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expeatfarmer

Ransomes Sand Skimming Tractor

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Somebody was heading into the garage with head held high I shouted to him to duck so what did he do ? Stamped on the brakes and swerved to the left  heading for the garage wall and all between him and it !  Being a man of iron he let go the brakes and eventually shut the throttle coming to an ignominious stop  amongst power packs , compressors and Petrol engines people want to pay me money for. No damage done and no skin lost so all's well  !

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Are these skimmers steered by your feet? Looking at some of the original skimmer photos posted on the forum it looks like the hand levers are for controlling the skimming head. From the above photo it certainly looks like it turns handy enough on gravel.

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Stuart Cox another Ransomes enthusiast kindly copied an article from an old magazine detailing a collector in Godalming that had a skimmer in complete order along with a dumper, his name was Dave Smith does anyone know him?

Skimmer performed well at Malvern engine started very well until I took it off the wagon last night when the fuel pump packed up, my own silly fault as it seemed to work ok I left it alone when I fitted the engine. Stripped it down today to find it was full of crud that must have been disturbed during transport. Sorted it now and just about to refit so that I can start moving stuff around the garage.

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When the skimmer conked out on the way down my drive we thought it had run out of petrol so I put a gallon in. Just discovered today that it was a gallon of diesel not petrol!!! No wonder it wont start, best of it is I was sucking on the fuel pipe yesterday to clear the tank outlet and never even noticed. !!! Duhhhhh!

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Jonathan,

Seen these working and the design is only a modern twist on the original Ransomes but with latest technologies in engines, hydraulic drives and rubber tracks.

Neil

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Looks like a handy machine. Yet another case of Ransomes either being too soon with technology and failing to follow through or lacking in sales drive to make the machinery profitable.

I spoke to the lad that had the skimmer in Farnborough last night, he told me that he cut it up in 1995/6 as it had no engine and due to the very low clearance under the front he was unable to move it anywhere for shows etc.  He did say that he had seen others in the past mostly fitted with Ford 1600 cross flow engines !

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Recently a chap made contact with me saying he had a Ransomes skimmer chassis and that he had cut off and sold the discharge conveyor and front auger just 3 months ago, he was sure that the guy he sold them to had not done anything with them yet so I asked him to contact him, after a few weeks the parts were returned back to his yard, a deal has been done and hopefully the gearboxes are there just waiting for pictures of them before I commit to anything. To be honest I cant wait to get it and weld it back together !!

 

Apologies Jonathan for hi jacking the thread.

 

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