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Decided to make a start on the chassis which is in a fairly bad state, yesterday we began to cut out the metal that had completely rusted away and replace it. Here's a before shot. We used a dremel to cut the hard to reach spots. This is after we cut the really bad bits out. We used an old piece of steel angle from a scrap drawer, here's what it was like before we welded it. We lined it up and then tacked it down. Here's a shot of one side finished, the other side is worse, there is barely any metal left.

Playtime... Kids were up at 6, I wasn't far behind. Opened the curtain and greeted by this. It was a blizzard outside I had a run up the lane whilst Jake got the snowplough out. And Finn wanted a tow on his sledge It's raining now and the garden looks a little worse for wear Video to follow

A little bit more done today, started dismantling the engine and starter generator. First I removed the pto and pulley. I have now removed all of the tin work and have started on the starter generator.

Lit a fire in the stove to burn off the yellow paint. Finally all finished with hot plate installed. Just needs a coat of high heat black paint to tidy it up.

Haven't done much today because of the rain. I think its rained all day with 15 minutes in between the showers. I got the front top rail on and the cross beams to support the roof.

I like fiddly bits Mark. Not quite mechanical but some details of a four foot radio controlled battleship I made some years ago. All scratch build. The hand rails are 10mm high which will give an idea of the size. Eyes not so good now so might be difficult to repeat.

Lots of small boring jobs done then it was decided to tackle the badly damaged dash tower. Nothing available this side of the pond and the very few which popped up in the US were very pricey plus horrendous postage costs and were all also damaged to some extent. Speaking of nothing available in the UK, I have not seen or heard of any other of these larger Sears / Roper tractors. Various RT 8 and 10's but nothing larger. I expect they will start popping up now. Both sides of the dash were held together with alloy plates and enormous pop rivits. As I had a stock of plastic sheet "Plasticard" in various thicknesses left over from my radio controlled model boat building days, it was decided to use this for the repair. A lot of the lower sides were cut off so that a simple butt joint could be made using the first bonded on sheet to give extra support. As I was not sure if the glue I had was compatible with the moulded dash, ( found out later it was ) the first plasticard sheet was bonded on with araldite after roughing up both surfaces. The other sheets, to build up the side thickness and the shape at the corners were glued together using normal plasticard glue. Lots of cutting, filing and sanding and the dash finished up looking a lot healthier. There were a lot of cracks around the various switch, lever etc holes which were also reinforced. Finally it was trial fitted and after making sure it was sitting at the correct angle it was marked and drilled for the mounting bolts. This last photo, lots of reflections, is after painting and the moulded lettering gone over with white paint. A fiddly job.

To whom it may concern: I am selling off most of my parts and will still be offering my diaphragms OFF of Ebay. Some of the parts are listed on Ebay, some are not. I have not decided which units that I will be selling, but I have close to 40 and most are mint or restored and many are quite rare. If there is one that you have been looking for, please inquire and I will see what I can do. There won't be many bargains because of their condition and rarity, but I will deal a bit off of Ebay. Eventually they will go up for auction. Thanks, and you can email me at weber.joseph@sbcglobal.net Joe

I have been intending to post this restoration since joining MoM last year but seem to have spent most of my time helping friend John dispose of his Bolens etc stash. As most of the stash has now been cleared I now have slightly more free time, so here goes. The number on the Roper ID plate,T5828DR, I have not been able to trace but the tractor appears to be identical to Sears 917- 257050. The Sears parts list, engine number etc confirms this. The tractor was a mess when dragged from the undergrowth at John's place about three years ago. Lots of damage, parts missing etc and a blacksmith repair job in various places. John was told when he bought it that it had been run into a post, smashing the grill and pushing the hood back which in turn badly damaged the plastic dash tower. As can be seen the damage was "repaired" via a heavy metal frame and alloy plates pop riveted on plus steel box section in place of the lower grill. One of the first things found was that there was no spark plug in the front cylinder of the horizontal Briggs twin. Hardly surprising as there was very little thread left in a hole which resembled a cone. Managed to fit a heli coil at a later date. Since then I have been given a pair of cyl heads. Also found that the starter motor was jammed when trying a first start. One magnet had come unstuck from the case. Stuck it back on with Araldite then found it ran in the wrong direction. Wondered if this was because of the glue used. Using a Westwood ? motor with the Sears mounting bracket and a temporary fuel tank got the engine running on one cylinder. A drive around showed that all the gears were OK. As the tractor looked do-able, with a LOT of work, the next step was to transport it to my garage so that I could get at it without 44 mile round trips to John's. Before the restoration bits, a photo of my great grandson Mini Alan trying it out for size.

