding parts for a 49 year old dumper with an obsolete gearbox, and the fun that comes with having those parts shipped half way around the world... Thanks to the invaluable help of Winget in the UK, Mead Plant, Plant & Engineering Spares and L & S Engineers (all in the UK) I managed to secure all of the parts I needed to fully rebuild the Newage 40M gearbox in Dumpy. A new (old) casing, all new bearings, all new seals, new gaskets and various other new parts mean that the gearbox is now almost as good as new (bar some pitting in the gear sets due to water getting into the oil which seems to be a common problem). I also discovered that the output reduction gear housing can be fitted in a few orientations, and because the reduction ring gear is offset in the housing it means that different sized output gears can be used to give a range of output speeds. Quite an interesting design feature I thought, as it allows one set of common parts to give three different output ranges from a standard gearbox. Anyway, sit back and have a watch of the latest Dumpy endeavors - now he's back in fine fettle I'll have to get on with my gardening projects. Dumpy is 50 years old next year. Will he make it to 50 without any more mishaps? Will he give up the ghost? Will I have to pour more money into his continued survival? Should I have a party for his Birthday? Who knows....