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The Cadet 81 that has featured on this forum a bit has found a new home in sunny Sussex I collected it from Johns this morning, lovely to see him again and meet Alan for the first time We had a good look around but nothing else caught my eye Tractor now home and will go to Tractorfest tomorrow Thanks again to John and Alan, and to Mr Showman for his input Photos show the Cadet as loaded at Johns, then on the way home, then at home, I have already found a gear knob that fits and cleaned the tractor up a bit

The low ballers and ball scrapers came out in droves to beat me up on the sale of my 1995 Volvo GLT, Oklahoma is not a good place to sell a car, the local denizens think more of goats and mules, than fine autos. It needed some work on the valves so I took a beating from the nicest people that inquired. Then I made a 300 mile round trip voyage to pick up a 1996 Dodge B2500 SLT Van. It set me back 1400 scalps, but I got nearly half that for the Volvo. It was actually quite nice, 318 automatic one large rear door, cold air, great tires, electric windows, door locks, and mirrors. It needs a heater core and an antenna. After measuring the back door and inside dimensions I have room to slip a Wheel Horse D160 in it that happens to be sitting up at my Mom's house. I also have my 40th High School class reunion Saturday night, so I will be up there for that as well. I will be putting shut off valves on the heater core in the morning and ordering a class 4 tow package from ebay.

Hi all, weather looking good so far, great line up for us, plenty of camping, all in all looks to be a busy one,, will try and give updates throughout the show

On 15th and 16th of August I went to Yesterday's Farming Show, held in Puckington, Nr. Langport, Somerset. Lousy start on Friday wet all day but made it onto the site unaided, finally found the campsite with he help of Charlie Moore and his Landrover, set the caravan up. Saturday was much better, display set up, went round the ring with my latest machine, a 1960 Merry Tiller, the only one that ran! First two pictures show two International Cub Cadets in the ring with the International tractors, international being the featured make this year. First we have Horticultural Steward Marcus Stephens on his 76, then Charlie Holland on his larger model. Third picture is of Charlie Holland's load, a Trojan Toractor. Fourth one is Marcus' Monrotiller, which also developed a fit of the gripes in the ring. Fifth one is a line up of horticultural section in the ring. Sixth one is the second line. Seventh and Eighth is my Merry Tiller Tarpen display[

Both halves of the finished mount :

retoration of a 1968 mayfield merlin

Refitted the cylinder and bottom blade yesterday, adjusted them, and did the 'shiny paper' test......... nice pile of confetti! Then put the rest of the machine back together, but it got too late to start it up, A job for today maybe?

so a D160 fits in the back of that? totally cool van

Finished house, Painted the whole thing with one eye

Looking at pictures of vintage BMX bikes online, we noticed a lot of the high end bikes of the day had a gusset behind the fork neck. Of course we had to have one too....

For the actual engine mount in the bike we had to get a little more creative. We made a "saddle mount" out of some 1" I.D. DOM tubing. We split the tube and welded a flange along each edge. By loosening the 4 screws you can slide the motor fore and aft to adjust the chain tension...then lock it down.

First attempt at ploughing with my brother in laws iron horse

I didn't let you down then...

Got the fuel tank all but straight today, theres still a few minor ripples left,- I'm guessing it was suffering from years of having the breaker and hose thrown on top of it as most people who use power packs seem to do. The weather with us was very damp so it has a slightly matt finish to it. On the next dryish day i'll give it another coat and see if I can get it to gloss up. Then it will be decaled up like the Solites tank. Then just the Exhaust heat shield and top frame left to do now.

Having different mini bikes over the years we've fooled with lots of engines ..Clinton, Briggs, Tecumseh...but never one of these little O&R engines. Decided we better fire the motor and see what it was like. We made a temporary motor mount and clamped it to the old truck-hitch "dyno" lol we had made some years ago for testing small engines... Haha...looks lost sitting on the plate. Short fire up video: You may notice the recoil wanted to push the rope back out while running...the ratchet pawls were not retracting properly and needed a little adjusting/servicing (thanks Wallfish !)

I'm going to see what I can do for next year. I haven't done any shows scince Tractor World in 2011 because a few weeks later Keri(my wife) told me she was pregnant. Now the little un is 3 and a half so I should be able to start doing some again. It will also be nice to start seeing forum members again, rather than just taping away to them.

Motivating this thing is going to take some serious leverage given the lack of HP and torque. We're shooting for a final drive ratio somewhere in the neighborhood of 20:1. There's a company called Stanton that makes all sorts of engine powered bike accessories including this rear hub with LH and RH threads on each end. One side gets a freewheel flange made to accept the (#35 chain) drive sprocket ...the other side gets a freewheel bike chain sprocket so you can stop peddling when the engine takes over.

Next I sourced an engine from Joe Webber out of Missouri. I told him it was a father son project we were working on and he couldn't have been nicer or more accommodating. He gave us a great deal on the beautiful 1HP Compact III...looks like nos !

now to start puting it back together