When Iain delivers your 850 ; I will make a dash to Norfolk......

Bet theres some scrappers in Norfolk

That looks the mutts nuts mate , if I lived closer ide be over for a bacon sarnie

Neat job, Ewan. I know where to go now if I need any tin ware replacement.

Wow that is looking great love the new piece you have put in your working really hard on this Guys keep,it up

The qt17 is on the keeper list its too usefull

That's excellent Ewan; your Dad must be a good teacher. Skills like that will put you in good stead in later life. Cheers Andrew

looking good chris

Nice to see the snow Mark but it wouldn't get me out of bed at 6 am

Superior workmanship! Very nice, Ewan

and me

Well done chaps , following this thread with interest

Grab the chance while you can !!

I use mine quite a bit on full tilt just to get heat into something. Great for reducing labour, just grind of the weld after

R Tech have a really good reputation for customer service too.

Its a 4 HP Bradford stationary engine, its not open crank but a spare for the one that's fitted in Shak'in Horse

That's the spare Bradford engine for Shakin' Horse

I remember seeing that on eBay about 4 or 5 months ago. Good to see it in your hands. Have you got the Tractor Legacy Series: Garden Tractors by Oscar H Wills III? A very informative read and a good write up on Bolens and other American GTs.

its starting to sound like a mongrel i was hoping to dig it out this weekend (its buried behind the 1886 a parker leaf collecter and 6 pushbikes ) but ive just bought another Bolens an st120 with leaf collector

1 37 is alive and well!!!! After three solid days of trying everything I could think of to get it running I was at the point of despair and so knackered from cranking that I thought it safer for me not to try again whist my wife was out in case I had a stroke or something daft. Whilst she was out walking the dog I put the decals on and just sat and looked at it trying to think of something else to try. Some time ago I came across a very rusty ancient mica insulated three point spark plug which was in one of the heads that came with 137, I sand blasted it and polished it up as a keepsake. 137 had fired a few times, once it fired a five bang run so it was not far away. I took the plug out put some oil down the bore and then sat for about half an hour just turning the engine over to try to loosen things up. Put the plug back and tried again, fired once and stopped. I then took the plug out and fitted the three point ancient plug turned the crank and off it went running like a dream. I ran the engine for half an hour checking for oil flow in the dry sump and any leaks. Stopped the engine and had a celebratory coffee and then tried to start it again hey presto off it went again. Thank goodness for that . Now I can make up a bumper, fit some floor boards and then crack on with some other machines for Malvern.

Good argument for fitting grease nipples.

Agree with your thoughts and it is lack of maintenance. Age is irrelevant, it needed lubrication.... There's no excuse for two close tolerance moving metal parts to not be oiled or greased. A grease zerk/nipple is an oversight as all big tractors and even wheel horse include one. There's just no way you could get any oil in there to help, so after 50 years it as rusted in solid. Unlike the steering spindles which came straight out - oddly they had grease points! We have never struggled removing a pin on a wheel horse. There's a lot of posts on the IH forums on drilling the pins out and you can buy the full replacement kit. It will end up with a grease point, it's just not worth the pain.

Cheers Paul, but none of this would have been possible without my dad!

So after many hours of battling with the axle pin we have finally got it out, after breaking a punch trying to get the rolled pin out we resorted to this. We tried to use the vice as a press to try and push the pin out however we had no luck. Next we tried to use the heat from a weld to try and loosen the pin but this didn't work either so we just cut the two collars off and drilled the pin out. This is what was left of the pin. When we make a new pin we will put a grease nipple in the end so that we can grease the axle and this won't happen again!